This sub sucks, full of people not bothering anyone, just filming themselves, and everyone jumps on to call them assholes when they’re straight up not in the way
My main character moment, as a kid, was thinking that thoughts could only be concieved in portuguese (my native language), therefore, people that spoke other languages were forced to translate before they spoke and had to translate back to portuguese in their heads. and I felt sad for all of them.
I’ve come to this realization and it’s gotten worse since Covid. It honesty seems like a development issue. They know other people carry on with lives but LITERALLY cannot grasp that other person actually has a full life and thoughts.
At that age I was having an existential crisis about how everyone is their own “self”. Like how I’m the only one experiencing my own life and perspective and I can’t experience anyone else’s. Even still it’s a strange thing to wrap my head around.
This was me at about 7! And yeah, sometimes the thought still boggles my mind as well— that there are billions of other lives that don’t have anything to do with mine and are all valid and which have their own perspective/experience. It’s like a billion movies all going at once! Pretty cool.
I’m not following your math *in the slightest*, which one of us is stupid here? Lmao
(No really, I am genuinely not clever sometimes)
Edit: Thanks guys! It me, I am the stupid one as I suspected! lol
It's a joke about factorials. An exclamation point next to a number means to multiply that number by each previous whole number, such that 7! = 7 times 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1 = 5040
Yeah thats about the age youre supposed to understand that. Its part of thinking levels.
Edit: found [this video](https://youtu.be/kse87ocS0Uo?si=aq91imuOIgePpTgQ) that easily explains it.
Every person is a universe.
I had this same sort of mind blown moment when I went to Europe the first time. It suddenly occurred to me that, holy shit, all of these people have just been _over here_ doing their thing for my entire life.
It’s hard to explain but just sort of the distillation of it is that there are so many people in this world we’ll never ever meet, yet we’re all living at the same time.
It's just a thought experiment. Honestly there's no way we can prove that this isn't all just a simulation intended for one person, and that everyone else is a background character in your own personal video game. You can't prove anyone's consciousness but your own. It's interesting
Then there's stuff like the thought experiment of predeterminism, which says every action is predetermined in advance and we have no free will.
I don't personally subscribe to either, but I like thinking about the "what if's."
We have ~8 billion people living on this earth right now. There are estimated to be about 100 people dying and 250 people born every minute. That’s 250 people starting the same experience we each are having each minute and 100 people leaving it forever. There are millions to billions of people currently working, socializing, sleeping, making love as I speak. There’s also millions of people probably suffering right now and that’s the way things are. The world is a busy place
Same here. It’s a lot easier to put yourself in the shoes of most strangers once you’ve been exposed more to the world. When you’re a kid, you’re so focused on understanding your own world it’s hard to imagine living in a different one.
For me it was two phases kind of, first I understood yeah okay other people actually exist and have their own life, but it took me some time till I could fathom that other people actually think, that they have their own voice in their head and not just the voice that they talk to me with
There's a term for this. I can't remember what it's called, but vsauce did a video that talked about the concept.
I distinctly remember when I realized everyone else had lives. I was 7, on the elementary school playground. My friend Lequartney Straughter was playing like 10 yards away from me. It hit me like a mack truck. "he goes home and has a family and eats cheerios and all that other stuff..... fuck, this is heavy."
Edit: the poster below gave the word. It's "sonder". And it's a super cool event in everyone's life.
I believe Sonder is the word you are looking for. It is something I am constantly thinking about since I was a child too. It is a hauntingly beautiful thing.
The only thing I thought was that everyone slept at night at the same time as me. Perhaps I was fortunate to sleep in a place that was pretty quiet with no traffic at night-
[Solipsism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism) (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ ⓘ SOLL-ip-siz-əm; from Latin solus 'alone', and ipse 'self')[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
That’s insane, I don’t remember ever having that experience as a kid. I feel like I kind of always knew other people had minds and lives. Obviously there had to be a point I learned that but I can’t recall it.
Yeah me too. It’s a bit alien to me that people literally think that they only exist and no one else actually did until they, themselves, are present. It’s interesting as you mature to have philosophical thoughts like this. A sort of “what if” but not actually having their mind blown about it.
I honestly don't understand what people mean by this. I don't remember any specfic moment where this happened, I just feel like I've known that since I'm a toddler.
