NationStates Jolt Archive

Does anyone have any proof that I exist? I've been trying really hard but I can't seem to find any. :(

Well, I can read your posts. That may not mean anything, because neither one of us can be sure that I exist.

Do you think? If so, you are.

I've given up on existential philosophy - it's too much of an endless cycle of argument for me

Do you think? If so, you are.

Really? Cool! That was easy!

Wait a minute...did I ever manage to find proof that I think? :(

I dont know if you exist, but if you can wonder wether you exist then you must exist in order to think that. Or something.

If not, then I wont waste any more time talking to myself.

I can't prove that you exist, only that I exist in some form, whether as a conscience or as what I think I look like.

Even if you didn't exist, you would still exist as a figment of my imagination...since I am replying to you...

unless of course, I'm crazy.....

lol :D

Ask two random people on the street that you have never seen or met before, what you look like at different times on different days. Then compare the results. If the people are really nice, ask them to do the same and share the results with you.

If the reults are significantly similar, then your appearance is true, if you have true appearance, then you have observable properties that transcend subjective ideals. If you transcend subjective ideals then all analysis is objective. If you have objectively observed physical properties by all then you are real. If not, then you are subjective and your existence meaningless.:p

That, or this is all in your mind. But, if this is all a creation of your mind, then is that not proof that a mind creates reality? And, if a mind creates reality then how can it not exist? As nothing can not create anything.

The matrix has you

Ask two random people on the street that you have never seen or met before, what you look like at different times on different days. Then compare the results. If the people are really nice, ask them to do the same and share the results with you.

If the reults are significantly similar, then your appearance is true, if you have true appearance, then you have observable properties that transcend subjective ideals. If you transcend subjective ideals then all analysis is objective. If you have objectively observed physical properties by all then you are real. If not, then you are subjective and your existence meaningless.:p

That, or this is all in your mind. But, if this is all a creation of your mind, then is that not proof that a mind creates reality? And, if a mind creates reality then how can it not exist? As nothing can not create anything.

Can we not apply this same argument to God?

Can we not apply this same argument to God?

Have thought about that...

I try to classify things as truth and reality. If it is real and observable to the whole, it is true. If it real and observable to one, than it is real to that one person. So, God can be real to some, and not to others. Whether God truly exists, I do not know.

I am still thinking about that however, and have not formed a concrete ideal on the matter;)

Does anyone have any proof that I exist? I've been trying really hard but I can't seem to find any. :(

If Google deems it exists, then it exists.

You exist!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Texan+Hotrodders&btnG=Google+Search

Does anyone have any proof that I exist? I've been trying really hard but I can't seem to find any. :(
Write a autobiography and thus you are proven to exist. Include pictures for those who can't imagine you.

I mean its really easy once you think about it.

You would need God to be physically present for what I presented to apply. If that were to happen, well... it would be interesting to say the least.:p

yeah but what is existence? way to remember solipsism, you nerds..

yeah but what is existence? way to remember solipsism, you nerds..

A term.

You would need God to be physically present for what I presented to apply. If that were to happen, well... it would be interesting to say the least.:p

Actually, all I would need is for several people to perceive God as physically present in a mostly consistent fashion. Why would we accept such a thing as evidence for our own existence, when we will not accept it for the existence of the pink fluffy bunnies flying around me?

READ THIS AND THEN DROP THE SUBJECT!!!!!!!

There is definate proof that you exsist. You believe you exsist, therefor if you did not exsist, someone would have to be decieving you. If you are being decived then you must exsist, for exstence is nessissary to be decieved.

No. Those are just statements that lend to more dialogue Lagonia. If it is all an illusion you are not being decieved, you are fulfilling the will of another. That some form of conscious is present does not mean you are physically real. Or that the conscious is completely independant.

READ THIS AND THEN DROP THE SUBJECT!!!!!!!

There is definate proof that you exsist. You believe you exsist, therefor if you did not exsist, someone would have to be decieving you. If you are being decived then you must exsist, for exstence is nessissary to be decieved.

You assert that I believe I exist, when I have started this thread questioning that very fact?

cogito ergo sum

cogito ergo sum

The old standby, eh? Descartes. Pfft.

