"I think, therefore I am."
- Thread starter Griffstar
- Start date
Recommended Videos
That you would ask us whether we exist belies the idea we don't.Griffstar said:
"I may be talking to a dream or something, though."
Then you confirm our existence as a dream.
And I'd be thrilled if you would say you're dreaming about me, an existential X or not. That's sexy.
Ahem, lucid dreams. You can think and evaluate your experiences during those, Who's to say this isn't just one big one? You could be having a lucid dream right now, in some strange world completely different from the one you think you know. I've had a realistic lucid dream before. Let me tell you that it pretty much feels like being awake. You even perceive pain, just like in real life. Prove this isn't just some gigantic lucid dream, for the one who's dreaming.Zarmi said:
Oh you solipsists are all so adorable. Look how you move around inside your box of existential woe! Whose the only person in the world? Whose the only person in the world? Aww, you can't answer because you don't acknowledge any existence beyond yourself!Griffstar said:
To be fair, a dream is in the domain of the self. You do not get dreams from outside sources, they are a construct of your mind. The paradox, as always, is how can you tell the difference?Blank Verse said:
Plato's Cave doesn't exist, Plato just as his pupil and the guy before him are highly overestimated people. They only introduced what if problems, for which no solution is necessarry. The Greeks before Socrates were a lot smarter, we would have had flying cars (screw that we would have colonized space) by now if the way of thinking of the presocrates greeks had continued.
And before I get a witty reply. Yes I'm fully aware that "I think, therefor I am" is from Decrates, but it's just his answer of his version of Plato's cave.
And before I get a witty reply. Yes I'm fully aware that "I think, therefor I am" is from Decrates, but it's just his answer of his version of Plato's cave.
No one exists, there is no reality, this is all merely a flash of irregularity in the void that is nothing. Whatever this is, is simply a mathematical equation, but all the numbers are 0, and when the equation is complete and the answer is proved to be 0, then everything will revert back to nothing, until the next time, which there will always be a next time. As the state of nothing will never be affected by time, as time can only affect mass and energy, which nothing is, and nothing will be, because everything is nothing, and nothing is everything.
Why does it matter? We as humans need to stop thinking we can prove everything, some things are beyond our grasp, some can't be proved or disproved.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates
Socrates owns Descartes and he didn't even exist!
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates
Socrates owns Descartes and he didn't even exist!
Oh you solipsists are all so adorable. Look how you move around inside your box of existential woe! Whose the only person in the world? Whose the only person in the world? Aww, you can't answer because you don't acknowledge any existence beyond yourself![/quote]Griffstar said:
Mmmmh, I only made this thread to challenge the users of The Escapist. Sorry that you felt the need to post a meaningless response.
I don't have to, all logical evidence dictates that everything exists, and that we can accurately understand it. we may be tricked, but the fact remains that we all encounter a reality which is the same. If you walk into someone, they feel it, and that sort of thing.Griffstar said:
To play along: I would say the fact that people can die of starvation/dehydration is a pretty compelling argument. If we can avoid dying by eating and drinking, then it is reasonable to assume that our bodies do need food and water, and that our senses inform us of the world around us accurately enough that we can satisfy those needs. That is pretty good evidence, as I said, but not proof.
However, the point is mute because we cannot operate under any other assumption. Assuming that we cannot interpret reality, or that it doesn't exist, leads to the conclusion that nothing we do matters, which leads to doing nothing and dying off. we can therefore, only assume that reality is as it appears, at least for the most part.
Decartes exists alright, so do you and so do I. But that statement does not fall or stand "with I think, therefor I am". His conclusion is correct (trivial, but correct non-the-less) but his deduction is flawed. If something that things exists, then so does something that sees,feels,hears or taste.Zarmi said:
... Or this could be real, but nothing awaits us.Riddle78 said:
OT: I can't. There is no way to prove the existence of anything at all, besides ourselves. And even that is debatable...
Thought exists. I cannot be sure of outside stimulus, but thoughts do exist. Someone must be thinking these thoughts, therefore I exist to think these thoughts. Sketchy memories of Meditations on First Philosophy seem to indicate that Descartes only really fell down whin it came to the ontological argument for the existence of God. I get the feeling that he was compromised by fear of the inquisition.
How do we learn by dying? That's a pseudo-intellectual statement right there.Riddle78 said:
Besides, what we perceive from the apparent world around us as real, doesn't that make it reality, by default?
Well done, for proving your point.zehydra said:
Easy, I exist because I think. Everything that I perceive also exists as perceptions; just as a computer screen can display an image of a man that doesn't exist as a man but as bits of information in the computer, a pattern of photons, and bits of information in any observers' brains (note that this analogy assumes, for the sake of clarity, that perception is reality.)Griffstar said:
What cannot be known is what we exist as. I could be a man, or I could be the fleeting dream of a crack-addicted cosmic ladybug. Everything I perceive could be real, could be illusions, or my perceptions could be incorrect interpretations of real visual data (as one experiences while smoking Salvia divinorum.)
Of course, from a practical standpoint, it doesn't really matter what things exist as since that wouldn't change my experience.
How can you be so certain that the afterlife exists?Riddle78 said: