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Debate Info

32
17
Yes No
Debate Score:49
Arguments:62
Total Votes:51
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Argument Ratio

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 Yes (28)
 
 No (15)

Debate Creator

TheThinker(1697) pic



Can you prove one's own existence?

Can you prove that you exist in this world? 

Yes

Side Score: 32
VS.

No

Side Score: 17
4 points

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.

Side: Yes
2 points

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.

Side: Yes
1 point

Yes. I exist.

Side: Yes
TheThinker(1697) Disputed
1 point

are you dreaming?

Side: No
Intangible(4934) Disputed
1 point

Punch yourself. If you feel physically in pain then you are not dreaming.

If you are dreaming and you punch your self, but then still feel physically in pain then you are experiencing hypnagogia.

You are existent....

Side: Yes
GuitarGuy(6096) Disputed
1 point

I don't think so...

Side: Yes
1 point

here i am!! :D

Side: Yes
1 point

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.

Side: Yes
1 point

"I think, therefore I am"

Side: Yes
TheThinker(1697) Clarified
1 point

What if you think in a dream?

Side: Yes
Axmeister(4322) Clarified
1 point

A dream is a constructed from my thoughts, to dream I must exist.

Side: Yes
1 point

You think therefore your mind is.

A mental continuum is different to the concept of a self.

Side: No

"Can you prove you exist in this world."

Yes, and I do so simply by replying.

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.

Some assumptions always have to be made.

Side: Yes
3 points

I can't prove my own existence, mostly because I don't think.

That is probably the reason I spend as much time on this site as I do.

Side: No
Intangible(4934) Disputed
1 point

So you can prove your own existence, but you refuse to do so. *

Side: Yes
sauh(1106) Disputed
1 point

Huh? How so?_

Side: No
1 point

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.

Side: No
AdolEssence(60) Disputed
1 point

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.

Side: Yes
Intangible(4934) Disputed
1 point

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?

Side: Yes
Jungelson(3959) Clarified
1 point

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.

Side: Yes
Nebeling(1117) Disputed
1 point

just like you can't prove 1+1=2.

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.

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4007/1/ConsciousnessPrimaryArt2.pdf

Side: Yes
1 point

After the whole Lizzie thing, I feel like it is no.

Side: No