Do you really exist?
 

Prove it.

I think, therefore I am.

that doesn't prove anything. You can think things that clearly are not.

What do you want, for me to come to your house or something?

I can't prove it to anyone but myself

only if you have any really good Dead bootlegs to share with me.. but yr missing the point.


much more on target but, no.

let me rephrase the question.

"Can you prove to yourself that you, or anyone, or anything for that matter, truly exist?"

I've got the bills and the bad credit rating to prove it.

I keep hoping somebody will steal my identity, but I think the curse that goes with it is common knowledge on the black market.

If you want proof, click on the link in my sig...most of the lead guitar playing on those songs is me. I have been recorded, so I am immortal so long as those recordings are heard.

So you're counting on Rupert Murdoch to keep you real? ;)

...I don't get it...

EDIT: Apparently the MySpace is gone...updates to come if anyone's interested.

not necessarily. How do you know for sure that anyone else actually hears what you hear in these recordings? How can you be sure anyone else even exists to listen to them, and are not an elaborate work of your imagination or some fiendish trickster?

(nice subliminal self-promoting by the way, I usually just go with, "Shameless self promotion, listen please. click here for music.")

I suppose I don't have a way to verify any of that, but can you prove you exist?

No, neither do you. You are the imagination of a three year old.

that would be a trip!
nope.. I was hoping y'all could help me out. The intelligent responses I get on this board never cease to surprise and amaze me, so I though I would through this one out there, maybe some folks have more experience with this topic, I myself spend too much time reading piles of Ethiopian history books and standing in prayer, aside from crying that the sky is falling all the damned time.

so again,

can anyone prove if anyone actually exists?

I really don't get what you are trying to ask. If you want a serious answer, we are all particles of something. We exist because we breathe, eat, live everyday of our lives.

that is serious but not quite to the point.

see, yes, we may all seem to be particles of something, but what is the essence of this? Can you know if it is real? Are not dreams or hallucinations potent examples of the weakness of relying on perception or thought to define existing? surely some philosophers, theologians, or scientists have come up with some kind of reasoning on this question..

Proofs are for lawyers , cops and Agatha Christie.

i pinched myself and it hurt. so there's enough proof there.

But the pain could be part of the illusion...

i suppose that since i have a pattern in my mind of the past, that i can predict what will logically follow ahead of me, that is how i trust that the sun will rise again and i will wait for the bus and go to work. that all this logic fits into the world outside of my mind and body, i must exist. other people doing other things around me also seem to show me that. that they definately dont always act so predictably, but according to their own patterns, means they are seperate from me yet act according to similar external logic as me, is also involved.

Now your on track.

oh yeah, shit, i'm just a lost soul thinking he's alive. damn.

Suppose you can see feeling and perspective as illusion, or see all emotion and behavior based entirely on chemical-electrical reactions, cant you still exist and host these things? Being a puppet is still being.

Nothing can truly be known to exist.


Müeller-Lyer illusion


Ponzo illusion

Both sets of lines in the pictures above are the same length, though they do not appear to be. It certainly calls into question the reliability of the senses with which we perceive and judge the world. So on what basis can we give our senses any credibility or authority?

A ruler can show that the lines are the same length. Comparative analysis seems to be a good way to corroborate similarity and congruence but does it prove existence? Not necessarily. Is there an equivalent ruler with which I can measure myself in order to discern that I am indeed a human being like all other human beings? The consistency of our senses, the fact that the 'true word' exists (whereas dreams and hallucinations pass and make evident their falsehood) in one continuous and unbroken thread of time makes room for the leap of faith that we take when we say that we exist.

Until my existence drifts away like a dream or fades like a hallucinogenic trip and I am thrust into a new reality, I must say that I and the things around me exist. Of course it remains a leap of faith, but without proof that anything exists or that, more importantly, nothing exists, a certain acceptance is required to live on through the world, for if nothing exists, how do you explain the world around us?

what happens if the illusion is actually alive?

Alex's Trip, the illusions aren't showing.

Wait, are you creating the illusion that there should be images there?

I don't think much so therefore I may not be.

I guess it is easier to suggest that I exist than to venture into whether the things around me exist. But even if senses are unreliable, even if you can hallucinate , or not, and everyone can have drastically different perceptions and mental lives, we are still using the senses in the first place.

Edit : ^^I don't think much so therefore I may not be.
HA!! Gold.

i don't need to-- since you have not proven your own existence in the first place, i must take that you don't exist, and why should i attempt to prove anything to non-entities? a waste of time!

Aha!

I wish I had said that to a customer at work yesterday, he said that he was perfect and asked if I was, I passively said "Sure" and he demanded that I go to a court and bring me back the proof.

This is my kinda thread

im real. i have three daughters. and you know that.

In any situation, theres a way I can easily act, a way I am compelled to act, and then I can consider a multitude of ways I could act.
Meh..maybe all those functions are still part of the illusion. But I still partake.

occasionally.

^
He exists. I don't.

What does he exist for?

Really? What are their names?

Have you heard Meatloaf's 'Bat Out of Hell'? I think it's impossible to bask in its RIGHTEOUSNESS and then say that this, you know, what we've got goin' on in here [taps chest] ... that that ain't real, man. Nah, you are not going to tell me that. NO YOU ARE NOT. It's the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and riiiiiiiiiiiiight. And wherever you are and wherever you go, there's always gonna be some liiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Then I'm down in the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun,
Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike,
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell.
And the last thing I see is my heart,
Still beating... still beating...
Breaking out of my body, and flying away
Like a bat out of hell

well sometimes you do.

maybe i only exist in this forum.