Don't divorce yourself from yourself in the name of intellectualism.
I think therefore blah blah blah.
Feeling is more real than thought.
I feel therefore yeah baby.
^accepting your own existence as axiomatic is merely pragmatism. it's a good idea from the hypothetical imperative standpoint, but intellectually unsound.
then again, any logical discourse goes to utter uncertainty, arbitrary axiomatic statements, or into a recursive loop. in other words it's either "I know I exist, for reasons unknown to me", "I know I exist because of these statements which I merely accept as true without any real knowledge of the truth value of these statements", or "I know I exist because I know I exist". QED
"Just a question. What would change if you don't excist ?"
According to Descartes, this entire thread.
As Descartes suggested, being able to doubt something suggests a thought process of some sort, and that thought process therefore suggests the existence of something to be able to hold those doubting thoughts in the first place. Me being able to ask 'do I exist?' suggests that there is an 'I' to ask the question in the first place.
So, I know that I exist by being able to engage in this discussion. Whether I'm a brain in a jar hooked up to a Matrix world or not I could not, epistemologically, tell you. All I know is that I must exist in some form somewhere. Cant speak for the rest of you though
have you ever heard of the "swamp-man" thought experiment? it postulates that, under the right conditions, a fully-formed human could emerge from a lighting strike in a swamp and then proceeds to ask questions about the nature of knowledge (but that's not my point in bringing it up)
my point is, the arrangement of letters which we perceive as a question is many orders of magnitude more likely to occur than the swamp-man, which has been granted as possible, though unlikely. perhaps it's a glitch.
nighthealer - "my point is, the arrangement of letters which we perceive as a question is many orders of magnitude more likely to occur than the swamp-man, which has been granted as possible, though unlikely."
Hmm.. It sounds like your issue may be more with the knowledge of the continuation of self. If a thinking entity popped in and out of existence just long enough to question its existence, then it would exist for that moment of questioning in some form or another.
nighthealer: "my point is, the arrangement of letters which we perceive as a question is many orders of magnitude more likely to occur than the swamp-man, which has been granted as possible, though unlikely."
Yeah, but without a mind to perceive them they would just be a random sequence of shapes, they wouldn't actually be a question. The question can be written in an infinite number of languages, therefore the symbols of the question are not the same as the question itself. The question itself has semantic meaning apart from it's symbols and involves a mind and it's relation to the world.
the question was not "prove you exist" it's "prove I exist". the fact that you perceive the sequence of letters as a question may imply that you exist, but it says nothing about the origins of the question itself. There still might not be a person on the other end of the line!
see, the acceptance of such an axiom still feels very much like a pragmatic decision. while I'm okay with using it for my own day-to-day functioning, it still makes me uncomfortable on an intellectual level.
why is subjective experience a necessary and sufficient condition to prove a sentient entity to perceive it?
1) It could be an evil demon implanting thoughts in your head and the thoughts don't belong to you, so it could be that it is not you that truly thinks. But it is still you that experiences the thoughts.
2) we know that there is something there experiencing things, we are whatever it is that has a sensation or thinks a thought, etc. Whatever we are must be related to our experiences. What we are cannot be nothing. It could be immaterial, or material, we don't know, but it has to be something.
3)The being is not assumed to be a cause of the thoughts, the thoughts could be imposed onto us by a demon.
4)The argument shows not what kind of self there is, but that we cannot doubt the existence of something basic which is experiencing the various thoughts and sensations that appear to us. We cannot prove any qualities about the self except that it exists and is having the experiences which appear to us. It is possible that we could be some sort of distributed entity, or whatever (though there is no reason to think this is the case). The argument doesn't specify at all that an 'ego' exists in the traditional sense, such as one single 'I'.
