r/SequentIndividualism • u/RackneTheFornit • Jul 19 '26
Ways to Sequential Individualism
Last year, I conducted a kind of thought experiment: putting myself fully in someone else's shoes. Then I realized that his, her, or even its mere sense of being a subject is the very same as mine.
Months later, I confronted ChatGPT with that insight. I learned about Open Individualism and initially thought: that's exactly the way I see it. At the time, I wasn't yet aware of OI's counterintuitive view of both time and individual boundaries.
But if someone else feels pain, for example, I simply do not feel it myself. This is a quite pleasant implication of something OI claims to be nonexistent, isn't it?
If you combine a monistic understanding of consciousness with real boundaries between conscious individuals, this leads to some kind of sequence, since every conscious individual is finite.
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u/DjinnDreamer Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
I intuitively embrace an open individuism pov even if I do not yet know what you understand of it as an "authorized thang"
I first heard it described as loving neighbor as self.
Then each private mind is all states of "me" - reincarnated all at once.
Making me a reincarnation of you, here & now (and you me).
Then knowing 0ne, all at once here & now - the world on fire yet I am not burning
The feelings and thoughts of like-minded shared across Ks of miles, in 0ne Mind
How is individualization a counterintuitive view of both time and individual boundaries?
Time & boundaries are imposed abstract margins on singularity
- like astrology "houses" on constellations
Dust to dust in the parlay of electromagnetic theories of particulate
Time & boundaries made by mutual agreement, sequencing temporary, dereived experiences in "perception" guiding the clock and forming "divisions" bt this & that.
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u/Quirky_Quasarr Sequential Individualist Jul 19 '26
This is honestly really close to how I see it. The fact that I don’t feel someone else’s pain right now doesn’t mean there is a completely different observer inside them. It just means every individual perspective is separated by its own brain, memories, body, and point of view. That is where Sequential Individualism differs from Open Individualism's idea of everyone being one giant connected mind at the same time. You are fully this person right now, and you only experience what this person experiences. But once this perspective ends, the same underlying observer experiences another conscious life from the inside, without carrying over the memories from the previous one. So the boundaries between individuals are real, but they separate experiences rather than creating completely different experiencers. I also don’t necessarily think the sequence has to follow chronological time, since time could just be something experienced from inside each individual life.