Ever wondered who are those others that claim to be solipsists / show interest in solipsism? Looking for a place to discuss specific topics in relation to solipsism? For grounding from "others" that understand your viewpoint (disclaimer: Not a substitute for therapy)? Join the 'Solipsia' Discord server now! Solipsists, non-solipsists, undecided folks... All are welcome. Just keep it civil.

EDIT: For some reason the link doesn't show up next to the title. So here you go.

What is Sequential Individualism?

Sequential Individualism is the idea that every conscious life is experienced by the same fundamental observer, but each life is experienced separately, through one perspective at a time.

Right now, you experience one particular body, personality, set of memories, and point of view. Other conscious beings appear completely separate because you cannot access their thoughts or memories. Sequential Individualism proposes that beneath these individual differences, the subject experiencing consciousness may ultimately be the same.

Sequential Individualism is closely related to r/OpenIndividualism. Both ideas hold that consciousness is not truly separate between individuals. The main difference is that Sequential Individualism says the same consciousness experiences each life separately through a sequence, even though that sequence can overlap physical time.

Sequential Individualism put simply:

You do not experience every life at once. You experience every life one at a time.

Under this theory, the person you call “you” is one individual perspective within a much larger sequence of conscious experiences.

What does “sequential” mean?

“Sequential” means that consciousness experiences individual perspectives separately rather than as one giant combined mind.

You experience your current life as yourself. Another conscious life is experienced entirely from that being’s perspective, with its own personality, memories, senses, and circumstances.

The sequence does not necessarily have to follow ordinary chronological time. Whether it does, and what determines the order, are open questions for discussion.

Why does this matter?

If the same underlying observer experiences every conscious life, then the happiness and suffering of others are not merely events happening to completely unrelated strangers.

The way you treat another conscious being ultimately becomes part of your own total experience of existence, seen from the receiving side.

This raises important questions about:

1. Consciousness and personal identity

2. Death and the continuation of experience

3. Memory and what makes someone the same person

4. Ethics, justice, compassion, and responsibility

5. Human and animal consciousness

6. Artificial intelligence and synthetic minds

7. Whether time determines the sequence

What belongs here?

This community welcomes:

1. Arguments supporting Sequential Individualism

2. Serious objections and counterarguments

3. Questions about consciousness and identity

4. Thought experiments

5. Scientific research related to consciousness

6. Ethical and practical implications

7. Personal reflections

8. Related books, movies, games, and stories

9. Comparisons with other philosophical or spiritual theories

You do not have to believe in Sequential Individualism to participate.

This is a place to examine the idea honestly, not a religion, cult, or gathering where the moderator announces that disagreement is merely your previous incarnation being difficult.

Skepticism is encouraged. Personal attacks and lazy mockery are not.

Introduce yourself

Introduce yourself below and answer one or more of these questions if ypu would like:

Do you think consciousness is fundamentally individual or shared?

What is your strongest argument for or against Sequential Individualism?

Would believing that you might experience every conscious life change how you treat others?

Which beings do you think are conscious enough to be part of the sequence?

Please read the community rules before participating.

Welcome to the sequence.

... in a holographic, "spectral" sense.

This hits different after realizing solipsism...

Psychophysical reality seems to pop in and out of existence in the field of experience giving the impression that it is created and destroy as the field changes and that it is quite hollow and superficial. In other words, psychophysical reality – the world and others – seems to be an *illusion*.

But there is actually room for the whole of psychophysical reality *within* the field of experience. And therefore a way for that reality to be (at least for a time) *preserved*, keeping alive all the relations in it. Making it in that sense "real".

That room is, on the one hand, backward and forward in moment-by-moment, 'experiential' time, going to infinity (i.e., beyond were you'd expect being born and where you'd expect dying). And, on the other hand, in the recesses of the space of experience, where phenomena unfolds. Recesses, that one usually don't take notice of because of the subliminal and ceaseless reorganization of raw experience into *perceived* experience. Leaving no time to carefully look at and analyze those recesses of experiential space (like, whenever you try do so experience has already changed to the next moment of perception). Making that subtle structure of experiential space appear as meaningless background "noise" within perception. But that structure, that noise, might actually not be inherently meaningless. It might actually be how psychophysical reality is "encoded", unreadably *entangled* in experience.

So here is a challenge for you, fellow (appearances of) solipsists: Alternate between contemplation of the field of experience and imagining how the whole of psychophysical reality could fit into the "gaps" of your perception of that field, and see for yourself whether said reality could possibly fit in there and thus make sense within solipsism. See, whether you can make metaphysical solipsism compatible with psychophysical realism using the power of your mind. Show the world (yourself) that you can perfectly acknowledge it and act "in" it without getting deluded by it. Show supreme non-dual understanding of reality, and savor the blissful feeling that comes with the accompanying release from worries and anguishes.

Good luck, and have fun!