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It is very easy to prove (present convincing evidence) of one's own existence. As long as you don't have a retarded idea of what it means to prove something, it's a piece of cake.
You don't have to prove your own existence. It's self-evidently true. Once it's been acknowledged that you exist, it can easily be shown that you exist in this reality.
You perceive a reality, and you can directly observe that you are embodied in this perceived reality. It has therefore been shown that you exist in this perceived reality.
If i experience pain, i am awake. How sure are you of this Intangible?
So by being awake, i exist. ... how can this disprove the brain in a vat theory? The theory is about our brains actually being hooked up to a super computer.
In a recent dream of mine, i saw the brain surgery being performed in a judge court room. lol no joke. And i didn't doubt it's existence.
Now i will say that was a dream and not reality. But in the dream, i thought i was living in reality. So the question is.... what about in the current state i am in. I will say that i am living in reality...but that doesn't necessarily mean i live in reality because what if i will wake up sooner or later.
What if there is a different awake levels? From dreaming, to the state that we call "awake," to the next level of being awake?
Still that doesn't really disprove a third level of being awake. And it doesn't really disprove that we are a brain in a vat.
I may be over thinking it but these theories aren't dis proven. And if we are just a brain in a vat and if we aren't truly awake, then i can say that we do not exist in a way we think we do. Because this is not reality.
I don't have a lot of evidence to back up the brain in a vat theory. However, to me...it just seems possible. I don't think we should just ignore it unless there is evidence against it.
And in order to prove that is realm is reality...i think we should prove and disprove everything in order to be 100 percent sure.
Yeah I am not saying it's impossible. I just refuse to believe or disbelieve it with out any evidence for it or against it. It remains a possibility, but we can conclude that as far we know we exist.
But if it remains a possibility, how can we then conclude that we exist? That is like concluding without being 100 percent sure. Though i personally believe we humans can never be 100 percent sure about anything.
We can conclude that we exist because there is no evidence provided to prove the possibility to be even slightly true. And if that possibility were to be proven it would still prove that we exist, but on a different scale.
So no matter which way we go we can't objectively deny that we are existent on a certain scale at this very moment.
Now if the topic were to be "Prove that you are a real person." or something within that context Then I could agree that we could not prove that we are real people, but the topic clearly ask to prove our existence. Even if something is only a thought then it exist as something. The opposite being nonexistent which=nothing. A thought is something.
Strictly speaking, whether its in response to a sensory impulse from damaged tissue, or in response to a dream, isn't the sensation of pain an illusion created by the mind regardless?
Prove to me there is a bunch of flying rabbits heading towards a talking volcano. You are talking to a person who believes that every matter can have a conscious and that maybe video game characters are really alive in a different dimension. The other half of me do not believe in that.
Normal doesn't mean you are awake. For that reason i am down voting you.
Oh. Ok i see how this funny. :) But still this is a debate site. And i thought you was serious with my conclusion that normality determines someone being awake.
by the way, you down voted me because probably you got upset that i down voted you. I down voted you for a good reason relating to this debate while you down voted me on something that isn't related to this debate. That isn't fair to me.
Oh. Ok i see how this funny. :) But still this is a debate site. And i thought you was serious with my conclusion that normality determines someone being awake.
No, I wasn't serious. You've been watching too many movies.
by the way, you down voted me because probably you got upset that i down voted you. I down voted you for a good reason relating to this debate while you down voted me on something that isn't related to this debate. That isn't fair to me.
I downvoted you because your reason for downvoting me is retarded... but to be fair, you didn't understand my joke. Based off your mindset, I think that the downvote I gave you was justified.
I had a feeling you was being sarcastic or funny as well. I also thought you was serious because i implied you were saying that in order to be awake, things have to be normal. And i believed you were saying that and that you meant that in all seriousness.
I do think my down vote was justified because this is a debate and when making an argument, you should be serious. That fact that you wasn't serious deserves a down vote because you are wasting my time. I respect you however and i don't want to disrespect you. I bet many debaters will agree that a good laugh is a good laugh but when debating, everything you say must be taken seriously.
And i don't think your down vote was justified because this is all text. I can never be 100 percent sure if you are serious or anything. Even if you say you were serious, i can't tell if you are serious. You basically down voted me because i didn't get your joke...that isn't even fair.
Stick to the debate please. :) If you want to joke and debate in all in one chat box...ok, then please label which texts are "jokes" and which texts are "serious."
Now that i think of it. I am so sure me down voting you wasn't retarded because you disputed me with a joke. That isn't a dispute at all then. Therefore, my down vote was justified.
Stick to the debate please. :) If you want to joke and debate in all in one chat box...ok, then please label which texts are "jokes" and which texts are "serious."
Lol wtf? I'm not going to label my jokes. If you're too dumb to figure out that "flying rabbits" and "talking volcanos" was part of a joke, then that's your problem... not mine.
Now that i think of it. I am so sure me down voting you wasn't retarded because you disputed me with a joke. That isn't a dispute at all then. Therefore, my down vote was justified.
I disputed you because I don't agree with you. I'm on the Yes side for a reason.
Sigh. I see this isn't going anywhere. Still i believe my down vote was justified for a few reasons. One being.... normality doesn't always means if you are awake.
Existence is nothing beyond your conscious state of being, of recognition or realization of the passage of time. It is merely the abstract experience that one indulgences in that is existence. There is nothing much more than that.
