who exists?

Re: thank you people
axl roses wife

You are not a solipsist. If you were you wouldn't answer my post. Dialogue is impossible to a solipsist.

One more thing: and if I was a solipsist? And Chicago's Joe a solipsist? It would be fun. A crowd of solipsists ...

ARF
I assure you, that I exist. I cannot give you any proof. But I know.
And the physical world exists. Even Berkeley accepted it. Joe Chicago exists. And Chicago itself also exists.
Look at the trees, the spring is beginning. Feel all that isn't you. Isn't it something wonderful?
Or, as radical treatment, give a punch in the next guy you see. I think you will discover he is real. Painfully real.

As for ethics. Well, a solipsist has no ethics. Ethics supposes relations between people.
But before we discuss the ethics problem, feel this wonderful spring that has arrived - at least here, in Lisbon, after months of cold, cold, cold. Or punch the nose of someone.
Then we will talk about ethics.

yes but there are different forms of existence.
you could just be a figment of my imagination or just an empty shell etc...
if you are a solopisit then it doesnt mean you think you dont acknowledge other opinions, minds etc.

however, thanx for trying to shake me out of it.

Axl: What are you basing this on, though? I can go through the list of all the people I know, and how they connect to each other, and sum everything up into either they all exist...or I'm insane, and none of them exist. What made you decide the latter?
Besides, I don't think you truly believe that we don't exist, because otherwise - Why post? I think you're maybe just grappling with the idea that we might not exist. Becuase really, how would you know, one way or the other?
Interesting topic; thanks for the thought-food. :wink:

ARF, No, I'm not a solipsist, but I think val is wrong to suggest YOU can't be.

I mean WE all know you are not the only one who exists but how can YOU know it? You can't be sure. For example, If you were schizophrenic, you might have freinds who seem just as real as we are.

(btw, I've actually seen a schizophrenic in a chatroom, it would be funny if it wasn't so serious)

Eorl

Yes, but the schizophrenic believes those friends are real. He is not a solipsist.
If you see what I wrote before, I suggested that a real solipsist - not only someone who has curiosity about that philosophical theory - would be an autist. I find that terrible.
You see, there is a great difference between a curious philosophic point of view and to assume a radical way of living life. And, in opinion, we must try to discourage that second perspective.

I have to say i agree with eorl
1. i am not an autist, ( i dont know even if autists can use computers) i am a perectly normal 17 year old girl. Why would a real solipsist be an autist anyway? im not too sure of the details of the condition.



2. It is obvious that the whole world revolves on selfish motifs, even Kant who tried to breack away from these must have got some satisfaction from the fact he was 'doing his duty.' In my opinion, even though he was an unhappy man, satisfaction = a selfish motif!!! therefore, this is how ethics would be based!! if i make other people happy, they make me unhappy! My form of solipsism would be a little like a form of egostic untilitarianism, but believing that only i exist.

3. I also agree that you cannot prove to me whether you exist or not, as i canot prove to you that i exist. It doesnt make it pointless, and it doesnt mean i shouldnt still talk to you, it just means that instead of you being people to me, you are more like objects.

what do you think?

If you think you are the only person that exsists, how could anyone reply to this thread?

weve been through that.

axl roses wife:
"My Godess Gave Birth to Your God"

Yer godess kant spel

and 'yer' is a proper word?

stick to title thread plz.

Are you talking to yourself again? I don't exist!

Cute, Zane.

Azl: I still haven't heard a cohesive trail of logic that led you to decide that nobody else exists. Besides, I can name at least two other people who have to exist in your world: your parents. Where else would you come from? I'm really interested in how you reached this point.

Are you on any medications? Experiencing low-level anxiety? Agoraphobia? History of panic disorder?

Tal, when azl's awareness and earliest memories began, her parents were "others" just like everybody else.

(Hey, I'm just playing devils avacado here )

No, she subconciously created her parents as an answer to her wonders about her origins... the world didn't exist before her birth, those are just fake memories which are part of her illusions.

