What makes you sure you exist?

[Liar]

What makes me sure I exist?

The fact that I'm asking the question.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

The visceral and intellectual connection I feel when I listen to Beethoven (and sometimes when I read certain books).

Perdita

And here I thought it was from reading my posts???

 

[LadyJeanne]

What makes me sure I exist? That damn alarm clock waking me up every morning.

What makes me feel alive? Watching waves crash against a rocky shore; the brilliant blue of a cloudless sky; tight hugs; loving people; intimate, passionate sex; cruising down Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Barbara; the sweet scents and colors of the flowers I grow in my garden...

 

[BlackSnake]

People keep sending me email, calling me on my office phone, and my cell. They continue to knock on my office door and try to talk to me about things I have no interest in. They even call me when I in the one place in my house that I thought I could get one minute to myself Oh yeah! I exist.

 

[R. Richard]

Sometimes I don't think, therefore . . .

 

[zeb1094]

Teach me..how do you post a quote with a picture in it?

Hit the quote button!

 

[Guest]

I cut my finger today. It bled. It hurt. Yep, I'm real.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Our philosophy teacher back in senior high made the mistake of starting our first lesson in the subject by asking us how we can be sure we really exist, and this isn't just a weird dream by someone else, who can wake up any minute, and we'll be extinct.

She had a hell of a time trying to motivate us to do our homework the rest of the year...

 

[matriarch]

Do I exist?
Am I?
Who's imagination could have conjured a being as wierd as me?
Does my passion, pain, joy, anger indicate that I exist on a purely emotional level?
Does the pain of stubbing my toe, cutting my leg while shaving, burning my hand while baking, indicate a physical existence?
Does my need to eat, sleep, drink, crap indicate an ongoing physiological journey?
Or am I simply a fucking complicated holoexistence, conceived and constructed by a computer, and all part of a huge, circular game called Life??

Damned if I know.
All I do know is right now, I'm really really enjoying the game. Carry on.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Do I exist?
Am I?
Who's imagination could have conjured a being as wierd as me?
Does my passion, pain, joy, anger indicate that I exist on a purely emotional level?
Does the pain of stubbing my toe, cutting my leg while shaving, burning my hand while baking, indicate a physical existence?
Does my need to eat, sleep, drink, crap indicate an ongoing physiological journey?
Or am I simply a fucking complicated holoexistence, conceived and constructed by a computer, and all part of a huge, circular game called Life??

Damned if I know.
All I do know is right now, I'm really really enjoying the game. Carry on.

Sometimes, I think maybe I was right when I was a baby, and this world with all of you in it, really WAS created for my amusement. Like a Truman Show, all for me.

Excuse me, I've got to go and put some clothes on.

 

[Munachi]

I am not sure.

But okay.

There is a feeling of existence, of being, that I can't really tie to anything I do or even any specific feeling. Just an awareness, a something. And this to me indicates that something exists.

If this is me or not... can't say, but if something exists, then I do exists. If I am thought up by someone, I exist as a thought. If not even that, then I still exist as a possibility.

Even if I do not exist in the context of whatever is the "real world" I exist in some context.

I'd say...

 

[The_Fool]

I don't. There is no Fool.

 

[Guest]

In 'The Cat Who Walks Through Walls', Heinlein suggested that any character that was imagined does exist in its own alternate universe. Characters in dreams, novels, comic books, etc. If, for instance, a novel is written, then those characters and settings become real in an alternate plane of existance. If that novel is rewritten and a character removed they do not cease to exist, but another reality is created by the rewrite. If someone traveled back in time and knocked of Hitler's father before Hitler was concieved then it creates an alternate timeline in which Hitler does not exist. But the original timeline still does and so does Hitler.

 

[Guest]

In 'The Cat Who Walks Through Walls', Heinlein suggested that any character that was imagined does exist in its own alternate universe. Characters in dreams, novels, comic books, etc. If, for instance, a novel is written, then those characters and settings become real in an alternate plane of existance. If that novel is rewritten and a character removed they do not cease to exist, but another reality is created by the rewrite. If someone traveled back in time and knocked of Hitler's father before Hitler was concieved then it creates an alternate timeline in which Hitler does not exist. But the original timeline still does and so does Hitler.

So I really am real and stuff? Thats waycool thanks Darnoel your the bestest guy in the whole world.

Debbie

 

[Munachi]

well, but I think it is not so much a matter of time lines and parallel universes, though it could be put that way. the question is more, what, really, does "real" and "existing" mean? in a way, being a possibility is a way of exisisting (and this means you don't even ahve to be written or imagined by anyone). when something is possible, there is the verb "to be" right there, just that the existance is a different form...

