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I know the first thing you may be thinking upon reading this, but there's more to this than you may have assumed. This is not one of those crazy questions where ego-driven maniacs simply call themselves "God" or something and think they are super. Basically, I just wonder if I (yes, just me or I -- not broadly speaking or referring to others) am actually a unique individual because of my ability to perceive the world and see it. I don't assume others cannot see the world, but I can't prove it/know it for certain. If I cannot prove others perceive/see the world as I do, could I just be like a "God" or a rare individual put on Earth/the universe? For example, I have truly wondered whether other people are as "real" as I am or capable of being as "real" as I am. Other people live and die, but I have yet to die.

Am I immortal? Can anyone prove it? I am the only person capable of experiencing the world because I live within my own so-called body and mind. I cannot see the world through other people or as other people. I can't escape my own body or mind (or can I?) Why should I definitely believe that the world or other so-called perceptions outside of me are real or similar to me? After all, I am just me and only I can experience the world with proof. You may be reading this right now and thinking, "This guy is crazy! I'm experiencing the world too." But are you really doing so? Maybe the whole world is just an illusion and I'm the only "real" thing in it? Nothing proves otherwise to me. After all, I'm the only perceiving existence I am sure of (or maybe I don't exist either?). One thing's for certain that I know:

1.Nothing outside of my perception is inherently real to me (with undeniable/irrefutable proof).

2.Nobody besides me is perceptible because only I am perceptible (from my perception).

3.I was born in this body and mind only once and now (supposedly). I don't perceive the world or see it as others supposedly do. Isn't it possible that I'm the only real or "special" existence in this universe? I don't know of any other provable perceptions besides my own. Realistically, couldn't I be God? A deity? A special being? Immortal? Again, nothing or nobody but me can prove perception.

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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism. Also, usually a more useful question than "what do I know for certain" is "what should I rationally believe", as there are many things that we can't irrefutably prove, yet we should still believe.
    – E...
    Commented May 21, 2017 at 7:31
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    The advaita vedanta philosophy says you (your innermost self - but not your ego) are God. When you are perceiving this world, you are perceiving yourself, but in a wrong way. You have to realize your true nature to break the illusion of the world.
    – Swami Vishwananda
    Commented May 21, 2017 at 10:02
  • define "possible"? if you believe that Gods and special beings exist, then in a sense, yes.
    – user25714
    Commented May 21, 2017 at 12:18
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    Your doubts are a priori reasonable, but as objections to Descartes's cogito show you can not even "prove" that your own "I" exists, at best you can report some flow of thinking and perceiving (and even that is doubtful since you need to learn what "thinking" and "perceiving" mean first). The "I" is attached to it after the fact and with the benefit of prior interactions with others. Therefore, the certainty distinction between "I" and others is an illusion, nothing can be proved "for certain".
    – Conifold
    Commented May 21, 2017 at 22:17
  • Can you narrow down your question a bit? Quite a few of the specific forms are different (immortal does not equal God).
    – virmaior
    Commented May 22, 2017 at 3:12

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"Possible" really depends on what you have accepted as true

Solipsism:

Assuming you're the only perceiving being and everyone else is a figment of your imagination, your subconscious keeping you company then yes. Perhaps you're a lonely "God" who has created some world within their mind and proceeded to live inside it and wipe their mind of the memory of creating it (or having some subconscious create a world to avoid insanity from boredom).

Speculation:

Perhaps you're also a God who has created sentient creatures but then put their own mind into the body of one of these creatures and promptly forgotten about all of the God stuff before.

But you may also be a devil, a coma patient, someone in a VR world, a simulation, a rabbit dreaming of being a human, a random collection of particles creating the simulation of the experience you're having now but without any real history (or future) (see Boltzmann brain).

The point is that all these things are possible but are not practical to continue living in the experiences you're already in.

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  • I need to know more about your last sentence "The point is that all these things are possible but are not practical to continue living in the experiences you're already in." Where can I find more about this, specifically the part after "but"?
    – Anthony Genovese
    Commented Feb 13, 2019 at 20:53
  • To the VR world/simulation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis?wprov=sfla1
    – inetphantom
    Commented Feb 22, 2019 at 7:39
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If God is omniscient then God knows all things. If you were God you would have to know that you were, else there would be a gap in your omniscience. Since you apparently do not know that you are God it is a fair inference that you are not.

