Are delusions useful or necessary.

[uniquemand]

To get an idea, close your eyes and mockup a picture of something (NOT a "cat", please). It is flimsy, weak and NOT solid. If there were a way to get and recruit others to see and agree with the picture "in that space", well then it might get a bit more solid and tend to stay a bit longer. The others would co-create it with you. You might then be on your way to creating a shared "playing field"...

...Theoretically, IF the awareness comes first and initiates all else, then a person can make it all go away for his or herself. You can't make it go away for anyone else, since each person holds it in place by agreeing it is there for them. But, if you allow all agreements to fade away, as can happen in very deep meditation, it can "all go away" FOR YOU. Obviously this is only REALLY TRUE, if you can be left, fully aware, existing, as a unit of awareness, entirely divorced from all that is. I suspect that this should be possible. I could be wrong, of course.

Edited for brevity.

I don't believe that the awareness comes first, and not just to be contrary. If, as you suppose, we are all awareness units who agree with some reality that we co-create, how do you account for our first coming into contact with each other and becoming aware of that reality or of each other? If we weren't already part of the same reality, how would we know it existed to go to? The solipsist argument falls on it's face right there, for me. The fact that we are aware of each other means we are part of a system which connects us. As I see it, our bodies were generated by this system, and give us a common frame of reference. Then, through evolution, we develop a nervous system, because at every step of the game, each increase in ability to detect and respond to our environment feeds back, and those with higher sensitivity and capabilities survive, while those who don't die off. Eventually, we developed very advanced "wet" computers, and they were capable of generating a virtual environment in which we could model the universe around us, make predictions, and be PROACTIVE. We could learn. This virtual space also contains all the identities we've ever modeled, and all of these contents are our ego. To the extent that we think we are any part of these contents, we are not understanding who or what we are. We are NOT conscious entities who live forever. However, we are capable of modeling consciousness, and conceiving eternal life.