Can you prove to your self that you exist

@kennethamy,

Quote:

But perception was one of the things Descartes meant by, "a thought". Descartes use to word, "thought" to designate any mental state whatever. It was functionally equivalent to "consciousness".

I think there's a distinction between qualia (raw experience) and cognition (identification of qualia). But yeah, I see where you're coming from (materialistically speaking).

0 Replies

@FBM,

FBM wrote:

Arjuna wrote:

FBM wrote:

Spatio-temporal continuity is observable, but sameness from t1 to t1000 seems to me to be more of a perceptual/intellectual illusion than anything.

To whom does it seem to be an illusion?

Me and several hundred million Buddhists philosophers, for a start. There have
been other philosophers, writers, poets, etc, who have remarked on it. It's a pretty common theme, seems.

Look at the first word of your answer and look back at the title of this thread.

The idea that what you perceive is not the whole truth is indeed a pretty common theme. I believe that myself.

FBM wrote:

The content of your senses, perception, apperception, neuronal signalling, etc are changing at practically the speed of light (OK, not really, but pretty fast). Moment to moment, every aspect of your being is undergoing change. The individual is subject to the Ship of Theseus argument, as far as I can tell. We can keep calling something by the same name, but that in no way reflects the truth that everything is in a constant state of becoming. Our capacity for naming abstractions and talking about them as if they were real is precisely the act of reification, I think. Convenient, but nonetheless fiction.

Is fiction real? Very Happy

You're right, I'm playing with words. But you realize that you are too, right?

1 Reply

@failures art,

failures art wrote:

I cannot prove to myself that I exist. I will, however, proceed with the arrogant and ignorant conclusion that I do.

A
R
T

I firgure since its harder for me to assume that I don't exist than it is for me to assume that I do, and I'm lazy, I'll assume that I do.

0 Replies

@Arjuna,

Of course! Word-play is fun, innit? "I" have no choice but to use nouns in order to communicate. Nouns are convenient fictions, just like selves, and I'm not going to take them nor "myself" too seriously. Anyway, if I didn't make it clear earlier, I'm not trying to claim that nothing exists; I'm just saying that what we take to be entities/selves don't actually have the crucial properties of sameness over time nor discreteness from the environment that is built into the vernacular sense of the word 'self'. That vernacular sense is probably a lingering anachronism from when people thought there was an eternal, immortal divine spark or ghost in the machine.

1 Reply

@FBM,

FBM wrote:

Of course! Word-play is fun, innit? "I" have no choice but to use nouns in order to communicate. Nouns are convenient fictions, just like selves, and I'm not going to take them nor "myself" too seriously. Anyway, if I didn't make it clear earlier, I'm not trying to claim that nothing exists; I'm just saying that what we take to be entities/selves don't actually have the crucial properties of sameness over time nor discreteness from the environment that is built into the vernacular sense of the word 'self'. That vernacular sense is probably a lingering anachronism from when people thought there was an eternal, immortal divine spark or ghost in the machine.

Right on. My focus was on the phenomenology involved.

Calling a noun a convenient fiction... I like it .. there's meaning to that poetry.

When you say the lamp is on the table... I agree there is fiction involved in this statement. My focus was on how exactly that works. My experience in talking to friends in real life has been that they won't focus on the fiction involved in a noun. My hunch is that what stops them is the latent implication about the nature of the ego.

My point was that to even conceive of the ego as a changing thing, one must have an unchanging vantage point on it. See what I mean? To see any change requires that one be stationary... relative to the movement.

I may note objectively that since the earth is spinning around and moving around the sun, which is also in motion, that my body isn't stationary. Note what's hidden in the objective viewpoint.... I'm observing a four dimensional map.... relative to which, I'm stationary.... my body isn't stationary... I am. More poetry.

0 Replies

Hmm. I'm thinking of an earth-bound observer doesn't observe the motion of the earth relative to the sun or stars; the illusion that s/he is stationary has to be overcome by extended observations and necessary inference. You may or may not be stationary relative to your 4-dimensional map. hee hee

Also, much like the earth-bound observer, the spatio-temporal collocation of the brain's various interacting systems may be a large part of why there is the misperception of an enduring self. Perspective problem? If so, extended observations and necessary inference may be useful in dispelling it. *strokes beard philosophically*

1 Reply

@FBM,

Yea, what's a brain?