You're right ARW, I'm just one of the voices in your imagination. I am the one you want to listen to. Eorl and I are on your side, see how we agree with you and support you rather than attempt to bring down and degrade your beliefs.

The voice called Zane doesn't show you the proper respect, he tries to trick you from the truth that you've so obviously seen. Force you into questioning and self-analysis which will lead to you remaining trapped in this pitiful illusionary shell of "reality". Kill him, destroy that voice so that you can be lead further in your enlightenment by Eorl and I. Kill them all, destroy those who question...

Obey the voice.

Reminder to self... read/watch less Johnen Vasquez created material.

( but bring on the Frank Herbert)

You are completely right, just because i dont believe anyone else exists or, as a better phrase 'dont know whether anyone exists' doesnt mean that im stupid. far from it in fact.

In answer to Taliesin181, here is my cohesive logic:
If this title thread had been about the existance of god, you prehaps would have not found me so strange, Why? I cant see a god, therefore why believe?
So therefore, why is it so strange that I question the existance of other people?
The truth is we cant see either of them (God or people).
I cant see inside your mind, so how do I know you exist?
If you think about this then you will find it makes sense. In fact, if you cant even contemplate this theory, then what are you doing on a philosophy board? (cinnthesia, zane)


By believeing that no-one else exists, then it is like i am living in my own imagination e.g

thank you Eorl and Theantibuhdda, you are true philosophers.

But, Theantibuhdda, I am not going to kill everyone, thank you, as then i would get sent to prison and that really isnt in my interests at the moment, if its all the same to you.

and its Axl, not azl.

Your arguments to say that only you exist suggest to me that only I exist.

But how can only you and only I exist, unless...

both our 'consciousness ', 'awareness', 'soul' (or whatever you might call the part of you that you think exists) are really the same thing...

Do you exist now? Did you exist 5 seconds ago? Will you exist 5 seconds from now? Assuming that our sense of time is just a construct of our brains (like all the other senses), perhaps difference in time is not so different from difference in position. Ignoring the idea of an arrow of time, an infinite number of yous have existed (that, or the you NOW is the only one to have existed, all past moments of your existence are as unreal as the rest of the world, as is the sense that you will continue to exist after this moment).

So, if you accept that your existence has been multiple across time, why not across space, too? Perhaps is does both only exist in you when you read this, and only in me now as I'm writing it, and only exist in all other things at all other times.

I'm remind of something I read in a physics book once (bear with me, I'm no physicist):

A physicist rang up another in the middle of the night to say "I've got it! I know why all electrons are identical!"
"Why?"
"Because they are all the same electron..."
Draw a distance/time graph. Draw a dot for an electron. Draw a line upwards as it travels through time (for our purposes, not moving in distance, though this isn't important). Level with the point you drew the electron in time, but separate in distance, imagine a particle accelerator uses a lot of energy creating an electron and an anti-electron (a positron). The electron, say, doesn't move, so draw a line straight up through time for it. The positron, say, moves towards the first electron, so draw a diagonal line towards the top of the first electron's line until they hit. It should look like a letter N. When they hit, lots of energy comes out, as they annihilate each other.

But, and here's the interesting bit, turn the graph upside down, and it looks the same! At both points where an electron meets the positron, energy comes out in the opposite direction to where the lines have come from. It's almost as if...

The first electron goes forward in time. At some point, a huge amount of energy condensing backwards through time hits it, and turns it around in time! Now it moves backwards through time (along the diagonal line) until in it hit by a lot of energy condensing forwards in time, which turns it around again, so it 'becomes' the second electron.

So a positron is really just a electron (or rather, THE electron) moving backwards in time! (NB the theory may not be true, just interesting...)

So, perhaps it is possible, if we ignore the concept of time, for one thing to be many things...

So it is only you that exists. Likewise it is only me. And you yesterday. And everybody else next tuesday. We are all the one existence that there is.

Perhaps...