The old standby, eh? Descartes. Pfft.

...of course where old Rene falls down is that he makes the assumption that he is the agent of the thinking.

Instead of presuming that an agent is required in order to think, and thus allowing him to say 'I think' ('cogito'), he should have realised that 'thinking' could be closer in nature to a phenomenon like 'raining'. We might say 'It is raining', but this does not indicate that 'it' exists. In other words, the possibility that 'thinking' is an agentless activity was not realised by our good friend in his oven.

Thus all he could really have stated was 'there is thinking' or 'cogitatus est'.

Therefore we can see that Descartes proof of his own existence, which was also presented in a more primitive form by St Augustine about a thousand years before, falls down on the basis of not examining its own basic assumptions sufficiently.

...of course where old Rene falls down is that he makes the assumption that he is the agent of the thinking.

Instead of presuming that an agent is required in order to think, and thus allowing him to say 'I think' ('cogito'), he should have realised that 'thinking' could be closer in nature to a phenomenon like 'raining'. We might say 'It is raining', but this does not indicate that 'it' exists.

Thus all he could really have stated was 'there is thinking' or 'cogitatus est'.

Can he really truthfully say that 'there is thinking'? It would seem to me that a more accurate statement would be that 'I perceive that there is thinking', and that the only basic truth would be "I perceive, therefore I am".

Therefore we can see that Descartes proof of his own existence, which was also presented in a more primitive form by St Augustine about a thousand years before, falls down on the basis of not examining its own basic assumptions sufficiently.

That's the same basic reason almost every argument I've seen falls down.

Actually, you are the only one that exists. Everything else, everybody in this forum, the computers, the things that surround you and every person you ever meet, everything is just a figment of your imagination.

Don't let that keep you from having a good time, though.

Actually, you are the only one that exists. Everything else, everybody in this forum, the computers, the things that surround you and every person you ever meet, everything is just a figment of your imagination.

Don't let that keep you from having a good time, though.

Thank you for informing me. I assure you, I won't let it stop me from having a good time.

Can he really truthfully say that 'there is thinking'? It would seem to me that a more accurate statement would be that 'I perceive that there is thinking', and that the only basic truth would be "I perceive, therefore I am".

It is unclear whether he (or any agent) perceives the existence of thought: if we were to imagine a 'cloud' of thought that had the mistaken belief that it perceived thinking, then it would be inaccurate to state "I perceive that there is thinking" - there is neither an 'I' nor a 'perception', just the thought.

EDIT: further to this, if we were to allow the step you suggest, then Descartes would later fall down when he identifies the 'I' as a 'thinking thing', instead it would have to be described as a 'perceiving thing'.

Descarte's cogito ergo sum is fundamentaly flawed. You can't say "I think, therefore, I am" because the therefore has no premise. If Descartes had said "All things that think are" he could then say "I think therefore I am". In his later work he actually took back the "therefore" and just made it "I think, I Am" but that isn't very well known, so people still use "cogito ergo sum."

Descarte's cogito ergo sum is fundamentaly flawed. You can't say "I think, therefore, I am" because the therefore has no premise. If Descartes had said "All things that think are" he could then say "I think therefore I am". In his later work he actually took back the "therefore" and just made it "I think, I Am."


Unless you allow the cogito to be a performative statement, wherein the very announcement of 'cogito' is sufficient to bring the 'I' into existence. Once one has stated that the 'I' is the agent that thinks, then its existence is instantaneously entailed.


The ergo does have a premise, well two actually, one stated and one unstated:

1. I think. (stated)
2. All things which think exist. (unstated)
Therefore I am a thing which exists.

It is unclear whether he (or any agent) perceives the existence of thought: if we were to imagine a 'cloud' of thought that had the mistaken belief that it perceived thinking, then it would be inaccurate to state "I perceive that there is thinking" - there is neither an 'I' nor a 'perception', just the thought.

Hmmmm. So you make a distinction between believing and perceiving. That's fair enough, and I stand corrected. However; I wonder if it is not equally plausible to suggest that we perceive that we believe, rather than that we believe that we perceive.

