Prove existence

WHo says your mind exists? Perhaps you are just a figment of mine!

 

Good morning selfAdjoint,

From what perspective do you ask if zelldot if he is just a figment of YOUR mind.

What part of our mind guestions the minds own existance?

Is there a true objective preception for the human mind?

Suzanne

 

Perhaps we are all just legends in our own minds, huh? :rofl: Of course without the "physical" world, to interact with our "physical" senses, what would our minds interact with? At least we know this "interaction" is real ... I guess?

 

Does something exist just because it's part of your mind? :tongue2:

 

Well, if the brain was merely a matter of being "physical" ... then yes.

 

Yes, nothing exists apart/independently of your mind

Your mind exists apart/independently of you

You are a part but not independent of nothing...

...and your mind is not your own

I think you are confusing mind with brain and nothing with something

nothing is perfect...

...there is always room for improvement

 

cogito ergo sum?

If there is something(you) pondering existence, then it must have existence to even be pondering upon it, correct?

After that, there is nothing proveable. The only thing one can truly know, with certainty, is that one is an entity of some sort. I know I am something, because I am pondering my own existence. You? I don't know with certainty if you are what you are or anything of that nature, I can only undoubtedly know I am something.

 

Define 'existence'?
Are you assuming that there is a 'me' to 'have' a mind?
Are you assuming that 'mind' exists?

'Cogito ergo sum' seems like a self-referrential fallacy. Does 'thought' always reflect absolute 'reality'? If not, why assume your 'existence' from thought. We have heard this quote for so long that it is assumed to have validity. Another cognitive fallacy.

What if there were a 'thought' floating through the mists hallucinating a 'Me' and a 'my universe'?

 

On Existence

Because my existence is a fundamental aspect of my experiences, if I do not exist, neither do my experiences.

Because my experiences are the sole source of my belief and knowledge of the “exterior world”, if they do not exist, the exterior world does not exist.

If neither the exterior nor the interior worlds exist, nothing exists.

If nothing exists, truth does not exist.

If truth does not exist, the statement "I do not exist," is not true.

Therefore, I exist.







The last point doesn't requre "I do not exist," to be false; only for it not to be true.

If you do not accept that: if you take the statement "I do exist," in the place of "I do not exist," (or replace "truth" with "falsehood" in the previous point), it is apparent that such a statement is not true either. If such is the case, we have a logical paradox... Which renders our assumption impossible.

It could be argued that a logical paradox cannot occur, because if we accept our assumption "logic" cannot exist either; however, that conclusion itself is only valid through logic-- and therefore, by logic, invalid in its absence.

My entire point is that logic proves itself. Logic is a self-validating and self-containing system.

 

Are you saying that 'Truth' is a 'thing'? Like a bicycle? I think that your reasoning is faulty here. For 'Truth' to 'exist' in your hypothesis, it must be a 'thing'. Can 'existence' be considered for that which is not a 'thing'? If 'truth' is nothing more than a human concept, is a 'concept' a 'thing'? If 'truth' is Consciousness, is Consciousness a 'thing'? Perhaps there is no such 'thing' as 'truth', but I think that your reasoning here is incapable of logically determining such a 'thing'. Logic itself, being nothing more than an artificial 'construct' within mind, seems rather 'circular' in it's 'self-validation', and limited in scope for determining ultimate 'truth', if any. Logic cannot even determine if there really IS an 'out there'... out there!

Actually, you can never actually 'know' if there is any 'external' world to your 'mind'. Your senses are not arbiters of 'truth' any more than your mind is. Every sensory 'given' is a fiction. The greatest 'fiction' of all is that there is an 'out there', out there.

Yes. But it has limited scope. Very limited in determining ultimate reality/truth. Which it has been unsuccessful in so doing up to this moment.
Something having SELF validation and containment is not evidence for 'truth' and validity any more than the self-referrential Bible is God's Word because that is it's 'claim'!

Your syllogism is faulty for proving that you have any 'real' existence, as your logic contains (possibly) faulty assumptions (premises)...

 

Is a bird like a bicycle? Is an atom? Howabout heat, or motion, or gravity?

These are all 'things'. You can't compare one concept to that of one specific 'thing' and then disregard the first concept's "thingness".

If truth is a human concept, and human concepts are either
a) Metaphysical 'thing's or
b) Physical patterns in the brain, which is a 'thing',
then yes, truth is a 'thing'; it is a type of concept, which is either itself a 'thing' or is a type of physical system, which is a 'thing'.

