[alyasa]

Point is, if we took a man, stripped him of everything he's ever had, take away his job, his family, his car, his house, all his money, his hi-fi surround sound system, HDTV set, etc, etc; and placed him in a rubber room with no windows and a locked door, would he still believe in his own existence? Before when he had everything, and you asked him, he would say of course he exists, but afterwards, everything is a nightmare, from which he desperately wants to awake from. His perception of his own existence has been radically altered. So, he has to ask himself, what defines his existence? His possesions? Khakis do not a man make, I think.

[Glice]

Perception of self, in the rubber room, would still be defined relative to his experience. He would no doubt say he existed, but would probably say his existence had taken a downturn in quality. Born in the rubber room, he would have no concept of others.

[h8kurdt]

How long would you have to lock him in a room for him to come that acceptance though? He'd probably die before too long. But I understand your point.

If you took away all his possesions which if he was an extremly materaillistic person then you're taking away his reason to live. His sole purpose in life is to have the latest gadets etc. etc. So in the other sense of existance he is almost dead. But it still doesn't answer if we exist as a human being spiritually.

What's not to say the we all dead and this is the afterlife only we don't realise it?

[alyasa]

Which brings us to another interesting question, spirituality. Spiritually speaking, regarding life, we don't have much to show for it. Except that which we can perceive. If, hypothetically, we are all in the afterlife, then our perception makes it real. We exist even if we don't. We believe it, so the power of our belief makes it real, even if, hypothetically, we ARE all already dead. A person on death row still believes in his own existence, his solidness, his reality; right until the moment he is strapped to a table, or to an electric chair. Then his perception is, for a moment, changed. He loses his belief and when he does that, his existence is questioned. "Is this happening to me? Is this real? Why?" But until that moment, he will keep on believing in his own existence, because it is his own perceptions, his own mind that defines what he is, where he is in relation to the other points in his life. His memories are real to him, they define him, they tell him what he is. Most people will not question their reality, their existence, because, that is the only thing they have, the only thing that puts them into forward motion and propels them through life, the belief in their own validity. I guess the question is, if you take that away, what else is left? The soul? Is the soul the spiritual evidence of our existence? Maybe, but first we have to figure out, what is our soul? Is it the thing that is left behind when we are completely devoid of everything extranous and external? When all our perceptions and opinons; everything we have been taught, been conditioned to believe in has been burned away? Or is there nothing, if that is taken away? If so, then maybe there is an unanswered question of whether or not we actually exist. If we feel nothing, become nothing; without our social conditioning, when we are alone with ourselves and we are nothing, then maybe we are just automatons, or even a figment of someone's imagination.

[h8kurdt]

I'll post a reply to this later. Let me think about it first.
x

[Savage Clone]

It's also a series of disillusionments and disappointments (made all the more so by brief periods of so-called "good times") ultimately culminating in a usually uneventful demise.
Damn, do I love people!

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Originally Posted by alyasa

Point is, if we took a man, stripped him of everything he's ever had, take away his job, his family, his car, his house, all his money, his hi-fi surround sound system, HDTV set, etc, etc; and placed him in a rubber room with no windows and a locked door, would he still believe in his own existence? Before when he had everything, and you asked him, he would say of course he exists, but afterwards, everything is a nightmare, from which he desperately wants to awake from. His perception of his own existence has been radically altered. So, he has to ask himself, what defines his existence? His possesions? Khakis do not a man make, I think.

You already said it in a previous post. His thought. I think therefore I am, Cogito Ergo Sum.

[qprogeny79]

descartes made a fatal error. it should be "sum ergo cogito."

that said, i hate existentialism. objectively speaking, the power of our belief cannot make ANYTHING real. a thing is real only if it does not depend for its existence on our conscious mental states or activities (unless, of course, those things are the mental states themselves -- which does not make them ontologically inferior to more tangible existents). that said, the same applies to personal identity -- we are real independent of our own perception of reality. alyasa's posts, while interesting, i think conflate metaphysical questions with ethical questions -- just because we have nothing else for which to live does not mean we cease to exist or that our existence supervenes on our experience.