Hmmmm. So you make a distinction between believing and perceiving. That's fair enough, and I stand corrected. However; I wonder if it is not equally plausible to suggest that we perceive that we believe, rather than that we believe that we perceive.

In this case the perception is a self-reflexive thought process, and so the question is moot - both perception and believing aare just different modes of thinking, and so we may be able to state 'there is reflexive thinking', but that does not necessitate the existence of an agent.

In this case the perception is a self-reflexive thought process, and so the question is moot - both perception and believing aare just different modes of thinking, and so we may be able to state 'there is reflexive thinking', but that does not necessitate the existence of an agent.

Ah. You believe that perception and belief are simply different modes of thinking. Understandable given what we know about our physiology, but still based on the myriad assumptions that accompany all arguments, and thus we would end up going nowhere, as usual. Damned logic. Always leading me in circles. :(

Ah. You believe that perception and belief are simply different modes of thinking.


Certainly in the case where we're working from a basis of Cartesian doubt: he entertained the notion that he could be in the thrall of a deceiving demon, and thus for him such things as perceptions were actual (but possibly false) sense data received by sensory organs. If we go further than him, to allow for the possibility that thought doesn't require an agent, then we can no longer safely assume that at minimum we possess sensory organs (ie. we are rejecting the idea of a brain in a vat). Thus all we are left with are cases of 'self'*-reflexive perceptions of thought, and these are themselves thoughts.


* the 'self' refered to here is not a transcendent 'I' or even an agent of any kind, but rather just thinking reflexively thinking about thought.

Understandable given what we know about our physiology...

Of course, when it comes to your actual everyday world I'm a pretty hardcore materialist, and believe that the mind (thinking) is an emergent characteristic of the physical nature of the brain, and so the notion of 'agentless thought' is relegated to the status of a thought experiment. Why make this assumption? What value to us is believing that we do not exist?

... but still based on the myriad assumptions that accompany all arguments, and thus we would end up going nowhere, as usual. Damned logic. Always leading me in circles. :(

As to whether we can actually use logic to apply existence as a predicate is a debate for another cold winter's night...

Does anyone have any proof that I exist? I've been trying really hard but I can't seem to find any. :(

There isn't any. So just relax and pretend you do. If not, there's probably some ulterior motive to you pretending like you exist.

Of course, when it comes to your actual everyday world I'm a pretty hardcore materialist, and believe that the mind (thinking) is an emergent characteristic of the physical nature of the brain, and so the notion of 'agentless thought' is relegated to the status of a thought experiment. Why make this assumption? What value to us is believing that we do not exist?


Phew... I am not alone. Today is a good day.

...when we will not accept it for the existence of the pink fluffy bunnies flying around me?

The pink fluffy bunnies are real, everything else is a figment of your imagination. :p

Of course, when it comes to your actual everyday world I'm a pretty hardcore materialist, and believe that the mind (thinking) is an emergent characteristic of the physical nature of the brain, and so the notion of 'agentless thought' is relegated to the status of a thought experiment. Why make this assumption? What value to us is believing that we do not exist?
I always wonder why there are not more out there. Given evolution and experiments during brain surgeries I have often wondered what continues the idea that thought is apart from the physical brain. If it is not apart of the brain, I am lead to believe that it would always exist. That would imply consciousness at the same level as ourselves on the part of all other beings. Especially lower mammals, as we evolved from such. Monkeys would be just as intelligent as ourselves, but with differeing physical characteristics. Or, the consciousness exists, but can not manifest itself given the physical limitations. Yet niether is evident, one not recordable and quite a frustrating existence for the consciousness.

I always wonder why there are not more out there. Given evolution and experiments during brain surgeries I have often wondered what continues the idea that thought is apart from the physical brain.

The view that thought is totally dependent on brain activity does however lead to some interesting problems of its own: consciousness becomes just an epiphenomenon that rides along on the actual physical processes. Thus, although we may think we are making decisions and chosing things through conscious thought we are deluded: we only think that we are thinking and that it is affecting the material world. Such eliminative materialism seems to be a quite sound proposition, but is not necessarilly a readily acceptable one - it relegates the perceived 'I' to be just an irrelevant figment that is along for the ride.

