How do we prove that we exist?

materialists are non existant when they sleep because they don't have a sense of the physical world. for instance, time is part of the physical world and when you're asleep in the afternoon or whatever time, you can't feel time because you can't observe the changes [the sun is the indication of change in time for instance]. remember that materialists need the senses to acknowledge that something exists [you touch objects and see things and etc...], therefore when you sleep and dream you don't sense the physical world but only your dream and your dream is not physical.

 

materialists are only non existant when they sleep to themselves...to other people (other materialists) they exist as seperate entities inhabiting the external world no matter what their conscious state is. the existance of a dream world is not enough to make the external material world a dubious notion for us. the mirror of reality that is the "dream world" serves, if anything, to only highlight the external world. imagine a purple donkey. obviously there is no such thing as a purple donkey, but you can pretty mush imagine it because of the elements it is made up from contained in the external world. a donkey's legs ears head etc...mixed with the color color purple, a seperate ingredient acquired from the external world. two material ingredients used to create an imaginary thing. the same holds true for any mythincal creature, eg a centaur, made from parts found in the external, material world (horse and man). the same indeed holds true for the "dream world". it in itself is a reflection of our material world because it is made up of pieces of it...all the "dreamworld" is is elements of material existence molded by your mind. so the existence of the dream world only serves to affirm the existence of an external one.

 

as a materialist, how would you explain deja vu?!

in the movie sublime, the guy goes for an operation and ends up in a coma. while being in a coma he lives the real world in his dream. the arguement here is, dreams feel like reality, so how do you distinguish the difference.

 

Wait wait, hold on, We Exist? ???


Nah, Just playing, we do exist, and we may not exist, but how can you explain the things around you, like a professor asking his students to explain why his desk isn't really infront of him, and a student giving in a piece of paper saying, "What Chair?", so in accordance to this topic, Who Exists?

 

as a materialist de ja vu is easily explained with the principle of the uniformity of nature. basically every action in the universe causes an effect, or a multiplicity of effects, so that causes dont only have singular effects ok. so basically the principle of the uniformity of nature states that if nine times out of nine in the past if a ball bounces up after hitting the ground, we can be pretty certain that if we drop the ball again then it will not make the world explode, but it woll just bounce of the ground. while the theory doesnt explain all of the cause and effect situations it does help a little. now if we keep this in mind de ja vu becomes easier to understand. while the possibilities of a singular cause creating the exact same effect as before is slim due to the vast amount of possibilities, it is possible because the amount of possibilities, although it is a large number, is still a finite number because our world of possibilities is still finite. but if we realise that de ja vu has very little chance of occuring, we can safely pin it to the uniformity of nature, because not everybody experiences de ja vu constantly, or often.

as for the movie, lets step back for a moment and remember that it still is only a hollywood creation, or wherever the movie came from. your argument is that it is virtually impossible to distinguish from the dream world. here is an easy way to distinguish. dreams by nature are erratic and random, in one instance of your dream world you are floating, the next you are skiing, your ability to jump erratically from place to place in the dream world unfortunately doesnt lend itself to the real world. we are more lucid than that in reality, and our experiences follow a coherent timeline. if you are interested in dream world debates i would recommend the oldest of them all, Decartes' first meditation. realistically we shouldnt be questioning if we know the difference between dreams and reality because most of the time we can tell with physical activity. the argument does become cyclic but once we have established that the external world exists and that we are currently inhabiting it, then the question of the dreamworld shouldn't be dubious at all

 

Yet Again, Nicely Said. Dude, Your Sweet
(No Im Not Gay)

 

"materialists are only non existant when they sleep to themselves...to other people (other materialists) they exist as seperate entities inhabiting the external world no matter what their conscious state is. the existance of a dream world is not enough to make the external material world a dubious notion for us. the mirror of reality that is the "dream world" serves, if anything, to only highlight the external world. imagine a purple donkey. obviously there is no such thing as a purple donkey, but you can pretty mush imagine it because of the elements it is made up from contained in the external world. a donkey's legs ears head etc...mixed with the color color purple, a seperate ingredient acquired from the external world. two material ingredients used to create an imaginary thing. the same holds true for any mythincal creature, eg a centaur, made from parts found in the external, material world (horse and man). the same indeed holds true for the "dream world". it in itself is a reflection of our material world because it is made up of pieces of it...all the "dreamworld" is is elements of material existence molded by your mind. so the existence of the dream world only serves to affirm the existence of an external one. "

those rely on our experiences. if we never experience them then we can't conjure them.