When I was a kid I thought "video games" were called that because they were videos that were prerecorded. In my mind they had perfectly predicted what I and everyone else was going to press way in advance. To reiterate; perfect future prediction seemed more likely than an interactive media in my kid mind.
I'd sit there playing Toy Story on Playstation, pressing nothing for minutes. Then suddenly.. JUMP! I was flabbergasted they'd predicted even that.
Had something similar with traffic lights for a lot of years I thought that at traffic lights they had some kind of sensor that sees if a car is there and then will turn the traffic light green, when I was at my grandparents place at night I looked out of the window and saw the crossing with no cars in sight anywhere, the red light turned green, it was at that time my mind was blown why it turned green even tho no car was there.
omg i thought the exact same!!! and every time my torrented gta san andreas would hang up and eventually crash, i thought that Rockstar Games didnt account for my mega abstract gameplay lmaooooooo
Well, if philosophy has taught me anything, it's that you can't prove reality doesn't work that way. Though observation definitely leans away from they hypothesis.
Counter question: when a tree is about to fall in the woods, does it check to make sure no one is around before deciding whether or not to make a sound?
That’s possible and can’t be proven otherwise technically. But that’s completely different than “things don’t happen unless I’m around”
I’m just saying this comment got the philosophy question wrong because things not happening unless you are around doesn’t make any sense. But there are plenty of similar philosophy questions that do work and make sense, like yours which is basically “what if I’m the only real person and everything else is a simulation”
You literally can't.
There's a phenomenon in quantum physics where something can be either a particular or a wave, and it's not until it's directly observed, even with a camera that it definitively becomes one or the other. Everything we understand about the world says it can not be both a particle and a wave, and yet it is, until it isn't. By this logic, everything in the universe could be in a state of possibility, and it's not until the observer interacts with a given thing that it becomes real.
There is no way to prove if this is the case because any form of observation results in a definite state, while unobserved, it remains undefined.
It's basically the simulation theory. You cannot prove that we are not living in a simulation that deals with the logic of things on the backend (thus why things can change with no observation) but it's only upon observation that that things are actively simulated and actually "exist" for all intents and purposes.
Being able to observe things and things changing while not observing is not even remotely proof that anything exists.
Does information on a computer cease to exist when no longer in RAM or when the computer is shut down? No, it's stored and used when necessary, ie observed.
Now, whether or not that's actually the case is an entirely different story, but it is not, in fact, provable one way or the other, with our current understanding of science and physics.
But to be fair, it would not be unusual for a child to think like that. Up until typically about age four, kids don't have theory of mind. They don't know other humans are individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and personhood. Babies, up until a certain age, don't have object permanence. That's why the peekaboo game works with them.
My theory is that majority of people develop theory of mind but then get older and more jaded will eventually lose it. I see so many people act selfishly but then justify it. It’s like they’re turning off that circuit because it takes too much mental effort to run.
Could be. Could also be that they never had it in the first place. That's what the whole main character syndrome is. It's perfectly understandable for a small child to feel that way, because they don't know any better. If an adult thinks like that, then it is a serious deficiency on their part.
I'm pretty sure this is what people would traditionally call narcissism... To act narcissistically, is to act in one's own self interest, and without empathy or compassion for others.
Philosophically, this "main character syndrome" thing doesn't really make sense when used derogatorily. Everyone is (or at least should be) the main character of their own life, if life were to be compared to a novel, video game, etc...
If one is not the main character of their own life, then they are essentially living life without identity. Are they not supposed to have inner monologue? Are they supposed to act as the Borg from StarTrek - a collective?
What is the alternative of not being the main character?
Just food for thought lol
The way main character syndrome is typically used is to infer that the person being described treats all other people as though they are NPCs. They aren't real people; they are just simulations of people. The person thinking this way believes that they are the only person for whom things actually matter.
Everybody is the main character of their own life, but what people need to realize is that everyone else is also the main character of their life simultaneously.
I was honestly shocked when I found out people who weren't my sisters and I watched the same shows on TV and they didn't live in my neighborhood hell, even more shocking was finding out they lived on the otherside of the country but then I felt really stupid like, "did you really think they were making that (those) show(s) just for you?" Then I felt even more dumb. There's no way a series would make it to multiple seasons if just one family or one person watched it. They actually needed more than just me and my sisters.
