To clarify: We've all (and I only say this because every person I've bought it up to has agreed, so perhaps this doesn't universally apply) had moments where we were concentrating extremely hard on an event out of our control (usually freaking out from most of the stories I've heard, but I've had a few moments of calm, clarity filled focus that have worked as well) and the event, regardless of how improbable, turned out exactly as we pictured it (or at least close enough to get the eerie effect).McNoobin said:
Prove your existence.
- Thread starter krazykidd
- Start date
I, in all honesty, cannot prove that. We do not know whether we are all the figment of somebody's imagination, the creation of some divine being, an accident, or some combination of those. I personally believe we are an accidental creation of some divine being. But for all we know, you could be correct. I certainly hope so. It means the world isn't REALLY as shit as it is in this existence.
The universe itself is infinite, For it to be a figment of a mind it would have to be in an infinitely large computational system with an infinite amount of energy.
I'm real. But you're all just fragments of my imagination. I can prove this, try touching my heart.
Remember everyone, he is demanding we prove our existence to him. The old cogito doesn't work.
Instead I will argue that I am far too awesome, intelligent, and enigmatic a person to come out of OP's feeble imagination.
Instead I will argue that I am far too awesome, intelligent, and enigmatic a person to come out of OP's feeble imagination.
For all you people just mindlessly typing "Cogito ergo sum" away, your behaviour could easily be emulated by bots. You as well as I, but at least I'm trying to be creative.
EDIT: And for all you fans of Mr. Descartes, I assume you think that if your brain is extracted from your body and inserted into a robot, you're still going to be the same persons? Is your body just a puppet of your brain?
EDIT: And for all you fans of Mr. Descartes, I assume you think that if your brain is extracted from your body and inserted into a robot, you're still going to be the same persons? Is your body just a puppet of your brain?
there is no way
anything we do is a figment of your imagination along with us
the only way you could prove it is by realising that the amout of replies to this thread is already greater than your subconcious can create (personality, life story etc.)
edit: oh yeah, check to see if the top is still spinning
anything we do is a figment of your imagination along with us
the only way you could prove it is by realising that the amout of replies to this thread is already greater than your subconcious can create (personality, life story etc.)
edit: oh yeah, check to see if the top is still spinning
I have the best answer for this thread.
How do I prove to you, TC, that I and everyone else here exist, and that we aren't just a figment of your imagination? Simple:
Do you HONESTLY believe that you are creative enough to have thought all of us up? All of our ideas, our differences, our personalities, etc?
If you cannot believe me, believe your own limitations.
How do I prove to you, TC, that I and everyone else here exist, and that we aren't just a figment of your imagination? Simple:
Do you HONESTLY believe that you are creative enough to have thought all of us up? All of our ideas, our differences, our personalities, etc?
If you cannot believe me, believe your own limitations.
These are two different questions.krazykidd said:
I clearly exist. If you understand "I" in this context as being the indexical device that points to the origin of this particular statement, then in order for the statement to be meaningful, "I" must refer. You perfectly well understand the statement, because even if "I" is just the same as "you" in this post, it still has a direct referent. So "I" successfully refers, and hence "there exists x such that 'I' in the context of a post made under the user title "Indeterminacy" refers to x" is made true.
What your first question is asking, however, is about the identity conditions for being "me". And in fact, it is perfectly legitimate to think that the identity conditions for being "me" are identical to those of being anyone else, or could be identical with some fictional entity you've created to make sense of the data you encounter.
However, here is an argument to suggest that if this is what you think, you're necessarily equivocating:
Let us suppose that you are just a brain in a vat. You are fed sensory stimuli directly by an electrical connection to a computer simulation. Now, suppose this brain in a vat responds to an item of sensory stimulus by thinking the phrase "That is a tree".
Does "The Tree" really exist? Is "The Tree" merely the construct of a computer program? Well, let's ask something. What do you refer to when you say "that is a tree"? You clearly don't refer to actual trees, since you've never seen an actual tree. You also don't consciously refer to "a particular series of computer generated images fed directly into my brain", because actually, the computer doesn't feed to you the fact that you are just a brain in a vat.
"Tree", on the thoughts of the brain in a vat, actually refers to something going on in the simulation. In fact, so does every thought the brain might have: Including the thought "everything I see is just a computer simulation". Being a computer simulation, to the Brain in a vat, just means being a computer simulation within the simulation, and does not extend to the kind of simulation that actually composes everything the brain experiences.
Now, to generalise. You've proposed that we're all a figment of imagination. But Whose Imagination Are We A Figment Of? Yours? Well, you are a feature of the sensory world you experience too; or rather, your having experiences is something that constitutes the things that you're proposing to be imaginary.
It would be either an equivocation or false to say that we are all only in your imagination, because you're already presupposing that there is a dividing line between "you" and "us", and between "imaginary" and "real"; a division that's only in the imagination you're supposing we all exist in. In the imagination, we clearly are different from you. Outside it, you have no means to refer to yourself independently of referring to us.
Therefore, not only do we exist, but given the mode of our existence, we're not imaginary either.
QED, biatch.
Cogito ergo Sum doesn't necessarily prove that YOU exist, just that SOMEONE (something?) exists.ravensheart18 said:
Nothing says that those thoughts in your head that you seem to controll doesn't belong to someone else, and you are just a part of this somoene/something.