"I think, therefore I am."

[rutger5000]

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.

 

[Stuberfinn88]

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.

 

[Harmondale2]

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!

 

[Griffstar]

Prove to me that you and everything else exists.

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]

Mmmmh, I only made this thread to challenge the users of The Escapist. Sorry that you felt the need to post a meaningless response.

 

[spartan231490]

Prove to me that you and everything else exists.

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.

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.

 

[rutger5000]

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 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.

 

[katsumoto03]

Aah...The age old philisophical question. Are we simply brains in a jar,recieving digital stimulus,or are we truly as we precieve ourselves to be? There is no way to know for certain,except through death.

And why would death be more real than life? How do you know that the afterlife is real?

For if we die,we'll then realize if our lives were illusionary. If they weren't illusions,then we have an afterlife. If they are an illusion,then theres...Nothing.

... Or this could be real, but nothing awaits us.

OT: I can't. There is no way to prove the existence of anything at all, besides ourselves. And even that is debatable...

 

[octafish]

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.

 

[zehydra]

What if this world your affecting is in reality a figment of your imagination? This would be done to make you believe you are actually doing something.

Then I'd need to exist in order to imagine.

Why do you say that?

Because when we say "I am imagining" it presupposes my existence, you cannot say that something does something and it doesn't exist. That'd be a contradiction.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I exist because I am a Nietzsche Ubermensch and you are all my slaves.

 

[DasUberCow]

Aah...The age old philisophical question. Are we simply brains in a jar,recieving digital stimulus,or are we truly as we precieve ourselves to be? There is no way to know for certain,except through death.

How do we learn by dying? That's a pseudo-intellectual statement right there.

Besides, what we perceive from the apparent world around us as real, doesn't that make it reality, by default?

What if this world your affecting is in reality a figment of your imagination? This would be done to make you believe you are actually doing something.

Then I'd need to exist in order to imagine.

Why do you say that?

Because when we say "I am imagining" it presupposes my existence, you cannot say that something does something and it doesn't exist. That'd be a contradiction.

Well done, for proving your point.

 

[Griffstar]

Sorry, meant to edit something.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Prove to me that you and everything else exists.

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.)

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.

Aah...The age old philisophical question. Are we simply brains in a jar,recieving digital stimulus,or are we truly as we precieve ourselves to be? There is no way to know for certain,except through death.

And why would death be more real than life? How do you know that the afterlife is real?

For if we die,we'll then realize if our lives were illusionary. If they weren't illusions,then we have an afterlife. If they are an illusion,then theres...Nothing.

How can you be so certain that the afterlife exists?

 

[SovietSecrets]

I affect the world around me to such an extent that only I could be doing it. Therefore I exist

What if this world your affecting is in reality a figment of your imagination? This would be done to make you believe you are actually doing something.

For imagination to happen, before that there needs to be existence. Otherwise you just contradict yourself. Thought itself is consciousness and not imaginative.

 

[Atticus89]

Prove it? Okay.

Jump off a bridge. If you're dead, you existed. If you're alive, you'll exist in a great deal of pain.

(seriously, please don't jump off a bridge. nobody is doing that and you don't need to start a trend.)

 

[Ace of Spades]

Whether or not I exist is irrelevant. Even if nothing that is happening is real, those non-real standards still govern anything that happens.

"I thought it wasn't real."
"Your mind makes it real."

 

[ToxinArrow]

Prove to me that you and everything else exists.

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.

Pretty much what this guy said.

/thread.

 

[The Shade]

I can only be certain that I exist, in some shape or form, because I can think it.

Anything else is still open for debate.

 

[Venereus]

Seriously, do you homework. We're already beyond that question.

 

[BioHazardMan]

Prove to me that you and everything else exists.

Silly solipsist.