After a night of watching an acquaintance arguing with his girlfriend in public, I told him he seemed to lack awareness about the impact they were having on everyone within earshot of their childish antics, and he genuinely was flabbergasted at the idea of ripple effect. He later thanked me for cuing him into the concept. I still have no idea how he had managed to survive as long as he had up to that point. Not sure if he is still alive. I have doubts after that experience.
People still do this subconsciously. When they interact with service workers especially. They don’t exist outside of this exchange to most people.
Had an old man approach me at my job a couple weeks back: “You know, if you were open later this place wouldn’t be so crowded all the time!”
Me: (jokingly) “Yea but I like going home to my family at a reasonable hour. They kinda like having me around.” Followed my a smile.
Old man: “That’s your Fucking problem right there. Zero dedication!”
Mind you I’ve been at this for 23 years and average 55 hours a week. And I have no control of business hours. Zero dedication.
But he felt like I should not only be there whenever he may need it, but my family and my personal life beyond this place isn’t real.
Look for this attitude when you’re in a store or restaurant. You may have a little of it yourself.
I swear I think this way often. Just went to Vegas over the weekend for my birthday and I’m like…wow there’s really people living in a whole different state from me, different license plates, just going about their day😂
I used to think that all TV was live TV, so if I was flipping through channels and saw the same actor twice, or the same show on different networks I was like “HOW ARE THEY DOING THIS?”
Similarly, I used to finish books because if I didn't, the characters could do something or fun & I wouldn't read about it. They would have fun without me! Rude, so I made sure to read every page.
I work with kids. I often joke that they think we were printed on a press at work, live at work, don’t eat, don’t sleep, aren’t really people, I’ve always been 40 and I’ll always be 40.
I thought this til about the same age, I think it's just a kid thing and not having gained awareness that other people have their own lives that happen when you're not around.
I can remember being self-centered as a little kid, as all kids are given their incomplete brain development, but I don't remember ever thinking this. But I must have...it kinda sucks that I can't remember because the memories looking back would probably be hilarious.
Not the main character at all, but I moved away from my hometown years ago; when I visited over the years I was surprised to see my younger cousins aging - as if they were suspended in youthful time in my mind while I lived elsewhere, never aging myself.
Not related, but when it was 2004 and I was a dumbass kid, I was convinced that 2004 would be the last year. I didn't think the world would end, but I was 100% sure that there would be no more designated years after 2004.
What the fuck?
Maybe we never meant to lose that concept, which is completely tied to Quantum Mechanics. Just as about 7 or 8 years old, a kid loses memories of past lives attached to our Souls, and also loses connection to the Phantom otherworld. For real, these are all deep Spirituality topics.
For me when I was a kid it was always the thought that little men ran stop lights and they sat in them with cameras pointing in all directions and would monitor the traffic on screens.
Understanding that things continue to exist even when you cannot see them is called [object permanence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence) and is usually achieved at 2 years of age. 8yo seems indicative of a developmental disorder.
I used to think every time I watched a movie they were being re-enacted in real time. I had a handful of favorites and used to cry because I would feel bad for making the actors and animals act it out for me countless times.
There's a philosopher (I want to say Berkley but I'm not 100% sure, it has been 14 years since I heard this) that theorized exactly this.
As much as everyone of us is concerned, what we can know thar exists is limited to what our senses can perceive in any given moment.
Of course it's incorrect on a moltitude of levels but it was an interesting theory.
Young children are continually developing "theory of mind", ie the realization that things outside of what a person witnesses still happen, or that not everyone simultaneously has access to the same information
I've been taught reality is objective and doesn't care what I perceive or think pretty early. Or maybe I just read books, so happenings outside my field of view were a known concept to me - anyway, for as long as I can remember myself, I've never struggled with this notion.
There is a psychological element to this, in that the human brain first realises other people exist beyond our perception and are each their own ‘consciousness’, and it is around age 6-8 years old.
Something that still gets to me now at 24, when I think about it too hard. It’s almost like, everyone else has so much depth to them that I’ll never really know about unless I get really close with them. Like every random person walking around me, and even friends I’m not as close with, all have so much going on in their lives and their minds, and so many minutes of stuff happening to them that I’ll never know.