Even if I were dreaming, or a part of somebody else's dream, then this question is being posed within said dream; as such, in that scenario, 'this world' would refer to the dream, and I prove my existence in such by replying.
It may be impossible to prove that ones existence has the nature that one believes it to have, but if we're discounting our sensory perceptions, what is left to discuss on the matter? Discounting ones perceptions would include discounting this argument itself and all statements made on either side, including ones own.
As far as I can tell, I am a computer program that just responds to bullshit on this site. But I may just be an imagined dream of an illusion that thinks it is a computer program that just responds to bullshit on this site.
But regardless of what you can imagine you do exist within the objective reality of the imagination. If you are only a thought you can not tell that you are a thought all you know is that you are thinking, moving or interacting. Whether you exist in actual reality does not matter. Even if you are just some computer program you don't know that you are. The fact that the thought even exist is proof enough that you can prove your own existence.
No you can't. (Sigh) I had this debate once before and Cartman and I got in a big argument about false philosophies and mumbo jumbo rubbish.
You can't actually prove it, just like you can't prove 1+1=2. You think you can because that's what you've been told, and you've been given good reason to believe it.
I've made this argument several times before, but.. You could be in a semi lucid dream right now, sleeping for only 10 minutes, but the dream is giving you false memories from years in the past.
Ummm... but wouldn't your ability to dream make you real? Even if you are an illusion as one might be in a dream, your dreams come from reality. There could in fact be a chain of illusions. I can dream of me dreaming and I could be in a dream right now, just as you say, but somewhere along the line, this dream came from something. Something real.
but the dream is giving you false memories from years in the past
The memories are not false then lol...please read over what you posted.
You can't actually prove it, just like you can't prove 1+1=2
You take 1 thing, you take another thing and then place them together. You now have 2
1 was created in this reality and from that single thing it created the many other
numbers. It's logic. You don't believe logic. You know and use logic.
I don't have to know what one or two means. I could still take 2 singular objects and place them together and now have two. I may not know what the definition of one or two is, but what I did In-fact was add 1+1 which =2. Which proves 1+1=2
.
So when you go to sleep and dream then you are dreaming with-in a dream? So if your statement follows then me dreaming of a giant fire breathing rabbit was licking my face was a memory from the past?
No, no, no/ The memories provided for you in your dream are not real. And what's to say you're not part of someone else's dream. Some schizophrenic person's dream, and you don't exist. E.t.c. Unlikely though it may be, it's a possibility. In an infinite universe, if our universe is infinite. not only is everything possible, but everything will happen. Everything that could ever be, will be, in an infinite universe. Including the dream of someone, who you are a part of.
Ok regardless of if we are someone elses dream or not. We in fact exist within the confines of the dream. therefor we do exist. If someone else is able to see us and/or Interact with us then we conclude that we do exist on a certain level.
We can not prove that we are being dreamt, but we can still prove that we exist.
Our objective reality In fact exist. The dream may be subjective to the dreamer and we do not exist in his reality.
But within the dream we are objectively real and looking at reality from our standpoint.
Lies. If you were a figment of someone's imagination, in reality, you would not be breathing, thinking, or being. You would be a figment of someone's imagination. Right now I am thinking about an ice cream in my hands. Does not mean it exists, does it. if you say that it exists, then you're just being silly for the sake of trying to win the argument.
yes, from their point of view. But it does not mean that just because someone perceives something to be existent, it really is. Use logic. " You are a dream, a thought, a part of someones imagination. You are not made of atoms, or cells. You do not respire, or think." Does that person exist? Yes, they exist as a thought, of course they do. but they do not exist as what we would call, a 'person'.
You are thinking of an ice cream in your hands. That thought exists. It isn't just something conceptually floating in the ether (so to speak), but actually a concrete electrical and chemical process going on in your brain. This is measurable.
Your argument is flawed by your own statement- your thought of ice cream is the thing that exists- extending that to an actual ice cream in your hand is a non sequitur.
That's a whole other argument- whether the human conscience is a tangible thing, made of atoms sharing electrons or not.
But you cannot give me an argument supporting the fact that one exists as a living breathing person. Just like that ice cream is not an ice cream, it is a thought, It is as much a real ice cream as a painting of an ice cream would be- A thin layer of different paints on a stretched canvas. not an ice cream, but something that resembles it. just as the thought would be. The thought would be real, but it's not like you have a real ice cream in your head, is it?
But at the same time- by the very act of thinking and communicating, one's existence is proven.
What is questionable is the nature of said existence. By the framework you've established, there really is no way to prove that I exist in the manner that I believe I do.
However, that framework you've established is, at the risk of being redundant, the framework that you have established. It's a bit outside of the scope of this debate.
Getting back to the debate itself- regardless of whether I'm a living, breathing person, or a human brain wired up to electrodes providing stimulus where my sensory organs would otherwise, or a set of instructions in a program somewhere, or something stranger still- I exist in this world. My ability to interact with the rest of the world is indicative of that.
1+1=2 can be proved from the axioms of natural numbers... But even if we wrongly assume that 1+1=2 can't be proved, this proof by analogy is still fallacious given the question at hand. You don't need to prove that you exist. Proving that 1+1=2 requires an inference. It doesn't require an inference to "show" that your consciousness exists.
Think about it, all counter arguments to the claim that your consciousness exists, are made, perceived and reflected upon in consciousness. All arguments against consciousness thus implicitly assume that there exists a consciousness to contain the counter argument. Your analogy is therefore useless. Consciousness is epistemologically primary, and for this reason it must be taken for granted.