This whole question seems to be based on the notion that there could be some part of the mind outside of conscious control that perfectly simulates the input of the sense organs. To these sensations can be attributed all the information one has percieved about the world, the world labeled “external”, and hence nothing really exists “objectively”. It really has more to do with the definition of “you” (I mean the questioner) than with whether or not others objectively exist. IF you adopt the solipsistic view, you have to allow yourself the possession of vastly complex components, that are partly random yet work in accord with specific laws, in order to explain the sensory simulations those components have generated over your life. Those sensations have been responsible for the conscious part of you developing from a child and existing in the world as you experience it. That’s a pretty large notion of the unconscious! So much so that I would say it could not be contained in the finite matter of a human brain - at least, the human brain as it appears!, and the existence of your physical form would have to be called into question, too. Of course there’s no reason to avoid that in solipsism, we can label anything illusion except the direct mental perceptions and processes of the questioner.
Interestingly, this also leads to a kind of determinism: the questioner can presumably recall the experience of growing up, and learning about the world around him. This means that the sensation-producing part of the questioner existed FULLY FORMED from the moment he was born. He learned about gravity from “the world”, i.e. the set of sensations outside his conscious mind, so the sensation of gravity did not require his conscious understanding in any way to function properly. In the larger sense, anything he COULD ever discover about the universe has to be consistent with the behavior he observes now. So on some level the questioner’s unconscious components already completely knew the behavior of everything he ever WOULD experience at the moment of his birth. So a solipsistic world is a deterministic one, of a sort.
Well… okay, sure, why not. It seems to me like a silly academic speculation that doesn’t lead anywhere, though. Except maybe to the conclusion that if I am deluding myself about you all, I must be pretty goddamned brilliant to come up with such an elaborate yet consistent halucination from the moment of my birth. Worship me, figments!
either i exist of i don’t. i can’t prove to myself that i exist. before i can think about proving to you that i exist, i have to have proof that you exist, and proof that i exist.
It’s not realy weather or not I exist but rather weather or not you want to believe I exist becuse I could always do something to you and you could always do something to me but when you think about it, if you don’t meet someone and just pass by them somewhare, you don’t know that they exist because you just plane don’t know them. Therefore, if you don’t meet someone, that they don’t exist to you but may exist to someone else. So I ask you, do you believe I exist?
I’m fairly sure I exist, in one form or another. I also assume that there is some other mind higher than mine that is creating the illusion of the world/universe/whatever.
I doubt all the dopers are figments of my imagination, but that they are of this higher mind.
But given that my current reality ain't half-bad, I 'll stick with it and not try to find this mentally superior being.
I’ve always figured that “kinda stuff” was the ultimate rebuttal to a solipsist. Take him out in the middle of an open field and throw a brick at his head. If he ducks, he really isn’t a solipsist. If he doesn’t duck, well, the answer readily presents itself.
Without a good, agreed-upon definition of existence, how can we get anywhere with this question?
The place to find such a definition is, of course, a dictionary. My dictionary defines existence as “the act of existing.” Not very helpful. Exist means “to have reality or actual being.” Reality means “the quality or fact of being real.” Real means “existing or happening as or in fact; actual; true, objectively so, etc.” Actual means “existing in reality or in fact; not merely possible, but real.” Clearly this approach to defining existence gets bogged down in a self-referential morass.
It seems that one is merely expected to “know” intuitively what existence is. However, in order to prove existence, more than this is necessary.
Existence in the scientific sense can be established with well-understood procedures. Indeed, it seems to me that no one is even hypothetically disputing the fact that the physical reality of all posters here could be experimentally proven to any desired degree of certainty. What is under question is something more vague—something that seems to involve a lot of hand-waving, and that I don’t quite understand.
In the absence of any rational way to define existence in any sense beyond the scientific sense of establishing physical reality, I suggest that that is the only sense in which the concept of existence has any meaning.
If that is accepted (a big “if” on this board!), then perhaps we can agree that all of us exist and get on with our lives.
I think some of you are missing the point: implicit in solipsism is a postulate of the existence of some part of the SELF that produces sensations but is OUTSIDE CONSCIOUS CONTROL. Experiencing someone punch you in the throat or having a tree dropped on you proves nothing. There is no way, in principle, to disprove solipsism; it has an ad hoc explanation for everything built right into it.
The best arguments against it are that it requires such huge amounts of supposition, and produces no productive conclusions. (Um, I mean productive in the sense of giving your conscious mind control over the sensations it receives.)
Okay, I’ve noticed lately when I choose to post in GD, I try and spend a lot of time trying to define key terms. So I’m not going to stop now.
Existence as I see it can very simply be defined as “having perceivable mass or being able to affect perceptions.” Some may argue. F-you.
When an individual is perceiving his/herself, then to that individual, they exist.
What is existence anyway? Is it a philosophical ideal?
(My apologies. If I were not in a bar with the damn World Series blaring in my ear, I’d be able to remember a nearly irrefutable argument.)
If something is perpetually “becoming” something else, then it never really “is” anything. This was the question posed by Herakeitos, the second Greek philosopher in recorded history (550’s BC, presocratic). A lot of people try to reduce the question of our existence into some stupid crap about everything being a figment of our imagination and that nothing really exists outside of our minds. Things (for lack of a better word) are continually changing, which is why they technically don’t exist.
Do I exist? Of course. But do I know what “I” am? Or do I truly exist as the individuated entity I see myself as? That I will likely never know. But there is conciousness of some sort occurring.
[sub]“I’m pink, therefore I’m spam…”[/sub]
And by saying that he refuted his own statement, IMHO.
The man also said that one cannot use the past to judge the future, but in saying so doesn’t he say that he is using the past to judge that we can’t judge something? Or am I remembering the reasoning wrong? My philo teacher had a lot of fun explaining that to one of the guys in the class.
That’s right. It would not prove to Thrash that I exist, and not merely for the facile reason that he wouldn’t be around to be aware of the proof. All it would prove is that the sensations being perceived, including death, are associated with the sensations perceived as “me”. Where those sensations come from could, formally, be a part of Thrash’s self.
As I said, I think this is dead-end nonsense, but there is no strictly logical disputation that I can think of.
The fact that you think that you exist is an axiomatic premise derived from perceptive and intuitively originated assumptions.
The question then is: are your arbitrarily selected perceptions regarding your existence correct?
Descartes said: I think therefore I am. The fact that he thinks implies the existence of an entity capable of involving itself in rational processes.
So yes, the initial assumption that you exist would seem to hold true.
The relevant question would there be: Do you exist as you imagine you do? Are you and your surroundings really like you con conceptualize them to be?
Unfortunately, there is no answer to that inquiry. You constrained by your sensorial, intellectual and psychological limitations. They obstruct your mind from delving into the truth, assuming there is indeed an occulted truth in direct contradiction with your perceptions… While your brain imagines that your corporeal manifestation is sitting in front of a computer screen, it might be obviating the true reality; a reality hidden by the intricate webbing of the mysterious and incomprehensible.
In other words, I abide by the fundamental postulate offered by The Matrix: We exist, but our perceptions regarding the way we conceptualize our existence could very well be wrong.
Well, to Thrash, I guess it depends on what actually happens during death and after. Nobody really knows for certain.
But frankly, disproving it to Thrash is a non-issue to me if I’ve proved it 6 billion other people. I mean, you can’t possibly convince everybody any truth anyway, regardless of how strong your evidence is.