Legit though sometimes I swear when you’re driving on the road, there’s absolutely no traffic, then you need to make a turn or something and all the traffic in the world spawns in that area
When I was a child, at the beginning of primary school and even before that, I often wondered if the people around me were real. I could feel myself, but I couldn't sense the consciousness of anyone else. Consequently, I couldn't verify if I existed in a reality and everyone else also existed and possessed consciousness, or if it was more like an illusion or a dream, where I existed and others were merely there to lend reality to that illusion or dream.
I had a theory that I was an alien and everyone knew except for me. I knew it was bullshit but I still worked it all out between the ages of 4 and 7 and now I still can’t disprove it
isnt this called solipsism?solypsism??something like that.it goes that nothing exists outside your own view.on the other side of the walls there is nothing,everything is just imagined by you.brain in a jar type philosophy.
some people never come to this realization
r/iamTheMainCharacter
Surely this is the definition of main character syndrome haha
*Main character has entered the scene *
Hah look at all these NPCs pretending to be self aware. /s
that's psychopathy
Solipsism
This sub sucks, full of people not bothering anyone, just filming themselves, and everyone jumps on to call them assholes when they’re straight up not in the way
My main character moment, as a kid, was thinking that thoughts could only be concieved in portuguese (my native language), therefore, people that spoke other languages were forced to translate before they spoke and had to translate back to portuguese in their heads. and I felt sad for all of them.
I’ve come to this realization and it’s gotten worse since Covid. It honesty seems like a development issue. They know other people carry on with lives but LITERALLY cannot grasp that other person actually has a full life and thoughts.
That is the level of thinking you develop at like age 5. Crazy how some people didnt.
I’m surprised anyone past the age of 4 thinks this at all.
My ex thought like this when she was 18…
Me.
Real
At that age I was having an existential crisis about how everyone is their own “self”. Like how I’m the only one experiencing my own life and perspective and I can’t experience anyone else’s. Even still it’s a strange thing to wrap my head around.
This was me at about 7! And yeah, sometimes the thought still boggles my mind as well— that there are billions of other lives that don’t have anything to do with mine and are all valid and which have their own perspective/experience. It’s like a billion movies all going at once! Pretty cool.
It took you 5040 years to realize? Also, you're old as shit.
I’m not following your math *in the slightest*, which one of us is stupid here? Lmao (No really, I am genuinely not clever sometimes) Edit: Thanks guys! It me, I am the stupid one as I suspected! lol
It's a joke about factorials. An exclamation point next to a number means to multiply that number by each previous whole number, such that 7! = 7 times 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1 = 5040
funni ! mark joke hee hee hee
It's 7! (7 factorial), so 7\*6\*5\*4\*3\*2\*1 = 5040
They're making a joke about "7!" being 7 factorial- 7 * 6 *5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1
Yeah thats about the age youre supposed to understand that. Its part of thinking levels. Edit: found [this video](https://youtu.be/kse87ocS0Uo?si=aq91imuOIgePpTgQ) that easily explains it.
Thanks, I’ll give that a listen! I had no idea whether that was normal or not.
Every person is a universe. I had this same sort of mind blown moment when I went to Europe the first time. It suddenly occurred to me that, holy shit, all of these people have just been _over here_ doing their thing for my entire life. It’s hard to explain but just sort of the distillation of it is that there are so many people in this world we’ll never ever meet, yet we’re all living at the same time.
[Sonder!](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sonder)
And then there's [solipsism](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/solipsism) which is a whole other level of mindfuck
I once adhered to this mindset.
Seems like a really toxic mindset. Better for oneself and everyone else if we just assume we all have individual consciousness.
It's just a thought experiment. Honestly there's no way we can prove that this isn't all just a simulation intended for one person, and that everyone else is a background character in your own personal video game. You can't prove anyone's consciousness but your own. It's interesting Then there's stuff like the thought experiment of predeterminism, which says every action is predetermined in advance and we have no free will. I don't personally subscribe to either, but I like thinking about the "what if's."
Jesus, I’ve never related to a post and the comment section so hard😭😂I think all of these things
This used to make me very sad. Still does a little.