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  • That's a specific definition of God. It's possible to come up with a reasonable conception of God that doesn't include omniscience.
    – David Thornley
    Commented Feb 19, 2019 at 17:32
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    Agreed but one must work with some definition and this is mine. On a different definition my answer will not apply. I only said 'if'.
    – Geoffrey Thomas ♦
    Commented Feb 19, 2019 at 18:18
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This is called solipsism, the belief that you are the only real person in the universe (as you know it). It's arguably demonstrably true under certain limited circumstances: For instance, when you dream, you would generally be considered as the only "real" person in the dreamworld you inhabit. It's also true for the player character in a video-game universe.

In general, however, the main argument against solipsism is that it's much more complex, difficult and credulity straining to come up with explanations for how and why other people seem to exist than to believe that they actually do. For instance, both the dreamworld scenario and the video game scenario are parasitic on an actual external world with other entities in it, who are imitated or copied for the derivative universe. So they don't eliminate external minds, they just displace them. In the case of the video game, in particular, the illusionary other entities are not just dependent on an external world, they are deliberately designed and created by an intelligent designer towards the purpose of simulating external entities.

It is possible, that you could be a deity playing the equivalent of solitaire, in which you diminish yourself, in order to experience the world you've created from the inside. But in that case, one might argue that "you," the entity experiencing the world, are not actually equivalent to or identifiable with "you," the entity creating the world.

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We are all immortal beings in mind and soul, only our body is mortal. If you were God you wouldn’t have all these questions. Questioning your purpose and existence is a step in the right direction but believing you are the Creator is a dangerous road to take. Try walking down this path WITH God. He will answer all your questions! Good luck!

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  • Good observation: if one were God one wouldn't have all these questions. That is what I take as the core of the answer. Would you have references or quotes of philosophers, not specifically theologians, who present such a position as this one? It would strengthen your answer and give readers a place to go for more information.
    – Frank Hubeny
    Commented Jul 16, 2018 at 12:45
  • Thank you Frank for your reply. I’m sorry I do not have references or quotes from philosophers or theologians on the topic of God, as all of my knowledge and wisdom comes directly from Him. All the best to you in your life’s journey of knowledge and truth.
    – user34223
    Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 13:21
  • Please edit this to add some sources to support what you say here.
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Nov 27, 2018 at 5:09
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You do not have a private language. You are using words to express yourself, which required a community to develop, and your childhood to learn and understand. You cannot hold private concepts any more than you can create a private currency. Your own nature can only be understoid by you relationally, and through interaction.

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  • There are a lot of assumptions in that argument. Although I am not disagreeing with you, I think you should give some substance for the assumptions. Regards!
    – Bertrand Wittgenstein's Ghost
    Commented Nov 26, 2018 at 4:20
  • I don't remember being unable to speak and understand English. (I do have a memory of not being able to read.) There's no a priori reason I couldn't have invented a language (along with the rest of the world), and projected it on lots of my subconscious creations.
    – David Thornley
    Commented Feb 19, 2019 at 17:34
  • This is a very... monolingual-reference-frame answer. While @DavidThornley's comment is a good counter, I'd like to offer another from the opposite direction. I do have one scrap of memory before my first language, when I didn't really understand any words or perhaps was just starting to understand some words in a rather loose impressionistic way. But I was certainly having experiences and thoughts. I did not need language for that. This remained true for most of my childhood, when I regularly had experiences and thoughts which were often precise and repeatable but unwordable.
    – mtraceur
    Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 22:38
  • @mtraceur: &, how are your memories from 6 months old? How do you account for human incapacity for early memory? My fully developed picture is here: 'According to the major theories of concepts, where do meanings come from?' philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/77261/… Consider the language deprivation experiment there: "the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments" Wittgenstein’s picture of language is more than words
    – CriglCragl
    Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 22:44
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Leo Tolstoy has a book entitled, "The Kingdom of God is Within You" which you might consider reading. You incited me to consult "the book of knowledge".. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy which interestingly sums him up at one point as "considered a philosophical anarchist."

Buddhism, as better-described in another comment, basically confirms your suspicion via its "all is one and one is all" way of thinking. Of course, that shatters your notion of YOU being The "God" and replaces it with.. yes, everyone is.

Psychologists would say you have a Messianic Complex. You might!

Some theoretical physicists doing string theory hold that there are infinitely many universes splitting off from one another constantly, providing all possible permutations and combinations of possibilities. If this is so, maybe we're all in Your Universe.

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  • Buddhism, as better-described in another comment, basically confirms your suspicion via its "all is one and one is all" way of thinking This is misleading. Compare en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net
    – CriglCragl
    Commented Jul 16, 2018 at 19:44

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