If you say that this logic does not apply to truth, then you are claiming that if "nothing exists", truth still exists. You're saying that truth existing and the lack of existence at all are not contradictory.

And you could be correct about logic; but if so, that would only hold BECAUSE of logic. The ideas you have about logic would be 'true'; which is a concept WITHIN logic, is it not? Without logic, there is no meaning to saying that there is no logic-- or to saying anything else.

You can't know for certain that there is an external world; but if there isn't, you can just skip my first two points and the rest still reads perfectly fine.

And it isn't a 'fiction' if you don't know whether it's true or not. It's uncertain, not false.

But we exist within the system of logic, and reality is DEFINED by logic. It is only through the logical concepts of 'truth', 'falsehood', 'reality', 'yes', and 'no' that "existence" even has any meaning. Existence is a thing of logic, as are all concepts with meaning; logic is self-validating because the concepts of 'validation', 'truth', 'existence', and 'logic' only exist WITHIN the framework of logic. It's a self-containing set (ie 'logic' is only a meaningful word when taken logically, in contrast with 'nonlogic' and interpreted according to logical principles applied to information we already have), so it can prove itself just as well as anything else.

 

How are they all 'alike' beyond 'superficial' differences? From one perspective, QM has followed the trail of 'thingness' down to 'possibility/potential/probability waves' of all possible 'futures' until the touch of Consciousness collapses the wave into one of the 'potential realities'.

From another perspective, please permit an analogy. When you dream at night, of what 'materials' is the universe of your 'dream reality'? Do you think that if you studied, within the dream, the 'physics' of the 'material world' (that you find yourself in within the dream) you would find the same qualities, paradoxes, logics as you would find in your 'real, waking, daytime reality'? But ultimately, you might reason, since your night-time 'reality is only a 'dream' within your mind, that the physics be damned and it is not 'different stuff' but all mental hologram. Of what 'stuff' is a hologram, in this case? At this level, is not all of the same 'stuff' with the only 'differences' being appearance only?

Concepts of this and concepts of that are still concepts. A concept is a concept. A concept of a banana and a concept of a dragon are not made 'different' by the hologramic content. They are still concept. 'Content' does not change the 'conceptness' of concepts.

I have no idea if there is a corresponding 'reality' to our concept of 'truth', and there are many differing concepts, from the Sage's understanding, to the imaginings of the 'sleepwalkers'. Truth might just exist as a concept, or it might not. I cannot necessarily accept this statement as a 'given'.

What, please, is a 'Metaphysical thing'?

If you wish to accept the 'mental holographic representation of illusion' as a definition of 'thing' than I will accept your definition.

Not necessarily. But if 'ultimate Truth' is, for instance, wholistic, as is often claimed, a linear 'tool' such as logic, would be inappropriate for the examination thereof. Logic is strictly linear.
Truth is not a 'thing'. If one accepts the commonly accepted and offered (by those that have reached any real depth in the study thereof) attributes of Truth, such as non-temporal and therefore non-physical, eternally symmetrical, unchanging and unchangeable, non-dualistic, non-linear (wholistic), etc.. So, if Truth is not a 'thing' but a possible 'ground state', it cannot have 'existence' as 'things' exist as concepts and Truth cannot be conceptualized.... Existence is still a duality, where you have 'existence' there must be 'non-existence'.

Contradiction has 'existence' within/as concept and is also logical, temporal, linear... There IS no contradiction possible to Truth (if it Is as posited by those who 'have been there') as Truth is non-dualistic.
Neils Bohr remarked once that "There are trivial truths and there are great Truths, the opposite of a trivial truth is obviously false, the opposite of a great Truth is still true."
Perhaps he also 'understood' the wholistic non-dual nature of Truth that I am struggling to analogise into linear words and concepts.

In the land of nails, the hammer is king! Concepts are available to the scrutiny of logic. The whole linear, temporal, material omniverse is fodder for the razors of logic. That which is unable to be conceptualized, beyond words, is likewise beyond the usefulness of the tool of logic (and logic is merely a tool for understang the dream, not for achieving lucidity within the dream).

True, there is that which is beyond words and beyond logic. Because logic can be applied to this and not that does not arbit 'value', any more than a nail is of more value than a screw because a hammer won't work on a screw (especially when there is a screwdriver in your pocket!) but will work on a nail. That is one reason for metaphor and analogy and music and poetry.. logic is not always the correct tool for the job.

Sorry, a lie is a lie. That which is an 'illusion', a fiction, remains an 'illusion' no matter how hard you scrinch your eyes and ball your fists and exclaim "I Believe, I Believe!!!" At that point, though, with belief, illusion becomes delusion. Not 'uncertain', insane. Deluded. Believing in that which is false, does not alter that 'falsity', that 'fictitious' nature..

True, but it is our 'apparent' reality, though, the 'reality' of the 'illusion' that is available to the disecting blades of logic..

Sure, fine, within the limitations that I have already explained.

 

You're confusing the issue, purposely or not, by demanding resolution of every philosophical issue raised by a discussion of my ideas. The issues at hand are only my points themselves, and any issues that are directly required in order to examine those points.

If nothing exists-- if there is no existence-- is there truth? One of my points was that there was not, which you argued against. I say that by definition, without existence there can be no truth; the exact definition of truth is not relevant, only the fact that it cannot exist without there being any existence.

How could that possibly be accepted by anyone at all? Truth is demonstrably temporal in that "I have a house." is true-- but if I went out and sold it tomorrow, the statement would no longer be true.

You might argue that truth is some 'thing' seperate from the universe and time, a description seperate from that which it describes, and that a location in time must be described in order for the truth of any given statement to be ascertained (and therefore truth would be non-temporal), but that just obscures the definition of "temporal". We can set any idea outside of time and require a time location in order to examine specific instances of it, but that doesn't make it non-temporal. Truth is demonstrably and undeniably temporal-- "wholistic" is a totally meaningless term.

And half of the other "commonly accepted and offered attributes of Truth" fall apart with that. By your capitalization, I assume that some baseless distinction between "Truth", a hypothetical concept that has the attributes that we WANT truth to have, and "truth", the actual reality that annoys us" has been made by "those that have reached any real depth in the study thereof".

You're making the unwaranted assumption that "every sensory 'given' is a fiction". There may be doubt as to the reliability of sensory perception as a representation of reality, but there is no more (perhaps even less) basis for an assumption of falsehood than of truth. For some reason you've just decided this and began to make points about it in your posts...?

It wasn't a given, or I would have phrased it as a statement instead of an unsupported "if" clause. I was replying to a case that you used in your earlier post.

 

I just said that one cannot 'know'. There might not or there might be... I just demonstrated that it cannot be a 'given' relating 'Truth' and 'existence' like that.

The 'definition' is everything here. If you accept 'truth' as a 'thing', than it would be true that no-*thing* can exist if there were no-thing existing. If it is a 'thing'. For example, if there is a 'state' of 'non-duality', which 'Truth' has been posited as, it would not 'exist' nor 'not-exist', as both terms are within 'dualism'.
There are little trivial truths, which fit your argument, but there seem to be greater 'Truth' that will not. If all of your personal experience regards this 'trivial truth', then I can see why there is only available in your argument that particular 'truth'. There are tiny truths that apply to my car; there are universal truths; there is (possibly) 'Truth' beyond that... Material existence (I am assuming that this is what you are referring to..) is definitely necessary for the existence of 'material' truths.

See above...
And, how can this be accepted by anyone? Actually, it is a common definition among millennia of Metaphysists, Sages, the 'Enlightened', Mystics, the 'Awakened, actually, anyone who has dug deep enough in to a search for Truth. That which is in omniversal state of permanence. Right away, all materiality is excluded by definition. All materiality is always changing within Time within 'mind'... Temporality can only equate to trivial truths...

'Truth/Reality' describes nothing, explains nothing.. Trivial 'truths' perhaps, but they are not what I'm referring to, and they seem to be all of which you have experience.
Not at all. 'Temporal' has a very simple and well understood definition. It just ain't everything on the buffet.

No we cannot. You'd have to demonstrate this one! Time is a necessary for any 'material existence'.

Big talk from a 'one-eyed fat man'!!
*__-
(Sorry, that was a misquote from a John Wayne movie..)
You would have a very difficult time (impossible, I'd wager) 'proving' these absurd assertions. Should you wish to make the attempt, though, I'll be around... My understanding of 'Truth' is that it is NOT temporal (but of course, I'm referring to something totally alien to your experience and therefore has no 'existence' in your world), so I am denying 'Truth's' temporality. So, right away that puts the lie to your assertion that it is UNDENIABLY temporal. I deny it. Feel free to demonstrate...
As for 'wholistic', you can simply begin your education with a dictionary. You don't have to agree with the definition, but that is certainly a reasonable starting point for developing an acceptable definition for you. Definition and meaning are two sides of the same coin..

My apologies. I have explained this in so many places and so often that I innappropriately made an assumption of understanding on your part. Again, apologies. Here is a short quote from my upcoming book,..

OK, so the title is 'tentative'.. *__-
The same can be shown for all the rest of your sensory 'input'. No sound, texture, movement, odors, etc... in front of your nose. This is not mysticism, it is science. Just not high school science. Of course it is difficult to accept as it does violate the assuredness of the ego and is about as 'counterintuitive' as you can get. That is why even physists can/will not accept this, as they are emotional, egoic beings before all the intellect. Gallileo was just recently 're-communicated' for the heresy of of his science! But, now we would enter the murky world of psychology...

I understand that you have your 'truths' and are describing the parameters and definition of that 'truth'. I also have my experiences and understanding of 'truth' which considerably differs from your's. Please don't assume that your truth is the only one or is a one size fits all proposition. It isn't, obviously.
It is not a case of 'right' or 'wrong' (emotional/ego).

I think that the problem in our 'communication' is that,

"A 'model' or 'picture' (of the 'Truth' to which I refer) will only become intelligible to the subject (you) if it is made of 'ideas' (concepts/constructs/analogs) already (having meaning) in his (your) mind."

As the 'Truth' of which I speak is absolutely (apparently) alien to you (in your 'reality'), it is reasonable and natural for you to argue it's 'existence' and 'meaning', especially as it HAS NO EXISTENCE OR MEANING to you, in your 'world'!

 

nothing is perfect
in the space where nothing exists
will one find perfection
the perfect nothing

accept nothing as fact
question everything
determine your own truth
define your own reality

...but if you want to talk about absolute truth and ultimate reality then your guess is as good as mine

all I am is what i think/feel/know/believe, which is totally different to what you are...

 

Imagine that I have a couch; this couch is either flourescent, or a light is shone upon it. I sit in your dark, sterile room with two windows; the couch is outside one of the windows. Assuming, as in your experiment, that I do not go to the window and look out of it, I will not see the couch. Is this indication that my sensory perception is not in-line with reality? Does this mean that the couch is "dark" or that it does not exist?

Of course not! All you are showing is one's inability to see something that is not within one's range of sight. You are making a few, seemingly innocuous, incorrect assumptions and constructing a monstrosity from them. Your eyes, first of all, do not "see" light; your eyes see objects by interpreting the light waves reflected off of them and onto your retinas. So of course you wouldn't see the photons, which are light; if you are positioned correctly, your retinas will make contact with those photons and you will see the light source. Being positioned so that this source is not in your field of vision does not imply the "darkness" of photons in any way.

You're twisting and confusing things so that you can make an argument for what you WANT to be true sound logical:

"Our eyes give us information that there is no light in this room." False. Our eyes give us the information that no light is reflecting off of the room and contacting our retinas. If I put a pop-tart in my mouth but avoid touching my tongue with any part of it, my tongue does not tell me that my mouth is empty; it tells me that nothing with taste is contacting my taste buds. Eyes are the same way; if light is in the general area, but not contacting the visual organs, of course you won't detect the light. This is an obvious fact, not some amazing indicator of the subjectiveness of reality.

"Photons are dark! They emit NO light!! " False. They are not dark; they are, by definition, light. Of course light does not emit itself, it doesn't need to; this doesn't make it dark. This conclusion of yours in no way derives from your experiment.

"We just saw, in a simple experiment, how photons are completely dark." False. We just saw, in a simple experiment, how you have to look at something in order to see it.

"Putting two and two together, shaken, not stirred, we find we live in a totally, absolutely blackest of black, dark universe." False. The fact that not every photon in the universe impacts our retinas does not mean that these photons do not exist, nor does it mean that they are "dark". It just means that the objects from which they come are not within our field of vision.

"All those colors, patterns, old familiar faces, ...are all in your head." In the sense that they are now memories, yes. But in the sense you appear to be trying to use, that they are not 'real' in the first place, no. Your experiment, as I've already said, merely shows that you cannot see something unless you are looking at it.

"In front of your nose, despite the information of one of the Original Five senses, is absolute darkness!!!" The statements are less subtly false now, and are rather obvious. The lack of eyes on my nose does not mean that it is dark in front of it. This, like your other conclusions, has been drawn from incorrect definitions and from other illogical conclusions.