 

If you wanna know the answer to this question watch the ending of Men In Black. That should clarify everything for you.

 

right, now if they rely on experiences then "what" we exist as shouldnt be a problem. if the dreamworld is a mimic of reality more often than not what is put into the dream world is our experiences. now your point is that if the external world didnt exist then we wouldnt be able to create mimics in the dreamworld and therefore the dreamworld wouldnt exist. that tells me two things:

1. you acknowledge the external world does exist, because we dream about it

2. you acknowledge that the dream world cannot possibly exist without the material world, because the dream world wouldnt have material.

welcome to the fold...

 

Too lazy to read everything.

Proof of my existence :

I post at romulation.net

 

Also too lazy...

But I have noticed some people posting about punching people and pinching people to see if they exist. That, frankly, has nothing to do with our existence. I know this is going to sound like the matrix but, have you ever had a dream that seemed so real, you could smell things around you, hear things, even touch them? So, lets just say we exist in a dream like state, then testing someone's nervous system wouldn't determine if we exist at all.

 

being able to pinch yourself and punch people has everything to do with existence because it is the mode in which you exist. the matrix scenario isnt even plausible because, other than the fact that not even god has the power to trick you into believing you dont exist (as descartes pointed out) the matrix scenario is impossible because there would never be a computer created to hold an infinite amount of information. for more on the effect of a combinatorial explosion, which basically attributes the matrix scenario to fiction, please read Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained.

 

hmmm....

honestly, I don't care either way.

I think, I feel, I know. That's good enough for me. Even if it turns out I'm jsut a random NPC in someone else videogame, then none of it matters anyway.

So why worry? Just live life, and if you're not even real, then who cares? You can still enjoy "life"

 

the idea is that what if it was possible of the matrix concept, where we are sleeping and live in this illusion world that is created by some sort of machine and it can fully mimic everything. there is a star trek episode where riker is captured and placed in a mental asylum. he struggles to determine rather he really is insane or really a starfleet officer.

what about deja vu where you dream about a place you've never experienced before and you relive it in the physical world.

btw, if a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a noise??

 

thinking about the possibility of the matrix existing is a cool mind trick you can play on people to mess with them only if you realise, as you said, that it is a "what if" scenario. as long as it doesnt migrate into plausibility im happy. as for insanity read descartes and his reasoning in meditation one why he couldnt be insane.

as for the de ja vu scenario you speak about above...let me see if i have it right. so what your asking about is dreaming about a place you've never been to, and then visiting that place in the physical world right? like having a dream about new york but you've never been there, and then visiting it in reality. you have to see that its easily explained by the fact that the construction of a place in the dream world, no matter how accurate, is still based on pieces of reality. so dreaming about a place you've never been to is easily constructed using places you have been to. and sometimes the mind is indeed very accurate with its construction.

the tree falling in the forest is easy...you're asking the wrong question. instead of asking if it makes a noise you should be asking if anybody cares, unfortunately, no, not a lot of people actually do care. more seriously the tree problem is solved by einstein's theory of relativity. good theory in my opinion.

 

How can you base something on reality if you've never been there? It's understandable if you had a dream about New York, and then went there, and It looked similar to it, but the word "de ja vu" means an exact memory of an area, so that word couldn't be used in this context. And look at the word reality. It has real in there, we don't if our so called reality is in fact a reality at all, all we can only conclude is that when we wake up from a dream, we are in this reality.

Haha, you can't mix science with Religion, Thats like saying "I believe in Adam and Eve, yet I also believe that evolution happened" They cancel each other out.

