Alright, it’s friday night and I got roped in to driving all the way out here to dog sit for my sister while she goes to the @#$&* beach. I’m bored and want to play a little light hearted devil’s advocate. So here’s a challenge to all the amateur philospher dopers: Prove that I exist.
Corrolary: If I don’t, who is going to feed the animals?
-Beeblebrox
“You’d better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It’s unpleasently like being drunk.”
“What’s so unpleasent about being drunk?”
“You ask a glass of water.”
For that syllogism to be valid, you must establish that checking the archives is indeed an action. Also, if you already are convinced that you don’t exist, doesn’t that make efforts to convince you otherwise futile?
I have a wonderfully stunning proof for this; however, I first require that you prove you don’t exist, after which I will dash that proof to pieces in a manner that would fit in the margins of this message board.
I don’t exist, but I drink beer and get distracted easily.
a.)one of the definitions of “action” according to Webster is: an exciting or signifigant activity. Plumbing Cecil’s knowledge and those of his devoted followers is both exciting and signifigant, therefore checking the archives is an action.
B.) Arguing with the non-existant is always futile. You will end up in a mental hospital.
“Battlefield Earth” is the worst movie ever created
No one in existanse would like that movie.
I liked it.
Therefore I do not exist.
I do not type, you merely perceive the electrons in the cathode ray tube of your monitor in a way you desire.
Exactly. It’s too hard and makes me want another beer.
Well, just based off of a quote in your OP, which jogged my memory of a quote from MP:
Rene Descartes
was a drunken fart
I drink therefore I am.
Besides, if you didn’t exist, you couldn’t enjoy the best drink in existence: The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
I gotta talk to my shrink. All you figments are being really strange lately.
Of course, there’s no reason to think that the shrink I imagined isn’t a bit wonky too.
Anyhoo, none of you exist, not really. I am imagining you. In a way, I’m your God–I gave you the only pale semblance of life you could ever possibly have had.
Dog exists at home.
Dog owner exists at beach.
Dog owner feeds dog, except when dog at home and dog owner at beach.
Therefore dog not fed.
Dog needs to continue to exist.
Dog sees computer.
Computer tastes bad.
Dog uses computer to post to SDMB to beg for food to provide for further existance.
Dog of limited communicative ability, so post comes out “proof of existance” rather than “provide for existance”.
-You can only observe things that exist. If it is observed objectively and can be verified, than it exists. Unless you are some funky mind-melding thing that only I can see and nobody else sees, than you must exist.
-You obviously have a memory of Zaphod Beeblebrox. (sp?) Things stored in memory require thought to recall. You think, therefore you are.
“Cogito ergo sum”, Descartes “I think, therefore I am” is an assertion that many characteristically objects to. One of my favorite philosophical phrases is Ambrose Bierce’s “Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum” (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am).
Nietzsche argued on the other hand that the action does not necessitate the existence of the actor. That is to say, that what we consider to be a “thing” is really only a collection of actions on other “things”. To quote his Genealogy of Morals (First Essay, Ch. 13) “…;there is not ‘being’ behind the doing, acting, becoming; the ‘doer’ has simply been added to the deed by the imagination–the doing is everything.” It looks like I need to re-read all my Nietzsche, cause I can’t for the life of me remember where he extends this to thought, but I’m almost certain he does. He questions whether we actually create the thought, or if the thought is merely “bestowed” upon us.
Now how I interpret these statements is not necessarily that my physical body and my physical brain don’t exist (though that stands as a brightly colored possibility), but that our so-called sentience does not exist. I would extend Bierce’s statement to “I think I think, therefore I think I am [a rational being somehow above the other animals]”.
To Soup,
My memory of myself not withstanding, I am a Beeblebrox.
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character.
Fictional characters do not exist outside the thoughts of the author and the reader
Therefore, I am a figment of your imagination and do not exist
To Blacknight,
(cue sappy Steven Spielberg movie music)
His post is real…
But he is not.
-Beeblebrox
You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' Yeah, but don’t shout it out or they’ll all want one.’ THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn’t you hear I come in six packs?’ But sir, I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead...' Yeah, that’s right, I just haven’t stopped moving yet.’"
