Prove to me your existence

Can you find a way to prove to me that you eixist knowing that, to me, existence is the ability to rationalize, through rationality, formulate a mentality, through your mentality, formulate a reality and therefore, establishign existence? However, your rationality cannot be compromised and relinquished because then, everything, including your existence, is forfeited and not existing for me.

Are you a philosophy major or studying philosphy in college? (Supposing that you're an existing rationality that can provide me with a valid and genuine response)

I still can't solve your riddle, but I'm still trying to grasp it.

My impression of what you mean is this:

You find yourself apparently existing, in an apparently real world, which apparently also contains other persons.

You suspect that this apparently real world is not in fact real.

Your salvation, so to speak, from this unreal world is what I would call your reason, and what you call your rationality, or your ability to rationalise.

(I think we are talking about the same thing, but I would point out that to "rationalise" is usually taken to mean to provide spurious reasons, for a conclusion taken dogmatically to be true in advance. I am fairly sure that you do not mean this.)

In your view (as I imagine it to be), the means of salvation through reason is as follows:

Your reason enables to discern the unreality of the world that presents itself to you as the one real world.

Your reason also enables you to grasp, even if only dimly at first, aspects of the world as it really is.

In a kind of leap of faith, you take as real that which your reason tells you must be real, rather than the apparent world which so insistently and commandingly presents itself to you as real.

In doing so, you have a deep impression that you are coming closer to being your own real self, even though this rational leap of faith seems to bring you into conflict with everything which previously seemed to you to be real, and which demands that you continue to take it to be real.

On the other hand, insofar as you yield to the demand of 'reality', you feel that you are not being true to yourself, you are losing your real existence.

It is a kind of existentialist version of Pascal's wager, in that, although you do not really know for certain which version of 'reality' is real, and along with it, which version of your 'self' is real, in one version of 'reality' you as a person are crushed out of existence, while in the other version of 'reality', you at least have a chance of existing, so you 'bet' on that, just as Pascal 'bet' on God.

If you give up your reason, you give up the world, and with the world, you lose also your own self, your soul.

Am I merely projecting, or am I on roughly the right lines so far?

This is not a solution to the riddle, not even a guess at the solution, only an attempt to guess imaginatively what, in your mind, is the precondition even for an understanding of what the riddle is.

No, I have never taken any formal course in philosophy. I have an existential riddle of my own to solve, and no existing scheme of thought (that I am aware of) even seems to enable me to formulate the riddle, let alone solve it, therefore, by definition, I am involved in philosophy, at least until I find my way through philosophy to some more concrete and specific intellectual and/or spiritual discipline which enables me to confront and outface my own Sphinx.

to know so much about what i am convinced about in this conversation with little insight on my rationality is pointless to me. I am not convinced of your existence regardless of what you say. So prove to me that you exist. If that is what you find more important then let's experiment with the idea because, as of right now, that's all i've been conversing with, ideas. Let us turn the tables from your perception of phychological to the general idea of logical. I don't care much for knowing that you can prove it if i can't see your rationlaity however, which i have yet to view in this discourse. I already stated that without rationality, you are nonexistent. Twirlip posted on my thread with some insight on that. (Twirlip being nonexistent because i have not seen any rationality on his behalf)

You suspect that this apparently real world is not in fact real.

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If you don't find his talking to you to be good evidence that he exists, I've not a clue what you would find to be good evidence. And if you're not going to use reason here, why should anyone try to prove anything to you in the first place? It's what we call a lost cause. And sometimes those causes should stay lost, in my opinion.

It is not really that his talking to him is not evidence that he exists. If he is talking to you then he does exist, otherwise, how could he be talking to you? Evidence for something cannot be the thing itself, can it be. Evidence for an elephant is not an elephant. An elephant is what we need evidence for. If I point to an elephant in a cage in a zoo that would not be evidence of an elephant. That would be the elephant.

What would be the basis of this suspicion, I wonder. And, if this world were not the real world, then what would the real one be like? What would make this one different?

If someone spoke to me, I would find that good evidence that they exist. Because, as you pointed out, if they spoke to me, it means they exist.

That you spoke to him, you don't think is evidence that you exist?

But the world as it is investigated by science is not the world that any of us actually lives in.


We live in various shared 'realities'.

Of course, my having spoken to him would not merely be good evidence that I exist, it would be my existing.

What would make you think that, the world as it is investigated by science is not the world that any of us actually lives in?

I would think that it is the very same world as it is investigated by science that we all live it It not, why would we care about scientific investigation? We do not live in shared realities (whatever that means) although we do share beliefs about reality. There is bu one reality. There are several beliefs about reality. Let's not confuse the one with the other, shall we?

I think therefore, I am. You I am not so sure about?

Yes, I think so too. But Brian doesn't. And this is why I'm questioning just what Brian would find as good evidence.

SSN: 078-05-1120

Twirlip is the only one who's on the right track.

And even I'm still not close.

In general terms, the only way I can think of to convince you of my existence would to point out to you some feature of the real world which is evident to you but not to most people.

For instance, if there existed in the real world an enormous DayGlo pink elephant, orbiting the Moon, and possessing the mysterious property of being visible to people who really exist (and who therefore inhabit the real world) but invisible to people who don't really exist (and who therefore inhabit only some unreal world), then I could simply tell you where I see the pink elephant glowing in the night sky, and you could confirm my observation (making all due allowance for our time zone difference), and conclude that I inhabit the real world, like you, and therefore I exist.

I'll keep my eyes open (all three of them).

can you possibly prove to me that you exist? I exist but my rationality might not be seen as existing to some individuals as theirs does not seem to mine. Therefore, i find it impossible to prove existence of any being independent of my existence. Can you find a way to prove to me that you eixist knowing that, to me, existence is the ability to rationalize, through rationality, formulate a mentality, through your mentality, formulate a reality and therefore, establishign existence? However, your rationality cannot be compromised and relinquished because then, everything, including your existence, is forfeited and not existing for me. It's an equation i have given you that has a simple solution. Syllogistically, if i can be provided with these examples then i would agree with you that you exist.

All the responses i have recieved so far are really just not convincing.

No, it is just that you are being irrational. You are denying any evidence that is presented to you. It's not their fault, it's yours.

Be a little more reasonable, and maybe this discussion will go better.

Being absolutely honest, no, I do not believe there is any sound way for me to prove to you that I exist. In order to prove this, I would have to do something, and anything I do could just be a figment of your imagination/perception. I honestly don't think there is ANY way around that, whatsoever.