 

ok...as i explained before if you imagine a mythical creature like a chimera or a centaur...obviously those creatures dont exist. but we construct those creatures from elements of reality. looking at a centaur, it is constructed using a man and a horse, the bottom half horse, the top half man. now we use elements from reality to construct things that are mythical or fabricated...ok you understand that. now the dream world operates from constructing carbon copies of the real world. "but how can you dream of new york, or have de ja vu of a certain place if you've never been there?" dejavu is still only a phenomenon that is fabricated in your mind. the principles that govern your mind are the same principles that govern your dream world because they share the same theatre...your head. what you think you experience as dejavu is still only a complicated construction in your mind of events that you have previously had. now obviously the odds for your mind getting it right in that one instance where you experience dejavu are slim to none, but the number of times you actually experience dejavu are basically equal to that number. oh and for your information the actual meaning of deja vu is, and i quote, 1. Psychology. the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time. from www.dictionary.reference.com. please note the word illusion

as for your explanation of the word reality....generations of genealogists have thought up the word reality just to have you butcher it in a forum discussion. tsk tsk

actually science and religion in some circles of thought mix very well. descartes didnt see it as a problem and ill have you know the ancient greeks acredited natural sciences as they called them (science and maths and philosphy) to the gods. they didnt have a problem with it either. it is quite easy to believe that evolution is the work of god although i dont want to offend anybody by going further into evolution and creationism.

 

"...what you think you experience as dejavu is still only a complicated construction in your mind of events that you have previously had. now obviously the odds for your mind getting it right in that one instance where you experience dejavu are slim to none, but the number of times you actually experience dejavu are basically equal to that number. oh and for your information the actual meaning of deja vu is, and i quote, 1. Psychology. the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time. from www.dictionary.reference.com. please note the word illusion..." jinja

you keep saying that arguement, we don't encounter deja vu all the time..... but if you relate deja vu as being able to see into the future, it would make life pointless. so the arguement that you propose some what falters. to be able to predict the future would be pointless for humans as we won't be able to progress due to fear and other emotions that we may encounter. we become more paranoid on our actions and we become afraid of the outside world.

it still cannot explain the exact duplication of something even if you never experienced or have any knowledge of the place, thing, etc.... how do you do something if you don't know how to do it??

in addition, how do you justify the recalling of the dream when you experience it in the physical world. more then likely that we don't often remember our dreams, so how is it that we recall it when we experience it in real life?? also, when we do experience it, how is it that we still remember it even if several months have passed by.

btw, the word illusion is just to explain the idea of a dream. remember that with illusions, you can't tell what is real and what is not, correct.

when you dream of falling down [or any other thing that causes some form of "feeling"] in your sleep, does it feel real?! and at the most intense of that feeling you wake up.

last note, you can create a seperate topic on the debate forum for creationist vs evolutionists and we can see the type of responses you'll get.

 

this argument either doesnt make sense or i dont understand it. you cannot relate deja vu to anything that will happen in the future...or any notion of being able to see into the future with experiences you might have. deja vu is a powerful illusion that tricks you into believing something has already occurred. im pretty sure thats past tense. i see what your saying in the sense that we can use deja vu to predict our future movements, but its highly unlikely and improbable. i know ive used this argument alot, but it works and is somewhat infallible...to be able to read into the future you need to be able to look at alot more experiences than deja vu can generate. your argument about looking into the future is moot in terms of trying to argue its credibility because any organism with more than a single cell for a brain will tel you that using a fallible trick of the mind to see into the future is silly.

but deja vu is not the exact duplication of something, you only believe it is. you have to remember that deja vu is a fallible concept of the mind, and not even deja vu can explain an exact replication of an event. it is only just a powerful illusion and nothing more.

memory, plain and simple. we dream constantly when we are asleep, yet we only manage to actively remember the ones that we have just before we wake up. also...questioning the powers of memory isnt going to get you anywhere, because there are plenty of instances that explain why we tend to remember stuff only a while after its happened. oh and being able to recall the dream world is not a special phenomenon, lots of people keep journals of their dreams. oh and as for remembering it months later, thats what generally happens to stuff you dont remember instantly, stuff gets stored in your subconscious and comes out at a later stage. its no mystery.

you're wrong about illusions. there are certain illusions that can feel very real to the point where you believe they are real. deja vu is one, ghosts that talk to you and move stuff around are another and mirages or also an instance of this. again please read Dennet's "consciousness explained" for a more invovled explanation of illusions and their effects, its only about a page long, but its very good.

oh and ill take your advice and try making a thread with that topic...see how it goes

 

No one has the bloody time to read these long post. I may be a fast reader, but I don't wanna spend my time reading three or four short stories. Please summarize your general idea. It's just annoying having to read all these, so I'm going to conclude my opinion on this matter.