Ooooooooooor you and everyone else could be nothing more than the dream of another being. Who's to say that your consciousness is real or your own for that matter?Verlander said:
LOL I just love screwing with these questions
"I think, therefore I am."
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LOL I just love screwing with these questions
You can?t ultimately; you can always beg the question. It?s not really a useful stance, there?s nothing to suggest it isn?t real and plenty to suggest that even if it isn?t ?real? there?s a certain amount of consistency and in the end as an individual you feel thing you are aware of yourself and it?s painful if you don?t pay attention to it. There are people that don't believe this is real but even they get on with their lives because there's nothing else to be done about it.
I've always wondered if this life is just a dream and that nothing I hear or see even exist. I think that if you can physically see something it exists. You can't see me therefore I don't exist, Haha!......Oh, wait....IVE CONFUSED MYSELF
Then I exist in the realm of that imagination. Simple.Madara XIII said:Ooooooooooor you and everyone else could be nothing more than the dream of another being. Who's to say that your consciousness is real or your own for that matter?Verlander said:
LOL I just love screwing with these questions
Then I'd need to exist in order to imagine.Griffstar said:
I do not have to, for I had to read through Descartes' meditations in college, to which I discovered that he has done this already for me.Griffstar said:
As awesome as the escapist is, I doubt it will be able to prove something that generations of philosophers have failed to.
What I find really absurd about "I think therefore I am", is that the way Decartes then uses that statement to prove that everything, and not just himself, exists is through the use of God. I can't recall the exact line of thought he uses, but the point is that despite doubting that everything, himself included, was real or existed at all, he was 100% sure God was real. Times sure have changed.
What I find really absurd about "I think therefore I am", is that the way Decartes then uses that statement to prove that everything, and not just himself, exists is through the use of God. I can't recall the exact line of thought he uses, but the point is that despite doubting that everything, himself included, was real or existed at all, he was 100% sure God was real. Times sure have changed.
Frist thing, ha I know where that philosophic is from.
Second is all I can say is what "you" are? Since you would of use "we" and everything else exists to refer to everyone including you.
Second is all I can say is what "you" are? Since you would of use "we" and everything else exists to refer to everyone including you.
What? If we are real then we will have an afterlife?Riddle78 said:
OT: Even if we aren't, then what does it matter? Feels real enough, and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise. I've not seen any glitches in the Matrix so I think I'm happy with the idea that we do exist.
There is no reason to state why I, or anyone else for the matter exists, you proved the philosophical point in the name of the thread by quoting Decartes. I think, therefore I am. It's obvious. Note when you dream, your thoughts go about without you having any control over them, but we exist here in this world because we're able to think. We're able to comprehend and consider, and generally think stuff through.
Decartes made a good point saying that if we think, we exist. Prove him wrong, instead. I dare you. No discussion value in this thread.
Decartes made a good point saying that if we think, we exist. Prove him wrong, instead. I dare you. No discussion value in this thread.
I exist, and I perceive a world around me. My natural inclination is to care about the world around me, and the people in it. Therefore, the world being real to me, and the perceived existence of the people around me being important, the question of whether they exist as consciousnesses separate from my own is moot, because I'd treat my reality the same way regardless of the answer. However, that's not exactly what you asked, and depending on the answer, maybe that's not what I should do. You asked me to prove that they do, in fact, exist as separate entities. Beyond a vague "it's the simplest explanation," I can't. Even if I wrote a hundred page treatise, I couldn't prove anything substantially. Like Socrates, I'll readily admit I don't know the answer.
Speaking of which, this seems like a very Socratic thing to do, to walk into the forums and ask the people in the street and on the boards what they make of the question, then deconstruct their answers.
Speaking of which, this seems like a very Socratic thing to do, to walk into the forums and ask the people in the street and on the boards what they make of the question, then deconstruct their answers.
Well duh, but you're ignoring the second part of the question: prove others exist (as separate, discreet consciousnesses). That's the far trickier part. Furthermore, your implications that Descartes was infallible are kind of...wrong. Descartes was a genius in not only in philosophy as we know it, but also in the natural sciences and math. However, an in depth examination of many of his texts reveals a lot of debatable - even logically bad - assertions.Zarmi said:
I can't. No one can. The only thing I can prove, is prove to myself that I exist. I can't prove it to you or anyone else, and I can't prove that anything else exists either, just that I do.
Also fun fact: Descartes actually came up with the phrase "Ego cogito, ego sum" meaning "I think, I am" but when he handed out his papers to his peers, one of the notes he got back had it phrased with "therefore" which he tought was better, so he published it.
Also fun fact: Descartes actually came up with the phrase "Ego cogito, ego sum" meaning "I think, I am" but when he handed out his papers to his peers, one of the notes he got back had it phrased with "therefore" which he tought was better, so he published it.