The view that thought is totally dependent on brain activity does however lead to some interesting problems of its own: consciousness becomes just an epiphenomenon that rides along on the actual physical processes. Thus, although we may think we are making decisions and chosing things through conscious thought we are deluded: we only think that we are thinking and that it is affecting the material world. Such eliminative materialism seems to be a quite sound proposition, but is not necessarilly a readily acceptable one - it relegates the perceived 'I' to be just an irrelevant figment that is along for the ride.

Well, hmm...

If the percieved I is the result of an individual physical entity would it not follow then that the attached consciousness is not a figment but extension of the physical capabilities of the organ. Thus the organ being individual is with its own individual consciousness, and still therefore an I (or singular).

(let me know if that was worded awkwardly, not so much thought out as it was a stream)

A new mode of analyzing events beyond mere reaction to environmental phenomena. The ability to predict possible events that may occur.

A feedback loop, functions lead to consciousness, consciousness dictates actions towards possible events, subconscious controls reactions to actual events, and then functions return to consciousness.

Well, hmm...

If the percieved I is the result of an individual physical entity would it not follow then that the attached consciousness is not a figment but extension of the physical capabilities of the organ. Thus the organ being individual is with its own individual consciousness, and still therefore an I (or singular).

(let me know if that was worded awkwardly, not so much thought out as it was a stream)

The 'I' is still believed to exist, but it does not cause anything: a physical state or activity within the brain causes a latter physical state or activity. As a side effect of these physical states particular states consciousness are thrown up. However, causation only works in one direction - from the physical to the mental.

'Figment' was probably a bad choice of words as it carries connotations of it being an illusory state, what is illusory is not the existence of the 'I', but instead the belief that it controls the rest of the organism. However, there still remains something mysterious about it - as we see the translation of a physical phenomenon into a mental phenomenon - philosophers like the Churchlands seem to try and get around this problem by stating that 'we only think that we think', but this is something of a sophistry.

A feedback loop, functions lead to consciousness, consciousness dictates actions towards possible events, subconscious controls reactions to actual events, and then functions return to consciousness.

This just opens up problems of dualism. How do the physical and the mental interact with each other?

I don't exist.... I wish I did....

Tonight is random!!!!

This just opens up problems of dualism. How do the physical and the mental interact with each other?

Yes, yes it does. I will have to think about wording what it is I am thinking, or if that thought is what I imagined it to be. Different physical modes to analyze different situations. One being fully cognitive the other purely reactionary. I need to think about it some more.

cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") - René Descartes.

I think someone said something along these lines, but: does it affect your perception of existence whether you actually exist or not? Will anything change in your perceptions of existence if you discover that you do or do not exist? Can you apply this knowledge of your existence to anything in your perceived universe?

Probably not. Therefore, asking wheteher you exist or not is an irrevelant question to your existence.

(Can anybody rephrase that in Latin for me?)

Does anyone have any proof that I exist? I've been trying really hard but I can't seem to find any. :(
I see you. You exist.

(Yes, I have this power.)
(So do you.)

Unless you allow the cogito to be a performative statement, wherein the very announcement of 'cogito' is sufficient to bring the 'I' into existence. Once one has stated that the 'I' is the agent that thinks, then its existence is instantaneously entailed.


The ergo does have a premise, well two actually, one stated and one unstated:

1. I think. (stated)
2. All things which think exist. (unstated)
Therefore I am a thing which exists.
or... I think I am a thing that exists!

1. I think.
2. If I can think, then I must be here to think about things.
3. I must be here.

Can he really truthfully say that 'there is thinking'? It would seem to me that a more accurate statement would be that 'I perceive that there is thinking', and that the only basic truth would be "I perceive, therefore I am".
The distinction you need to make is that of what is perceived and what is experienced.

Perception is of things apart from self; self made aware of things through the senses, objective things that must be touched, tasted, smelled, etc. to be "real".

Experience is of the self. Thought does not come from outside the self, apart from the self; it is entirely subjective. It essentially is the self, for if we have no thought we cease to have self (reference Buddhism). An individuals thoughts are not perceived by the individual; they are experienced.

