this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
15 points (71.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
40155 readers
685 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That's a pretty tall order. How do you confirm that you objectively share the same experience if you can only ever access your own subjective experience?
Well, you could stand next to the guy while you both look at the relevant thing. That's a pretty good way.
Another way would be to use the same method for looking at the relevant thing. Let's call it "an experimental method". Because it delivers an experience.
What does water taste like?
Get a glass of water and taste it. It tastes like that.
But how would I know if our experience of the taste of water is the same?
Because it's water.
You'd have to settle for close enough here. You might even drink from the same glass. Beyond that ... until we invent telepathy.
This is my point. We can't do it exactly, we just approximate. With every single experience we have, we can only approximately communicate it to other people. But here's the kicker: does thinking about the taste of water feel like you're actually drinking water? If you were parched in a desert, would thinking about water really hard actually bring the experience of water? Obviously not.
Once you have experienced something, thinking back to it, you are already kind of approximating it to yourself. You can't manifest the exact experience even for yourself. Let alone to others.
I'm just highlighting this because it's a pretty significant thing to get in this world where we are communicating by text a lot, and being very quick to judge other people's experiences. Not saying you're doing that though.