5) We don't know the root cause of thinking or any of our perceptions, but we do know that they appear to us.
the crux of the problem is this: there is a question being posed by something which may or may not be a being, requesting that a third party verify it's existence.
new tactic: let's grant that a being must exist in order to possess knowledge. The question "How do i know I exist" is then contingent upon the being knowing that it knows something. But can a non-being be a facsimile of a being? perhaps all the same patterns of information that would suggest the quality of being are, in this instance, a consequence of hot-swapping a server board for routine maintenance. Can a statistical anomaly by itself be said to be evidence of sentience?
in the question "How do I know I exist" it is tempting to say that the use of "I" implies an already present awareness of self. However, upon further scrutiny, this argument turns out to be circular.
further, let's say that tonight when you go to sleep you dream that you're Mork from Ork. For the time that you're dreaming, you are aware of yourself as Mork. does this imply that, for the duration of your dream, Mork in fact exists?
I interpret the OP as a request for any argument which could prove her existence. Either one from a third party proving her existence, or one which she could apply to herself to prove her existence. None of us know if she exists or not, and it is always possible she is a facsimile of a being presented to our consciousness. So all that we can provide her with are subjective arguments like the cogito, which ultimately answer the question "How do I know I exist?".
"new tactic: let's grant that a being must exist in order to possess knowledge. The question "How do i know I exist" is then contingent upon the being knowing that it knows something. But can a non-being be a facsimile of a being? perhaps all the same patterns of information that would suggest the quality of being are, in this instance, a consequence of hot-swapping a server board for routine maintenance. Can a statistical anomaly by itself be said to be evidence of sentience?"
Well we cannot know she exists and is not a non sentient replica of a sentient being. But we can provide arguments that if a sentient being were to apply them they would have reason to believe they exist. We could present this information to any sentient beings or non sentient beings that request it. Ultimately we, the people giving the information, never know the result, and a non sentient being will not know the results because it is not sentient, however the sentient being will have reason to say they exist. I think that is the case here with the OP.
"in the question "How do I know I exist" it is tempting to say that the use of "I" implies an already present awareness of self. However, upon further scrutiny, this argument turns out to be circular."
No, I agree, the use of the word 'I' alone doesn't prove whatever is using it is actually sentient.
"further, let's say that tonight when you go to sleep you dream that you're Mork from Ork. For the time that you're dreaming, you are aware of yourself as Mork. does this imply that, for the duration of your dream, Mork in fact exists?"
I don't really see what you're getting at here and how it relates to your statements above. But you wouldn't be able to say Mork exists, but you would have evidence that something exists, you wouldn't know exactly what though.
Why not approach this query from a different perspective.
The task is to "prove I do exist". What is existence? I don't believe that existence is sentience or consciousness by necessity, nor for that matter anything tangible. A rock exists (physical) as does a photon (electromagnetic) as does a thought (a chain reaction of electromagnetic and physical processes working in tandem).
Thus by virtue of us consciously believing the OP exists, even momentarily, this fulfills the requirement for the OP's existence. The manner of existence may be up for debate, but that was not the requisite proof being solicited.
Remember, the Universe itself is simply one vast illusion. Attempting to characterize existence by what we can perceive in our markedly fallible and limited state of consciousness is truly futile.
Most people are convinced reality itself exists. But does it? Maybe it is all a deception. Maybe it is all a dream. There is no undeniable proof of any existence.
I'll try and make it as simple as possible for you. If I am going over your head just ask, and I'll tone it down for the logically impaired.
- WOULD NOT (negative #1) - NEITHER/NOR (negative #2)
The WOULD NOT paired with a NEITHER NOR in a single thought is known as a double negative. So your statement actually expressed agreement, even though were evidently attempting to disagree. Either that, or you have a habit of equivocating like a politician.
Your original statement
a) I wouldn't say that the discussion of capitalizing letters serving a more aesthetic than grammatical function is neither senseless nor silly.
thereby translates to
b) I would say that the discussion of capitalizing letters serving a more aesthetic than grammatical function is both senseless and silly.
