How do I know I Exist?

[The Rockerfly]

You have 5 senses that make you aware of your surroundings and you have free will therefore you can think yourself. I am well aware that your 5 senses could be boundaries to govern you existence but it makes more sense to believe in them then it does to not believe in them

But let's say you and I are both looking at something. It's an apple. It's red. But what is red? It's just the way your eyes send signals to your brain, right? Is my red the same as yours? The same as a colorblind person? If not, is it really the same apple? because yours is a different color than mine.. well a different red. You get the idea

Also, don't get me and my deterministic mind started on free will

Well you say that but animals who are colourblind can see that a wasps yellow and black colours are aggressive. When handing a blind person a red object you can explain characteristics such as warm. However colour is a perception and we associate colour with a name because it's how we see that reflection of light. Blind people still have their imagination and can still imagine a colour which gives the illusion of a correctly coloured object.

Granted we could all be seeing different colours but for the massive amount of the planet that see the earth in the same colour I can safely assume that it is that shade of the light spectrum. Ah determinism or more commonly known as a sane and logical human being, how many people are intelligent enough though to follow correct cause and effect though? Misinformation, emotions, morality drugs, thrills and the law allow us to break determinism otherwise the world would be a much easier place to comprehend and predictions would be easy.

With animals it is easy, you steal a birds egg and they will chase after you and get it back no problem. Conversely, if you steal a humans child they could either call the police, do nothing, chase after you, kill you or pray someone will bring him back (and many more options). There are a limited number of choices with each of our reactions but determinism really isn't that useful in humans, again going back to free will.

 

[jboking]

Ask yourself this question, and then answer.

I have to deliver a presentation that has me "prove that I DON'T know I exist" and can simply not figure out how to go about doing this. Its pretty damn hard to prove you don't know something like that!
Wonder if anyone here knows about TOK...

So it's a presentation? Here is an easy way to start: Ask your audience to list some things that they would use to define you(meaning you, the presenter...not themselves). While they list things, write them on a board to get a visual in there(always a bonus in presentations). Agree with their list, if it's accurate, then say there is probably one thing they didn't list among all the traits: You are conscious. Explain that consciousness is just another small trait of who you are. Then move into Descartes. Bring up Descartes phrase, "I think, therefore I am." Show that the only thing it proves is that you are conscious. What it can't prove is that anything material exists, as thought is not a material thing. Move back to the board where they listed off your traits. Start putting lines through each trait that is physical (hint, it will likely be all but Conscious and maybe one or two more - such as kind). Show them that Descartes cannot prove that your concept or even their concept of who you are can be completely proven.

If you want to say, as TOK delves into the senses a bit, that I can prove I exist via the experience of senses, you simply have to bring up cases where the senses can be tricked. There are literally thousands (Drugs, fever hallucinations, schizophrenic, the 'dead hand/finger' trick, etc.).

This shouldn't be too hard, you just have to approach it like a debater. That is, definitionally with plenty of technicalities.

 

[PayneTrayne]

Prove that you don't know that your surroundings exist. Our concepts of them are definitely false. We idealize table as solid, but when we go down to it, there are holes.

If the world we perceive doesn't exist the way we believe it does, then what's to say that we do? We believe we are capable of thought, but what's to say that we are doing so uniquely? How do we not know we are not programmed.

 

[William Ossiss]

Ask yourself this question, and then answer.

I have to deliver a presentation that has me "prove that I DON'T know I exist" and can simply not figure out how to go about doing this. Its pretty damn hard to prove you don't know something like that!

perhaps we are but dreams of some creature (lets use adam and the bible. i know, not everyone believes, but its the easiest way to do this. in the bible, it says that god put adam to sleep. but it never said he woke him up. so maybe we are all but a giant dream.) simply flitting thoughts on the pages of a story book. or perhaps we are characters in a cartoon. or programs for a very large machine... (anyone up for that restaurant at the end of the universe?) perhaps we have no free will and are just pretending to actually be.


i think of this crap on my free time.

 

[Axzarious]

I think, therefore I am. I exist, but I am unsure about you. It's up to everything else to prove its existance to me.

 

[Bender Rodriguez]

Cogito ergo sum by Descartes.

It proves one exists, but not in what form

 

[Torrasque]

Well, there's always the Matrix idea - if all of the senses are merely electrical signals sent to the brain, then they can be faked with the right kind of machinery, and we would have absolutely no way of knowing it. And if someone were to simulate a brain on a computer, and send the according signals to it, theoretically it would feel as though it does exist, although it is no more than code.