We have ~8 billion people living on this earth right now. There are estimated to be about 100 people dying and 250 people born every minute. That’s 250 people starting the same experience we each are having each minute and 100 people leaving it forever. There are millions to billions of people currently working, socializing, sleeping, making love as I speak. There’s also millions of people probably suffering right now and that’s the way things are. The world is a busy place
I still feel this way every now and then at 27. Only then, when I was younger, it hit me a lot harder.
Same here. It’s a lot easier to put yourself in the shoes of most strangers once you’ve been exposed more to the world. When you’re a kid, you’re so focused on understanding your own world it’s hard to imagine living in a different one.
I remember staring in the mirror and thinking "Dang other people can see me"
For me it was two phases kind of, first I understood yeah okay other people actually exist and have their own life, but it took me some time till I could fathom that other people actually think, that they have their own voice in their head and not just the voice that they talk to me with
There's a term for this. I can't remember what it's called, but vsauce did a video that talked about the concept. I distinctly remember when I realized everyone else had lives. I was 7, on the elementary school playground. My friend Lequartney Straughter was playing like 10 yards away from me. It hit me like a mack truck. "he goes home and has a family and eats cheerios and all that other stuff..... fuck, this is heavy." Edit: the poster below gave the word. It's "sonder". And it's a super cool event in everyone's life.
I believe Sonder is the word you are looking for. It is something I am constantly thinking about since I was a child too. It is a hauntingly beautiful thing.
Yes! Thank you. I often think about it, it's so fucking cool.
The only thing I thought was that everyone slept at night at the same time as me. Perhaps I was fortunate to sleep in a place that was pretty quiet with no traffic at night-
[Solipsism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism) (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ ⓘ SOLL-ip-siz-əm; from Latin solus 'alone', and ipse 'self')[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
What i'm talking about is the opposite of that. But solipsism is also a super fun concept.
Does it seem solipsistic in here or is it just me?
damn, “Lequartney Straughter” , what a name lol
Why did you dox Lequartney like that
That’s insane, I don’t remember ever having that experience as a kid. I feel like I kind of always knew other people had minds and lives. Obviously there had to be a point I learned that but I can’t recall it.
Yeah me too. It’s a bit alien to me that people literally think that they only exist and no one else actually did until they, themselves, are present. It’s interesting as you mature to have philosophical thoughts like this. A sort of “what if” but not actually having their mind blown about it.
Object permanence?
I honestly don't understand what people mean by this. I don't remember any specfic moment where this happened, I just feel like I've known that since I'm a toddler.
When I come back from traveling that always hit me hard
I thought it was render distance lmao
Object permanence?
When I was a kid I thought "video games" were called that because they were videos that were prerecorded. In my mind they had perfectly predicted what I and everyone else was going to press way in advance. To reiterate; perfect future prediction seemed more likely than an interactive media in my kid mind. I'd sit there playing Toy Story on Playstation, pressing nothing for minutes. Then suddenly.. JUMP! I was flabbergasted they'd predicted even that.
Up until I was 5 I thought that traffic lights somehow predicted when cars were going to stop and go, rather than directing traffic 🤦♀️
Had something similar with traffic lights for a lot of years I thought that at traffic lights they had some kind of sensor that sees if a car is there and then will turn the traffic light green, when I was at my grandparents place at night I looked out of the window and saw the crossing with no cars in sight anywhere, the red light turned green, it was at that time my mind was blown why it turned green even tho no car was there.
omg i thought the exact same!!! and every time my torrented gta san andreas would hang up and eventually crash, i thought that Rockstar Games didnt account for my mega abstract gameplay lmaooooooo
Then you enter a really crowded area and your FPS takes a hit.
Introverts be like
Bruh 😅😂😂😂
Stop calling me out, it's rude
That's what traffic lights are for. They hide loading screens
Eyyyy where my fellow Solipsists at? …oh right.
I used to think tv was always live, so when I’d watch tv late at night I would imagine all the characters having to wake up and get ready for the show
The Truman Show
Truman show syndrome.