it is an intriguing question, however, whether we could define ourselves in meaningful terms if everything we value were suddenly ripped away from us. presumably we value our own lives, and our lives would be devoid of meaning or purpose without something to value (be it a person, a thing, a principle, etc.), so wouldn't the best among us have all the more reason to fight to get back that for which we so fervently wish? didn't the founding fathers, in the face of tyranny and under the threat of fierce retribution, write the declaration of independence? didn't galileo stare straight in the face of the omnipotent catholic church and challenge the entrenched ptolemaic doctrine of the earth as the center of the universe? didn't martin luther king jr. fight for equal protection under the law even when confronted with a bigoted populace intent on keeping entire segments of society as second-class citizens? wouldn't the man who had everything he worked for years upon years to achieve forcibly seized from him, not give up until he found a way out of his padded cell? wouldn't any man worth a damn, having truth and justice on his side, do the same?

[Disgruntled Youth]

I'm beggining to be one once again some of the people I've met if not most are so full of shit!!!

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

How am I supposed to skim your post if it is all one big paragraph and has no capitalization?

Cogito Ergo Sum is about truth, not belief qprogeny. Descartes questioned reality, because to him there was the possibility that everything before him was an illusion. The one thing he could not doubt was that he doubted, so he decided "I think therefor I am." Not that his thought created his existence, just that his thought proved his existence.

[qprogeny79]

i made a minor edit that should hopefully make the reading slightly more manageable.

my point in making that comment was that descartes was wrong to start with the assumption that he was being deceived by an evil demon and to find a foundation of knowledge and "prove" existence by first doubting the evidence of his senses. "cogito ergo sum" means, essentially, that the fact that he thinks is to be doubted less than his own existence; of course, thinking and any other conscious activity presuppose existence. a thing must exist in order to be conscious; the converse is not true. existence is primary, not consciousness. descartes should in fact have started by assuming existence, which is independent of his cognitive faculties and thus would not have changed even if he were deceived by an evil demon (of course, descartes should have known this since he was not a phenomenalist).

[porkmarras]

This thread was meant to be very tongue in cheek but it got hijacked by Socrates wannabes.Nevermind,it makes for interesting reading somehow....

[alyasa]

I was being post-ironic, sorry.

[porkmarras]

post-ironic?????Eh???

[alyasa]

Irony for the sake of nostalgia, missing the days when it meant something to be ironic, those days were gone, I knew, when I said "What's a life?" and I had to explain myself. Oh, well, whatever, nevermind.

[Glice]

Some detractions:

Cogito ergo sum forms the underlying schema (and therefore meters its direction, process and locus') of the majority of metaphysical claims; Any claims to an alterity to it flounder around the notion that we are not somehow, prima facie, dictated to by existence as being first, that is, before its 'other' - any claims to an 'other' of existence must first attempt to contradict the incontrovertible dictums of our language and nature of being; existentialism is bunkum, save for Kierkegaard; The song of validity, orthodoxy, reality and any other haughty subjects is poor, and one which secretely sings of a lacking, perhaps a Lacanian loss?

More importantly, I can't be bothered to make this into a coherent statement. It reads quite nicely as is.

[porkmarras]

Originally Posted by alyasa

Irony for the sake of nostalgia, missing the days when it meant something to be ironic, those days were gone, I knew, when I said "What's a life?" and I had to explain myself. Oh, well, whatever, nevermind.

Oh i see then.Wichever way it doesn't really matter.There is some interesting stuff being written on here.

[alyasa]

It is this very loss which dictates the drive to validate; without which, we would just be quite simply chosen. Over all and sundry; the stars, the heavens, the emptiness of space, all contrived and conspired to putting the existence and very nature of being of Man, over others. The implications of this are, of course, monumental. Not least of which is, chosen by what? What is writing the program? Therefore the need to pursue relentlessly a quenching of the questing thoughts that abound preponderantly in the semi, or quasi, intellectual; and the same that drives all of the gears of humanity.

[screamingskull]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

It's also a series of disillusionments and disappointments (made all the more so by brief periods of so-called "good times") ultimately culminating in a usually uneventful demise.
Damn, do I love people!

sums up my 'life'.

[alyasa]

I try to sing along, but I get it all wrong...

COZIMNOT, COZIMNOT