You can also say that when people dream, everything seems perfectly natural to them, it is only when they wake up that they realize that a lot of what happened is impossible, so who's to say we aren't part of someone's dream?

Hope this helps

Thats actually called the Allegory of the Cave, which was created by Plato.
Matrix 1 is entirely based on this theory, Ghost in the Shell, and a few other philosophical gems.
lol, the guys who made Matrix pitched their idea by showing a clip from Ghost in the Shell, the first movie.
/respect

Just show the Matrix.

Or Ghost in the Shell.

Go for GitS. It has tits. And brainy bits.

And headshots.

My god, are there headshots...

I fucking love Ghost in the Shell sooooooo much.
Best series was the second, but I want MOAR!

OP: Playing devil's advocate is fun, especially for this topic.
Modern philosophy is still trying to create an air-tight argument in favor that we all exist, so you technically can say "none of you can convince me that I don't exist, so /FACE!"
Except that is just silly.

If you want to argue that you DON'T exist, then your argument is irrelevant, you're wasting time that is not, and arguing a point that never was.
If you want to argue that you DO exist, then argue the inverse of this.
An argument that someone might bring up is "well, you may not exist, but what about us? Do we not exist?"
To this, you say "I am a bundle of experiences and sensations, it is all I am, and all I will ever know. If you say that I do not exist, then my sensations also do not exist, my experiences do not exist. The only way I can experience your existence, is through my experiences and sensations, so therefore, you do not exist either."

Yeah... I've watched alot of Ghost in the Shell, and thought over this subject alot. My 2 years of Philosophy doesn't help either

TL;DR
"I exist": Simply saying that I am, means that I am. My evidence is not air-tight because the greatest minds in history have not gotten to that point yet, but simply experiencing the sensations around me about this proves my existence adequately.
"I don't exist": Then I don't exist, and simply saying so is a waste of time that never was.

Hope that all makes sense...

 

[midnight fantasy]

Hey I had TOK and well in a good presentation you will sum up the evidence that you can prove you do exist vs the evidence that you can't prove you exist and reach the conclusion you can't prove you exist.


However here are SOME ideas:

you can only prove you exist when someone else can prove you exist (the question there is how do they prove it.)

I think therefore I am (but how do I know these are my thoughts? How do I know I am actually thinking?)

You may infact reach the conclusion you DO exist and well your teacher should accept that as long as it is backed up properly!

 

[YesIPlayTheBagpipes]

try telling that to the credit card companies...

 

[captaincabbage]

You think, therefor you are. Most fitting for this: If you didn't exist, how could you pose that question?

yup, that's pretty much it.

If this doesn't answer your question OP, get someone to punch you in the back of the head. If it hurt like all hell then I'd say that's pretty fuckin' decisive proof that you exist.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

This may blow your mind, but in truth, WE ARE ALL SWEET POTATOES!!!

I know, right?

I think, therefore I'm a yam.

 

[Sethzard]

Well, one way that you could put it is that you could say that in actual fact you are a construct of someone else (Chuck Norris maybe) and although you think, you aren't independent therefore you don't exist in a way.

 

[The .50 Caliber Cow]

Clearly the only option is to not show up for the presentation, since you don't exist to give it, seems reasonable to me!

Spoiler: You sir are

So what he said. If you know you don't exist, you are under no obligations to do anything.

 

[Laser Priest]

If I didn't, I wouldn't care.

A more apathetic take on "I think, therefore I am," I'd say.

 

[pope_of_larry]

i couldn't find the real quote so t.v troops has to work for this. In The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the titular guide proves that there is no life in the universe by first informing us that the universe is of infinite size, and that there is a finite number of inhabited worlds in the universe. Since any finite number divided by infinity is so small "as makes no odds", then clearly any life in the galaxy must be the product of a deranged mind.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

This smells of a university student with a Philosophy paper due the next morning and a blank Word document. Crack open your text book and search the Table of Contents, it'd probably do you more good than it will at its current post as a $60 doorstop.

 

[senorfatso]

Use Hume's bundle theory. Projections of properties of objects (including our own consciousness) are all that we know of, the actual self is unknowable. Take that Descartes.

 

[Kair]

Existential questions are troll material.

You are because you know you are and think you are, that is you and that is all you are.

 

[qeinar]

You think, therefor you are. Most fitting for this: If you didn't exist, how could you pose that question?

pretty much this. ^^