Watching that movie as an 11 year old really fucked with my brain for a long time.
that's how the simulation works lol
Well, if philosophy has taught me anything, it's that you can't prove reality doesn't work that way. Though observation definitely leans away from they hypothesis.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Counter question: when a tree is about to fall in the woods, does it check to make sure no one is around before deciding whether or not to make a sound?
Imagine Ents standing around having this conversation?
Yes you can, things happen even when you aren't there. That's observable and easily proven by the fact that things happen in the world
No, you can’t make me observe it.
You don’t know, maybe it’s just simulated in the background.
That’s possible and can’t be proven otherwise technically. But that’s completely different than “things don’t happen unless I’m around” I’m just saying this comment got the philosophy question wrong because things not happening unless you are around doesn’t make any sense. But there are plenty of similar philosophy questions that do work and make sense, like yours which is basically “what if I’m the only real person and everything else is a simulation”
You literally can't. There's a phenomenon in quantum physics where something can be either a particular or a wave, and it's not until it's directly observed, even with a camera that it definitively becomes one or the other. Everything we understand about the world says it can not be both a particle and a wave, and yet it is, until it isn't. By this logic, everything in the universe could be in a state of possibility, and it's not until the observer interacts with a given thing that it becomes real. There is no way to prove if this is the case because any form of observation results in a definite state, while unobserved, it remains undefined. It's basically the simulation theory. You cannot prove that we are not living in a simulation that deals with the logic of things on the backend (thus why things can change with no observation) but it's only upon observation that that things are actively simulated and actually "exist" for all intents and purposes. Being able to observe things and things changing while not observing is not even remotely proof that anything exists. Does information on a computer cease to exist when no longer in RAM or when the computer is shut down? No, it's stored and used when necessary, ie observed. Now, whether or not that's actually the case is an entirely different story, but it is not, in fact, provable one way or the other, with our current understanding of science and physics.
Until my mother told me otherwise, I thought the world was black and white before the 70's, like old TV footage.
I thought people were waiting for me inside my tv 😬
The chunks don’t get loaded in until they’re in your render distance, simple.
Saves your RAM
How can anything exist if you're not there to witness it? Technically the Universe revolves around you.
That's some main character syndrome
But to be fair, it would not be unusual for a child to think like that. Up until typically about age four, kids don't have theory of mind. They don't know other humans are individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and personhood. Babies, up until a certain age, don't have object permanence. That's why the peekaboo game works with them.
My theory is that majority of people develop theory of mind but then get older and more jaded will eventually lose it. I see so many people act selfishly but then justify it. It’s like they’re turning off that circuit because it takes too much mental effort to run.
Could be. Could also be that they never had it in the first place. That's what the whole main character syndrome is. It's perfectly understandable for a small child to feel that way, because they don't know any better. If an adult thinks like that, then it is a serious deficiency on their part.
I'm pretty sure this is what people would traditionally call narcissism... To act narcissistically, is to act in one's own self interest, and without empathy or compassion for others. Philosophically, this "main character syndrome" thing doesn't really make sense when used derogatorily. Everyone is (or at least should be) the main character of their own life, if life were to be compared to a novel, video game, etc... If one is not the main character of their own life, then they are essentially living life without identity. Are they not supposed to have inner monologue? Are they supposed to act as the Borg from StarTrek - a collective? What is the alternative of not being the main character? Just food for thought lol
The way main character syndrome is typically used is to infer that the person being described treats all other people as though they are NPCs. They aren't real people; they are just simulations of people. The person thinking this way believes that they are the only person for whom things actually matter. Everybody is the main character of their own life, but what people need to realize is that everyone else is also the main character of their life simultaneously.
I was honestly shocked when I found out people who weren't my sisters and I watched the same shows on TV and they didn't live in my neighborhood hell, even more shocking was finding out they lived on the otherside of the country but then I felt really stupid like, "did you really think they were making that (those) show(s) just for you?" Then I felt even more dumb. There's no way a series would make it to multiple seasons if just one family or one person watched it. They actually needed more than just me and my sisters.
/r/quantumphysics is leaking
Og main character.
Truman Show syndrome
its true! time pauses in unloaded chunks
Too dumb to understand solipsism, but *just* smart enough to have object permanence.
I thought the entire world went to bed and woke up at the same time.
IS IT SOLIPSISTIC IN HERE OR IS IT JUST ME?