If "I perceive that there is thinking" going on that means I am observing someone else make funny faces as they ponder their own thoughts. I don't perceive my thoughts, I am aware of them through experiencing them.

If "I perceive, therefore I am" then all that is real is what comes to me from the outside, through my senses. Rather, it is through the entirely subjective yet real experiences that I know I am real.

Of course, while I'm pretty sure I exist, and I'm pretty sure that this computer exists (even if it's just an artifact of my twisted psychology), none of that proves that ANYBODY exists, apart from me.

You could all be the rush of electrons... nothing more than code in a program running on this computer... you may, in fact, all be mere characters in the 'game' called NationStates.

Or, alternatively, the 'texture' on the twisted psychological artifact I call computer... which leads me to think I am either Obsessive/Compulsive or incredibly Narcissistic... since I am STILL reading the texture that my own delusion convinces me is on that artifact...

how are we to know if we exist, or only *think* we exist?

or even better, what if you only exist in another persons thoughts...

I am either Obsessive/Compulsive or incredibly Narcissistic...

This quark is spinning towards your being both (jk):p

i exist, but for what purpose?

Of course, while I'm pretty sure I exist, and I'm pretty sure that this computer exists (even if it's just an artifact of my twisted psychology), none of that proves that ANYBODY exists, apart from me.

You could all be the rush of electrons... nothing more than code in a program running on this computer... you may, in fact, all be mere characters in the 'game' called NationStates.

Or, alternatively, the 'texture' on the twisted psychological artifact I call computer... which leads me to think I am either Obsessive/Compulsive or incredibly Narcissistic... since I am STILL reading the texture that my own delusion convinces me is on that artifact...
We operate every moment of everyday on the assumption that it all holds together, with narry a thought to why it shouldn't, except on the occasions when philosophical pondering and too much time on our hands allows us to engage in speculative fancy. Hotrodders: whether you exist or not doesn't matter at all, because in any case you must operate as if you do. Gotta eat, sleep, get up tomorrow and do it all again. And you will. With narry a thought.

Of course, when it comes to your actual everyday world I'm a pretty hardcore materialist, and believe that the mind (thinking) is an emergent characteristic of the physical nature of the brain, and so the notion of 'agentless thought' is relegated to the status of a thought experiment. Why make this assumption? What value to us is believing that we do not exist?

Does truth need to have a practical value? Is truth for it's own sake valuable?

As to whether we can actually use logic to apply existence as a predicate is a debate for another cold winter's night...

Perhaps.

We operate every moment of everyday on the assumption that it all holds together, with narry a thought to why it shouldn't, except on the occasions when philosophical pondering and too much time on our hands allows us to engage in speculative fancy. Hotrodders: whether you exist or not doesn't matter at all, because in any case you must operate as if you do. Gotta eat, sleep, get up tomorrow and do it all again. And you will. With narry a thought.

I'm well aware of that, thank you. This thread was a counterpoint to the "Proof That God Doesn't Exist" and "Why Argue About God?" threads. I try to get people to realize that God's existence as an unprovable proposition is hardly unique.

This quark is spinning towards your being both (jk):p

Actually, my history pretty much bears out the 'both' assumption, too.

:)

Surely to simply say 'I think, therefor I am' is unbearably trite and not necissarily accurate? The belief that, in order to think, there must be something to do the thinking is not definate. The fumes from a car are hot, but the heat is produced from elsewhere. Could thought not originate from the same demon which Descartes feared had stolen his senses and fooled his perceptions, leaving him as nothing but a toy forced to play out to the will of another being?

Electrical inpulses, drugs and microwaves can all be used to alter thought processes. LSD can leave you believing you can fly. So what is to say that thought is, in itself, any more real than perception?

And surely this is dangerous. What if we do prove that none of us exist? what'll happen then? Will anyone reading the post that proves it suddenly think "Oh yeah! Damned good point!" and disappear? But is it truly better to pretend that we do and hid from the truth? Is it worth wasting the rest of our days in the belief we are real, if in fact we are nothing?