The Cosmic Thinker’s and Essayist’s Notebook

🪐 A Questioner for the Survival of the Universe
📖 Reading to grasp the axis of history,
📜 Designing the future of civilization through policy,
🔭 Sowing seeds of thought that will endure even 100,000 years from now.

“The universe continues to expand, and so does my thinking within it. To be alive—this itself is my mission.”

“Welcome to a small planet for those who question life and civilization from a cosmic perspective, and for those who share the curiosity.”

about

🪐 A Questioner for the Survival of the Universe 📖 Reading to grasp the axis of history, 📜 Designing the future of civilization through policy, 🔭 Sowing seeds of thought that will endure even 100,000 years from now. “The universe continues to expand, and so does my thinking within it. To be alive—this itself is my mission.” “Welcome to a small planet for those who question life and civilization from a cosmic perspective, and for those who share the curiosity.”

12/29/2024

In this essay, I wish to discuss expanded solipsism and outline the scope of what can, in fact, be believed.

Human senses are, as we well know, limited. Our eyes cannot see beyond the narrow band of visible light, nor can our ears hear beyond the range of audible frequencies. When solipsism first arose, it was likely rooted in this limitation of perception: the death of the self was perceived as the end of the world itself.

Over time, however, the development of experimental and observational instruments began to strengthen our faith in the senses. We can now, through computational transformations, hear the sound of gravitational waves or microwave radiation, and see them rendered visually. This, in turn, fosters a firm conviction in the reality of the external world.

But does that world truly exist? Here, I pose a large question to the edifice of modern science. Eastern philosophies—particularly the Buddhist concept of śūnyatā (emptiness) and the Taoist concept of Dao—have long understood the world as a perpetually changing existence. Logical positivism, on the other hand, confronts us with the claim that the only unchanging truths are the abstract forms of mathematics.

I contend that expanded solipsism has both propelled the progress of science and, at times, obstructed it—much like the shifting of paradigms described by Thomas Kuhn. Each Copernican revolution has heralded the arrival of a new paradigm, and in doing so, has expanded the scope of solipsism itself. Today, we stand before two ultimate Copernican questions:

Is the universe infinite?
Do multiverses exist?

Since these are questions that cannot be resolved through experimental or observational science, solipsism will always win. It must always win—for without me, nothing exists.

Thus, rather than judging whether solipsism is true or false, I hope we become adventurers who embrace expanded solipsism and support the Copernican revolutions it inspires. And I hope we continue to construct ever greater realms of belief in reality through the abstract, unshakable framework of mathematics.

This, after all, is the very history of scientific progress.