This is a very interesting thought and deals with one of the classical philosophical problems we face. I was meaning to write about this somewhere else, but decided to address the matter in this connection instead.Mars wrote: ↑Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:31 pmAlso when I think about what is it that I'm an outsider of, more often than not the result is an illusion of some shared reality of others when there isn't such a thing. Or the other way around: the shared reality includes us all so no one is an outsider except in their heads.
This illusion of a shared reality is in the heart of the problem of duality considering the outside world and our thoughts, but also that of the mind and body. Descartes proved that the mind must exist, of this we can be certain, he thought. But how can we be certain of anything else? If the outer reality can be observed with senses, how can we make similar certainty about it since senses can be proven to fail and deceive us? I believe this is an issue still unresolved, even though there are several solutions and theories about it.
Correct me Wyrmfang if I'm wrong, but Kant's idea was that the reality, or at least a part of it that can be observed is, to a certain extent, projected (for the lack of a better term) by us, our thoughts, to be observed? There is, however, an "outer" reality, in which the beings an sich exist, but of this we can have no knowledge of.
Hegel's solution, or one of them, for this problem was the idea of recognition, which I personally find alluring. He proposes that a self-conscious mind recognizes itself in another, i.e. agrees that the other mind, that of another person, is similar to his own mind and thus "makes himself free". This is a kind an ultimate sacrifice, in which the mind "opens itself up" to the other so it can thus find itself.
But, the final idea that I was _meaning_ to address is as follows: The philosophical debate about the mind-body/reality problem is in a sense paradoxical. Even if it was assumed that everything outside the mind is an illusion or unreal, subjective, isn't it still a known fact that we humans are part of a bigger whole, of Nature, and thus are at the same time subjects who observe nature but also at the same time objects of itself (Nature) as we are parts of it?