Poll: Do you think that you exist?

[ReincarnatedFTP]

I think there should be a fourth option. "I dont know and I dont care" Im going to live my life the way I want to weither or not it's real, if I can do something about it if im not real then I will, otherwise then lets keepa rockin.

This. It's like free will versus fate. If I have free will, good, I'll use it. If I don't, why the fuck should I get depressed or thoughtful about it? I'm just another cog in the machine and I mine as well play my role, since I don't have a choice anyways.

Also existence is on different levels. The word "exist" exists not as a physical entity, but as print on pages, thoughts that fit language in your mind, and is in its own realm. To a person not using the word "exist" or having ever seen it, it doesn't exist in their world.Yet.

Potentially in some things, you can make something exist just by believing it, thinking of it, or utilizing it. For example, let's say I believe in Christianity, and I'm motivated by my love for Jesus's philosophy to go help the poor. If I hadn't been a believer I wouldn't have done that and more poor would have died. Ergo, Jesus had tangible influence in this world. So does Allah everytime a suicide bomb goes off and so did the Christian God everytime a Muslim or Jew was killed in the Crusades.

 

[OmegaXIII]

From what i understand of it, Kant gives a pretty good reason for both myself and the world (at least in some respect) existing. However if i were to try and explain it here i would no doubt fail spectacularly. I suggest people do look it up though it's interesting stuff

 

[goldenheart323]

You should explore quantum mechanics, (the laws of physics that dictate how atoms & sub-atomic particles behave). Things at that level exist in a fuzzy state of probability. Particles act like waves of possibility... until we measure them, (i.e. look at them). Scientists believe particles act like waves until we try to find a particle. When we look for a particle, the wave collapses into a solid particle.

Look up the dual slit experiment. An electron is shot at a barrier with 2 slits in it. I don't have time to get into it much, but according to the math, it goes through the left slit, it goes through the right slit, AND it goes through both slits. All possibilities exists simultaneously. According to experiment the results depend on where you look. If you look at the slits, you see a solid electron passing through a single slit. If you look at the solid barrier after the dual slit barrier, the electron looks like a wave that went through both slits and interfered with itself.

Sounds crazy, but the question is not "Do we exist?" the question is "Does the world exist if we don't look at it?"

 

[Walden]

If I doubt, I cannot doubt that I doubt. If I doubt, I think. If I think, there must be something to do the thinking, therefore I exist.

 

[Double A]

If I didn't, how am I posting?

 

[The Austin]

I'm only here to act as an ambassador to earth for the Guinea Pig overlords.

I exist because they allow me to.

 

[Embright]

As far as we can understand, humans are sentient. How this occurs is still a mystery but it if you don't count your body as part of your existence and focus on your mind then if ideas, memories, and the like exist it is reasonable to conclude that you exist.

 

[Rock 'n' Soul]

This 3000 word paper I'm writing is making me painfully aware of my existence.

 

[benoitowns]

Someone probably asked this before, but I don't care. Do you think that you exist objectively, or do you think that you, and by extension your life, are merely the product of someone else's imagination, or an illusion that some non-sentient entity or process created. Please explain your reasoning for thinking that you either do or do not exist. I think that I exist, because I think, and to think is to accept that your capacity for thought, and by extension you, exist, so I think therefore I am. Besides, Occum's razor dictates that the simplest, most obvious answer is usually correct.

Probably, but reality (or at least meaning) can only be found in the phenomenal realm, not the noumenal.

I believe that we exist until we think that we aren't. Perhaps, if I considered that I was not actually existent, I would simply vanish into thi

... how did he press post?

Perhaps he was dictating?

But then who told the typist to press post? Wouldn't ceasing to exist necessitate falling out of the space-time continuum entirely, causing his account to have never existed? Otherwise people would constantly cease to exist when thinking about this in front of other people, who would see them vanish, and tell the world.

Yes, cuz I can touch myself at night.

So you only think you exist at night? That seems odd.

I think there should be a fourth option. "I dont know and I dont care" Im going to live my life the way I want to weither or not it's real, if I can do something about it if im not real then I will, otherwise then lets keepa rockin.

I thought about adding that option, but I decided against it. If you really didn't care you would not be on this thread.

I am thinking, there for I exist. The only thing I can know with absolute certainty is that I exist. Even if what I am experiencing is all my imagination, and I am just a brain in a vat, there is some objective plane of existence where I exist.

 

[MR T3D]

no. I KNOW I EXIST
[/THREAD]

 

[Hod86]

Cogito ergo sum. Nuff said.

 

[Yoshi_egg80]

I doubt, therefor I am.

 

[Comma-Kazie]

"I think, therefore I am." - Rene Descartes

"I don't think very much, therefore I might not be." - Me

 

[szs0061]

Constitutio Ergo Sum.

I post, therefore I am.

wrong, its cogito ergo sum

 

[gundargundar]

Its pretty likely that sometime a supercomputer will be created,
then its likely at some point in time the super computer will make every possible universe
then in that simulation the same thing will happen
so its pretty likely that we are all in a simulation of a simulation of a simulation etc.

 

[Valate_v1legacy]

I think I am all, therefore I am all. At least to you. Soon. Time is not relative to my disastrous benefits.

 

[zamble]

Nope. Or maybe I do? We'll never know...

 

[ReincarnatedFTP]

Its pretty likely that sometime a supercomputer will be created,
then its likely at some point in time the super computer will make every possible universe
then in that simulation the same thing will happen
so its pretty likely that we are all in a simulation of a simulation of a simulation etc.

But for all purposes every universe would be "real" to its citizens in it's own right since they would be self-aware. What would distinguish us from AI in video games, is that they're not aware of themselves or their universe individually, they're just following programming. I guess you could argue that humans are just really complex AI following programming as well, but... If a simulation functions the exact same way as a reality would, is there even a difference at that point? Also, if it's a supercomputer, is it so advanced there are never programming errors? Wouldn't there be glitches and such where the laws of the simulation universe are broken?

 

[Ultra_Caboose]

Classic saying, I think, therefore I am. I exist because I am aware of my own existence. That and I just stepped on a toothpick. How does something that doesn't exist shriek that loud?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Constitutio Ergo Sum.

I post, therefore I am.

wrong, its cogito ergo sum

Wrong, cogito ergo sum is "I think, therefore I am." Nil Desperandum