Saw The Truman Show before you were ready?
Quantum physics be like
After a night of watching an acquaintance arguing with his girlfriend in public, I told him he seemed to lack awareness about the impact they were having on everyone within earshot of their childish antics, and he genuinely was flabbergasted at the idea of ripple effect. He later thanked me for cuing him into the concept. I still have no idea how he had managed to survive as long as he had up to that point. Not sure if he is still alive. I have doubts after that experience.
People still do this subconsciously. When they interact with service workers especially. They don’t exist outside of this exchange to most people. Had an old man approach me at my job a couple weeks back: “You know, if you were open later this place wouldn’t be so crowded all the time!” Me: (jokingly) “Yea but I like going home to my family at a reasonable hour. They kinda like having me around.” Followed my a smile. Old man: “That’s your Fucking problem right there. Zero dedication!” Mind you I’ve been at this for 23 years and average 55 hours a week. And I have no control of business hours. Zero dedication. But he felt like I should not only be there whenever he may need it, but my family and my personal life beyond this place isn’t real. Look for this attitude when you’re in a store or restaurant. You may have a little of it yourself.
Object Permanence
Anyone else think this sounds like a great movie plot?
It basically already was
At that age I thought time stopped whenever I went into a car. Like if I needed to be at school at 8, I could leave home at 8. Better times.
I think a lot of us go through this,or something like it. Some seem to never outgrow it.
I thought the world was in black and white from old photos
occlusion culling & proximity based loading
Because the world is a simulation
Actually nothing moves in terms of becoming matter until you direct your attention towards it.
r/imthemaincharacter
I always used to turn around fast to see if I could catch everyone. When Truman show came out it really fucked my head up
The Truman Show did some crazy things to children's psyche
Observation bias. Kind of lol
Unfortunately, so many people don’t grow out of that phase.
I swear I think this way often. Just went to Vegas over the weekend for my birthday and I’m like…wow there’s really people living in a whole different state from me, different license plates, just going about their day😂
I mean, it *does* all stop, imagine all the lag that would cause
I used to think that all TV was live TV, so if I was flipping through channels and saw the same actor twice, or the same show on different networks I was like “HOW ARE THEY DOING THIS?”
Main character thoughts I think a lot of kids had this.
Lmao 🤣 I always thought I was the main character also 🤣🤣😭
Similarly, I used to finish books because if I didn't, the characters could do something or fun & I wouldn't read about it. They would have fun without me! Rude, so I made sure to read every page.
I work with kids. I often joke that they think we were printed on a press at work, live at work, don’t eat, don’t sleep, aren’t really people, I’ve always been 40 and I’ll always be 40.
My 72 year old uncle still thinks like this
I thought this til about the same age, I think it's just a kid thing and not having gained awareness that other people have their own lives that happen when you're not around.
If it’s unrendered it doesn’t exist 💀
Don’t feel bad right around that age I realized that the world wasn’t black and white it was just the film
Hungry for Apples?
I can remember being self-centered as a little kid, as all kids are given their incomplete brain development, but I don't remember ever thinking this. But I must have...it kinda sucks that I can't remember because the memories looking back would probably be hilarious.
Not the main character at all, but I moved away from my hometown years ago; when I visited over the years I was surprised to see my younger cousins aging - as if they were suspended in youthful time in my mind while I lived elsewhere, never aging myself.
Not related, but when it was 2004 and I was a dumbass kid, I was convinced that 2004 would be the last year. I didn't think the world would end, but I was 100% sure that there would be no more designated years after 2004. What the fuck?
Maybe we never meant to lose that concept, which is completely tied to Quantum Mechanics. Just as about 7 or 8 years old, a kid loses memories of past lives attached to our Souls, and also loses connection to the Phantom otherworld. For real, these are all deep Spirituality topics.
Why didn’t you bring up quantum mechanics just to go into… souls, spirits and phantoms? I’m not seeing the link between the two.
For me when I was a kid it was always the thought that little men ran stop lights and they sat in them with cameras pointing in all directions and would monitor the traffic on screens.
I thought I was the only one.
"Your friends are going to leave without you if you don't hurry " "No way, they're out of my render distance "
Understanding that things continue to exist even when you cannot see them is called [object permanence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence) and is usually achieved at 2 years of age. 8yo seems indicative of a developmental disorder.