 

[Liar]

Let us consult the granddaddy of Stuff That Exists; Parmenides


Wikipedia on mr P:
-----------------------------
Under the Way of Truth, Parmenides stated that there are two ways of inquiry: that it is, that it is not. He said that the latter argument is never feasible because nothing can not be and be an object of speech and thought:

For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are.

Thinking and the thought that it is are the same; for you will not find thought apart from what is, in relation to which it is uttered.

For thought and being are the same.
------------------


Or in simpler terms: Everything you can think of, is. Because the moment you think of it, it becomes a thought. And thoughts, ideas and concepts are something. Not a physical something, but that's a kinda narrow-minded way of looking at the world, wouldn't ya say?

So saying "I don't exist", makes you exist. So blah.

 

[elsol]

I never doubted I existed, the rest of you though... the jury is still out on that.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[NoJo]

I know a lot of people think about whether eyes exist, and, maybe only when they're kids, or maybe it flashes by like a ghost of a ghost of a <>, and it's too *****CENSORED****

But in my daze of craziness, which I prefer to channel into my even- tempered clavier aka KurtzWeil short while a moment a mo half a mo an em cee hammer of evil

it ends

eye and eye, bye and bye

 

[Guest]

What makes me sure I exist?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well, my creditors are sending all these damn bills to somebody.

I agree. More and more I think we exist only to pay bills.

I have a vision of a huge herd of people contentedly grazing on a green cliffside, and once a month the Corporations arrive and tear through the herd, fleecing us raw, then disappear till next month. From their perspective, mankind's only purpose is to supply them with Money, like chickens give eggs and cows give milk.

Other than that, I don't know. I feel a little thin these days, a little transparent.

The other thing I think about are the 12 or 36 (I forget) hidden saints of Judaism. Supposedly, 12 (or 36) of us were put here to justify to God that the universe was worth creating. The saints don't know who they are, and they don't find out till their moment of death, but meanwhile it's their acts and deeds that show God whether the world is worth it or not.

I feel like I spend a lot of time and energy trying to justify existence to someone. I might just be talking to myself, though.

 

[Guest]

I agree. More and more I think we exist only to pay bills.

I have a vision of a huge herd of people contentedly grazing on a green cliffside, and once a month the Corporations arrive and tear through the herd, fleecing us raw, then disappear till next month. From their perspective, mankind's only purpose is to supply them with Money, like chickens give eggs and cows give milk.

Other than that, I don't know. I feel a little thin these days, a little transparent.

The other thing I think about are the 12 or 36 (I forget) hidden saints of Judaism. Supposedly, 12 (or 36) of us were put here to justify to God that the universe was worth creating. The saints don't know who they are, and they don't find out till their moment of death, but meanwhile it's their acts and deeds that show God whether the world is worth it or not.

I feel like I spend a lot of time and energy trying to justify existence to someone. I might just be talking to myself, though.

i like your cow analogy and i can see that very clearly. *i think ive hit a pasture with no way to produce the money those corporate raiders demand*

in any case, i would like to know more about the hidden saints of Judaism. you've piqued my interest.

 

[logophile]

Ah yes, that was a lovely feeling. The happiest moment of my life. I don't connect it with feeling, or not feeling, that I exist though.

I'm assuming you're referring to my comment about the new baby.
For me, there is no moment in life where I am more alive, more in the flow and more open to the universe than just as a baby is slipping into this great big world. To then take that moment, and invite the dad or partner into it by placing his hands on that great slippery head and whispering to him to wait, just wait... As the mom pushes and the baby extends its neck, filling his hands, he is, for one moment, participating in this great miracle. He is the closest witness to his partner's moment of ecstacy as she has merged with timelessness and become a co-creator with the universe.

Yes, in that moment, I am absolutely certain I exist.

 

[Guest]

... Other than that, I don't know. I feel a little thin these days, a little transparent.

I know that feeling, Mab. For years I lived as if I had no skin. Now, you've made me recall Byron's comment in a letter to his wife, a sentence I've used as a sig from time to time--

"The great object of life is Sensation -- to feel that we exist -- even though in pain.”

Take care hombre,

Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

A headache. I wish feverently when Ihave them I didn't exist and there is no escape, so I have to exist.

 

[NoJo]

I feel like I spend a lot of time and energy trying to justify existence to someone. I might just be talking to myself, though.

Nope, I'm listening. Probably only becuase I'm bored though.