Philosophy: Prove I Exist

[gallo]

Here’s the plan. Wake up as early as you can tomorrow morning drive your nonexistent behind down to the Home Depot and buy the biggest framing hammer you can; then drive home and lay your sorry nonexistent thumb on your kitchen counter…then take your dreamworld hammer and as hard as you can smash your nonexistant thumb with it…Let me know if you still think you are just in some kind of dreamworld!

Home Depot opens at 7am most places so if they go that early in the morning security may pick them up and put them in institution and the whole experiment will fail. Just FYI.

 

[Truthstalker]

Here’s the plan. Wake up as early as you can tomorrow morning drive your nonexistent behind down to the Home Depot and buy the biggest framing hammer you can; then drive home and lay your sorry nonexistent thumb on your kitchen counter…then take your dreamworld hammer and as hard as you can smash your nonexistant thumb with it…Let me know if you still think you are just in some kind of dreamworld!

Do you read Francis Schaeffer? His argument is that we must act if we exist - we can’t really get away from it. If belief is seen in action, we actually believe we exist. So we won’t do this, meaning we believe we exist. Whether we can actually prove it or not.

But maybe this is the kind of thing the person who is dreaming of me would think up…

 

[Truthstalker]

Heres the solution Truthy; do what you don’t want to do, or conversely, don’t do what you want to do.
If you are just someone else dream then that someone won’t act counterintuitively and neither will they deliberatly act against their own interests.
Enjoy.

Perhaps that someone has complex dreams…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

But maybe this is the kind of thing the person who is dreaming of me would think up…

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is dreaming about you taking the garbage out?

 

[Jeanie]

If you ever experience a tooth ache, you will know you exist. Good luck getting a definitvie answer. Peace, Jeanie

 

[Ani_Ibi]

If you ever experience a tooth ache, you will know you exist. Good luck getting a definitvie answer. Peace, Jeanie

Can we pull one of your teeth out, Truthstalker? :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

 

[cpayne]

A lot of people seem to be slackers when it comes to the whole problem of accepting their own existence. They take the easy road, unquestioning. Others have a high standard of proof.

We must uphold high standards of proof, no? At least those who exist should.

I’m not sure that self-evident, axiomatic knowledge can be inferentially proven. If the response is, “So you can’t prove it?” I’d also add, “Self-evident, axiomatic knowledge doesn’t NEED to be proven. That’s why it’s axiomatic.”

 

[Truthstalker]

I’m not sure that self-evident, axiomatic knowledge can be inferentially proven. If the response is, “So you can’t prove it?” I’d also add, “Self-evident, axiomatic knowledge doesn’t NEED to be proven. That’s why it’s axiomatic.”

Sometimes this thread is like pulling teeth. Ulp.

Why shouldn’t self-evident, axiomatic knowledge have some sort of basis?

 

[cpayne]

Sometimes this thread is like pulling teeth. Ulp.

Why shouldn’t self-evident, axiomatic knowledge have some sort of basis?

This “teeth” motif is strangely disturbing. I’m going to start calling you “Toothstalker” if you don’t watch it.

I didn’t say it didn’t have a basis, but that it couldn’t be inferentially proven. The personal knowledge of one’s own existence seems to exist at the same level as A = A, which also can’t be inferentially proven. It is not a postulate requiring demonstration, but a pre-condition for any demonstration at all. Its “basis” is that it is self-evident. Another way to put it is that it is a given.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Let’s start with this statement: TS says “I exist.”

There are four routes to go.

1. It is TS who is speaking; or
2. It is an imposter (not-TS) who is speaking.
3. The statement is true.
4. The statement is false.

If TS is speaking, then the statement “I exist” cannot be false, because TS would have to exist in order to say he doesn’t exist, which proves that he exists and therefore that the statement “I exist” is not false but true.

If an imposter is speaking, then the statement “I exist” cannot be false, because the imposter would have to exist in order to say he doesn’t exist, which proves that he exists and therefore that the statement “I exist” is not false but true. But we cannot know if the imposter is TS or not.

So the OP question can be “Prove that it is I and not Willamena who exists.”

One is about ontology. One is about identity.

I am invoking the Motto: I know nothing, not even that I know nothing.

 

[Greg27]

Descartes came across a similar problem in his ‘meditations.’ There also similar paralells in Augustine and also Asian Philosophy - what is it that thinks? What is my nature?

To say something ‘exists’ is to make a certain statement both about an object and it’s nature. To say ‘Prove’ demands a rational argument. ‘I’ suggests the thinking ego, yourself, or your identity as a body in space-time. ‘Exist’ is a predicate you apply to an object to determine something about it which obviously cannot be true and false at once (i.e. you can’t exist and not-exist at once).

There are two ways we can approach this; we can assert that our perceptions are accurate and correspond to reality, or that our senses are somewhat flawed and don’t give us an accurate picture of reality. If the first way is true, then our existence is fairly self-evident, but if not (a logical argument can be given against it) then we need another approach.

Skeptics and sophists have posed some very good arguments against the existence of the ‘I’, as have some Asian Philosophers or mystics (such as the writers of the Upanishads or the Buddha). Descartes himself actually doesn’t start by saying ‘I think therefore I am’ but instead with the skeptical method which doubts everything including his own existence, only *after * which he comes to the conclusion he is a thinking essence or being, and only this property cannot be taken from him by doubt, as to do so would be to basically cease to exist.

There are a number of objections though that can (and were) raised against Descartes’ arguments, but it is helpful to consider ‘Do I exist’ and what this statement entails logically.