Some people with temporal lobe epilepsy see the world as real, but not themselves. There is thought, but they have no idea whose thought it is. And then there are those who, far from lacking a sense of self, have too many selves (yeah, you know who you are..). FACT: People who have had the hemispheres of their brain separated can end up with two centers of consciousness. Western science is now (sort of) catching up on what ancient wisdom has been explaining for thousands of years.What these pathologies show is that one's experience of the world does not have to be linked to a sense of a self at the center of it. But that is not to say that the self does not exist. This is best illustrated with an old Buddhist analogy that likens a person to a cart:
"There is no cart, only the wheel, the axle, the flat bed and so on. In the same way, there is no self, only experiences, thoughts, and sensations. But, of course, there is a cart—it's just that it is nothing other than the ordered collection of parts. In the same way, there is a self—it is simply no more than the ordered collection of all our experiences." (Julian Baggini)
Only the things we acknowledge exist in our reality. What exist in your reality can be shared by me and my reality can be a part of yours. What doesn't exist can be if we both choose to make it so.
Delusions are just realities that are not shared.
