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Which branch of philosophy whole-heartedly accepts (and builds upon) that only self exists (solipsism) and the universe is the part/creation of self (monism) by eliminating the possibility of independent selves and universe through Occam razor. Analogous to:

  1. Simulation hypothesis without the cynical assumption of an independent being doing simulation.
  2. Dream argument without the implicit assumption of current reality being real and moving past the skepticism to acceptance.

My question is not focused on validity of such position though I would love reading thoughts on this.

Imagine a dream ;) in which my actions are constrained that I can not fly. I am running away from the people (created by self) trying to catch me. I reach a cliff. Technically it is my dream and I could eliminate those people or fly off but what happens is I jump down and wake up sweating. I see clear parallel with my "waking" life and want to know the arguments against (or for) this (or similar) position by better known name.

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    To the extent that philosophy is something other than a journaling exercise, anyone who seriously believed such a thing wouldn't have much motivation either to write it down or to tell "someone else" about it. Philosophy itself is built on the implicit assumption that you're telling something to someone separate, who doesn't know/think the same things as you.
    – Jedediah
    Commented Feb 25, 2022 at 16:38
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    @Jedediah Count me as one such person then :) I'm very motivated to interact with "others" (to find the answer) even though they are "me". It is analogous to thought experiments and memory recall. And it is possible to imagine/dream a version of self which thinks differently as I showed in my example at the end.
    – tejasvi
    Commented Feb 26, 2022 at 1:00
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    When you say "self" are you identifying that with your own conscious mind and ego, or do you allow for the possibility that what you ordinarily call your "self" is a kind of dream character just like the others, that the "dreamer" may be something more God-like, perhaps even seeing the world from the POV of different characters in different lifetimes? The latter might describe the perspective of the Vedanta tradition in Hinduism for example.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Feb 26, 2022 at 1:49
  • @Hypnosifl Perfect! Advaita Vedanta matches exactly with my conceptions and I got enough material to dissect. I think of "me" as "reduced" form of self who in turn sees all the POVs in self-constructed world (just like dream). I want to avoid calling it "God" due to associated connotations because in this case God is ruling over itself :D. Thanks a lot for the pointer!
    – tejasvi
    Commented Feb 26, 2022 at 2:39
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    No, this is not position of Advaita. You might like to read archive.org/details/IndianPhilosophyACriticalSurvey There have been schools that have had those points you raise but no current schools, although the Hinayana (Theravedic) Buddhist school might fall under the first point.
    – Swami Vishwananda
    Commented Feb 26, 2022 at 6:30

2 Answers 2

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Drishti-srishti-vada, an offshoot of Advaita Vedanta comes closest. From wikipedia,

Drishti-srishti-vada [..] maintains that the perceived phenomenal world comes into existence only in the process of one's observation of the world which is seen as a world of one's own mental construction; having no objective reality, it exists only in his mind. Thus, mind is the cause of the universe and not the subtle cosmic elements; mind which is consciousness creates the world.

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There isn't any serious philosophy that posits such a synthesis. Generally speaking, solipsism is regarded as the pathological or sociopathic conditions of certain people. No monism posits the unreality of the world or a manifestation of a self. This includes Advaita monism which, in the language of Western philosophy, would be a form of idealism. It posits that the world at bottom is more akin to mind than matter. This has nothing to do with solipsism.

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