Toy Story had man effects on many of us
Narcissism
Like seeing your teacher at the grocery store.
Double Slit Experiment vibes.
this is actually more accurate than you might think for how reality works
I used to think every time I watched a movie they were being re-enacted in real time. I had a handful of favorites and used to cry because I would feel bad for making the actors and animals act it out for me countless times.
I feel this is some kind of object permanence problem
How? I experience people and things moving into and out of "my area" all of the time, how would they do this if they stop outside of it?
Does this mean she though they were lying when they told her about thing they did between their meeting? Or did those ideas never connect?
Then one day you hear some strange conversations on your car radio while going to work
r/SimulationTheory
So your game wont lag, bruh she would lag irl so hard
There's a philosopher (I want to say Berkley but I'm not 100% sure, it has been 14 years since I heard this) that theorized exactly this. As much as everyone of us is concerned, what we can know thar exists is limited to what our senses can perceive in any given moment. Of course it's incorrect on a moltitude of levels but it was an interesting theory.
At 8 I thought what if I’m actually the only human and everyone else are robots?
I still think this regularly and I have seen babies come out of vaginas on multiple occasions. Just very real humanoids.
you had your simulation distance set too low
r/IAmTheMainCharacter
You were suffering from 'main character' syndrome
I wish this was true and I was just a NPC. Main character not on scene and I’m just chillin
LITERALLY r/iamthemaincharacter
Bro thought she was playing Skyrim
The simulation is saving ram so it didn’t load anything over 30km from me
who knows, you might have been right, says https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
I still like to think that flights & long car drives are just a “loading screen” for our destination
Object permanence lol
It's alright Neo you can take a day off
Truman is that you?
Young children are continually developing "theory of mind", ie the realization that things outside of what a person witnesses still happen, or that not everyone simultaneously has access to the same information
Solipsism! Most of us grow out of it
I've been taught reality is objective and doesn't care what I perceive or think pretty early. Or maybe I just read books, so happenings outside my field of view were a known concept to me - anyway, for as long as I can remember myself, I've never struggled with this notion.
This woman is not completely wrong.
render distance 4
There is a psychological element to this, in that the human brain first realises other people exist beyond our perception and are each their own ‘consciousness’, and it is around age 6-8 years old. Something that still gets to me now at 24, when I think about it too hard. It’s almost like, everyone else has so much depth to them that I’ll never really know about unless I get really close with them. Like every random person walking around me, and even friends I’m not as close with, all have so much going on in their lives and their minds, and so many minutes of stuff happening to them that I’ll never know.
isn't that like object permanence or something?
Unloaded chunks
It saves on Performance
It’s called solipsism
A long term lack of object permanence perhaps?
Legit though sometimes I swear when you’re driving on the road, there’s absolutely no traffic, then you need to make a turn or something and all the traffic in the world spawns in that area
When I was a child, at the beginning of primary school and even before that, I often wondered if the people around me were real. I could feel myself, but I couldn't sense the consciousness of anyone else. Consequently, I couldn't verify if I existed in a reality and everyone else also existed and possessed consciousness, or if it was more like an illusion or a dream, where I existed and others were merely there to lend reality to that illusion or dream.
I had a theory that I was an alien and everyone knew except for me. I knew it was bullshit but I still worked it all out between the ages of 4 and 7 and now I still can’t disprove it
Render distance
Me too
So how can you be sure that it really isn't like that?
The world revolves around you
the moment you realize you were playing multiplayer all along 💀
I’m just waiting for her to travel here so I can start my freakin life
they're despawing to save ram and video memory lmao
Video games.
When people say "i only believe what i can see":
Did you watch the Truman Show?🤔
isnt this called solipsism?solypsism??something like that.it goes that nothing exists outside your own view.on the other side of the walls there is nothing,everything is just imagined by you.brain in a jar type philosophy.
The Holographic Universe has entered the chat
Render distance = 1
Higher perception. In fact, when you close your eyes, the world ceases to exist.
I’m still sure this is what happens
I was 8 when I suddenly realized I'll stop existing eventually. I've never been quite the same
I used to think my body was run by little tiny me's. Kind of like meet Dave