In his book ''Dream, Death and the Self'',
J. J. Valberg develops the concept of the personal horizon. He attempts to bring out his subject-matter by considering the
dream hypothesis
The simulation theory is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds that may or may not know that they live ...
– what if ''this'' were a dream? In Valberg's view, an undetermined horizon would necessarily be internalised (a.k.a. subconscious) if ''this'' were all a dream. This leads to "horizonal" conceptions of consciousness, mind, experience, life, the self, etc. Valberg subsequently considers death, and argues that when the meaning of death strikes us in the right way, it presents us with the prospect of nothingness – not there being nothing ''for me'', but nothing ''period''. This corresponds to one's personal horizon being the ''pre-eminent'' one, corresponding to a weak version of
solipsism
Solipsism (; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known an ...
(arguably closely related to Hare's
egocentric presentism Egocentric presentism is a form of solipsism introduced by Caspar Hare in which other persons can be conscious, but their experiences are simply not .
Similarly, in related work, Hare argues for a theory of perspectival realism in which other pers ...
). Valberg points out the difficulty of reconciling this with his commitment to the view that he shares the world with metaphysical equals; he continues by re-evaluating many well-studied problems in philosophy in light of this notion of the personal horizon.
Mark Johnston compares this notion to his related but distinct notion of an "arena of presence and action", which contains the stream of consciousness, and argues for the latter.
See also
*
Metaphysical subjectivism
Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth.
The success of this position is historically attribute ...
*
Centered world
A centered world, according to David Kellogg Lewis, consists of (1) a possible world, (2) an agent in that world, and (3) a time in that world. The concept of centered worlds has epistemic as well as metaphysical uses; for the latter, the thre ...
s
* Benj Hellie's
vertiginous question Benj Hellie's vertiginous question is as follows: of all the subjects of experience out there, why is ''this'' one—the one corresponding to the human being referred to as Benj Hellie—the one whose experiences are ''live''? (The reader is suppose ...
References
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Epistemological theories
Metaphysics of mind
Theory of mind