As we often demonstrate, motion can be circular... like this dude's head: Cool

1 Reply

@Arjuna,

Are you perhaps hinting that we're going around in circles, getting nowhere?!uno Shocked

What's a brain? Hmm. Good question. I'll have to try to get one first. Confused

As far as I can tell the brain is as contiguous with the rest of the CNS and PNS and...dammit...the rest of the body...and...dammit...the environment. What a wicked web we weave, eh? Wink

As for research into self, I found this particularly illuminating: http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/03878/sample/9780521803878ws.pdf

0 Replies

@ikurwa89,

ikurwa89 wrote:

How would one go about proving his own existence WITHOUT using any of his/her sense organs.

For those who will say "I think therefore I am", thoughts are produced through a sense organ which is ultimately fallible.

I don't want the mind to exist, I want thy self to exist.

Helen Keller was both blind and def

and to deal with reality

she had nothing but self

so she proved that a self exists

0 Replies

@ikurwa89,

ikurwa89 wrote:

How would one go about proving his own existence WITHOUT using any of his/her sense organs.

For those who will say "I think therefore I am", thoughts are produced through a sense organ which is ultimately fallible.

I don't want the mind to exist, I want thy self to exist.

I need to think about something that if I think about it I violate the rules of proof?

When you can explain how to compose a proof without thinking Ikurwa then I'll try to find an answer for you.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

ikurwa89 wrote:

How would one go about proving his own existence WITHOUT using any of his/her sense organs.

For those who will say "I think therefore I am", thoughts are produced through a sense organ which is ultimately fallible.

I don't want the mind to exist, I want thy self to exist.

I need to think about something that if I think about it I violate the rules of proof?

When you can explain how to compose a proof without thinking Ikurwa then I'll try to find an answer for you.

and your thoughts towards Helen Keller then

she was both blind and def

1 Reply

@north,

Quote:

thoughts are produced through a sense organ

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

Quote:
thoughts are produced through a sense organ

and what would be the essence of Helen's thoughts

1 Reply

@north,

This is the original post north

Quote:

How would one go about proving his own existence WITHOUT using any of his/her sense organs.

For those who will say "I think therefore I am", thoughts are produced through a sense organ which is ultimately fallible.

I don't want the mind to exist, I want thy self to exist.

I highlighted the areas that make it impossible.

One must think to form a proof. Since one can't think according to the rules laid out, it would be impossible to form that proof.

1 Reply

@parados,

That's the challenge, finally you got it. Yeah, sure it appears to be "impossible" because not many have thought about it, but relying on something like thoughts to establish that because there is something as doubt, you can infer that is a doubter.. so therefore that doubter(whatever that is) must exist.

This, still relies on an organ that we are equipped with.. the challenge is to not use anything.

I can't see it as impossible, but we(I) are not looking at it the right way.

Think of the moment, before you were born. You very well knew that certain things existed without you existing at all.. so why can't you do the same to your self?

1 Reply

I'm becoming more and more persuaded to think that the sense of selfhood is only that: a sense. Produced by a couple of spots in the brain, evolved because it aids in survival of the individual and thus the species, but as with vision, hearing and the other senses, not particularly indicative of the way things actually are: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~crsi/Changes_in.pdf

0 Replies

@ikurwa89,

Quote:

That's the challenge, finally you got it. Yeah, sure it appears to be "impossible" because not many have thought about it,

So, you thought about it? Isn't that using your senses? So if you use your senses doesn't that violate your initial statement that you can't use your senses.

Quote:

Think of the moment, before you were born

Thinking requires use of senses which violates your statement about not using them.

Quote:

You very well knew that certain things existed without you existing at all.. so why can't you do the same to your self?

If you are arguing one doesn't exist prior to birth then you are arguing something that is clearly false. Senses are not developed after birth. They exist before you are born.

0 Replies

I belive just asking this existential question is lack of rationallity and border to the skitzo. If one can't rely on basic senses, one is mentally ill.

0 Replies

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see.html

0 Replies

which is really asking do all 6 billion selves exist

so far no question there

0 Replies

Can you prove to your self that you exist

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know