An idea is not correct on the merit of those who accept it. You use this same false justification for your views on QM...

A true statement is one which accurately describes objective reality. If you want to create some subset of this, 'Truth', which is 'that which is in omniversal state of permanence', fine. Anyone can postulate an idea; but without any sort of evidence for the ideas correctness, you can't use it in a valid argument.

If this 'Truth' is omniversal and permanent, it should not be difficult to give an example. Without a valid example, there is no reason to think that 'Truth' exists at all. What comes to mind for me are the laws of physics; they are omniversal, permanent, and non-temporal. However, if there was no existence, we have both agreed that material objects would not exist. If this were the case, the laws of physics would no longer hold any meaning or be true, because they would no longer describe reality. Without physical objects to be governed, the laws would be meaningless. So the laws of physics, while they could be said to be non-temporal, are contingent upon the existence of physical 'things'; they do not provide a counterexample to my argument that truth would not exist in the absence of existence.

We can set any idea outside of time as "nontemporal" and require a time location for any particular instance of it. I could say that life is not temporal-- that it exists outside of time-- but that in order to check the reality of any specific instance of the larger 'Life', a time location would be needed. The instance of life at my location in space at my location in time would describe reality (just as the instance of truth of "I have a house" at the same location and time describes reality), but life at another location might not describe reality (just as truth in another time, or another instance of truth, might not describe reality). This is all I meant with my comment about setting ideas outside of time; if 'truth', which can clearly be seen to change, is claimed to be 'nontemporal' in this way, it is only obscuring the definition of 'temporal' by circumventing it with fancy terms.

What was inappropriate was not your assumption of my understanding, but your assumption of my agreement and of your correctness in lieu of any real supporting evidence or reasoning. It is easy to understand the idea you are putting forth, but that does not mean that you are free to claim the idea's correctness without scrutiny. You are making a large (and, from the weak and twisted arguments you've thus far put forth, unwarranted) assumption that "every sensory 'given' is a fiction".

The same can indeed be shown for all of the rest of your sensory 'input'; "the same" is just not what you seem to think it is. This, the idea you are putting forth, is not mysticism; it is pseudo-science. Definitely not high school science, nor any other kind of actual science. It is difficult to accept because it is clearly wrong, not because it violates the assuredness of the ego (which seems to be the only reason that you refuse to accept that it is incorrect). Physicists won't accept it because it's totally baseless and demonstrably false, obviously.

How can you even tote this as science? Do you understand the scientific method?

I agree that my idea of truth as a whole is not entirely correct, and I realize that many parts of it will be proven wrong and have to revised-- people generally call this learning. However, this issue is, at large, a case of 'right' and 'wrong' (for some reason in quotes)-- which are not the emotions and the ego, but words that describe the relationship of an idea to objective reality. If you deny the existence of an object reality at all, any child can tell you (though in smaller words and with a bit less grammatical complexity) that in order for "there is no objective reality" to be totally and absolutely true, it must itself be an element of objective reality; an obvious disproof by contradiction. This observation is so common and simple that its significance is generally ignored; but I'm sure you understand that, representing a logical contradiction, the only way around it is the denial of logic-- and if that's the road you're taking, you admit that your views are logically incorrect, and you are therefore delusional. I doubt you deny logic, but you seem to be twisting a lot of things to validate your ideas instead of objectively looking for their truth or falsehood.

You say it is omniversal. Therefore it must have existence in my world unless you are using 'world' as a masked way of saying 'incorrect worldview'. In the case that my worldview is incorrect, an omniversal and permanent reality that is not contingent upon temporal and local realities should be easily demonstrable-- yet you have failed to give even one example.

You are taking the correctness of your ideas (EG 'Truth') for granted and making arguments based upon them. Without proof of their application to reality, definitions of concepts cannot simply be thrown about and said to prove things regarding reality. I can make up an idea about 'tRuTh', that which is "in a state of permanence within the body of a small cat". I cannot, without demonstrating that any such 'tRuTh' exists, use that concept to deduce information about cats.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to validate your ideas and stop lauding baseless fantasies as "reasonable" scientific theories.

 

I'm sorry that you have spent so much time with your, I'm sure, well thought out post. But you have pointed out to me that you are a waste of my time.

Believe whatever you like. I have nothing to prove or convince you of. Whether you take what I say seriously or not means more to the moon than it does to me.

'Pearls before swine' and all that...

Have a nice day.

 

Mm... Well, thanks for your time.

 

Thanks to both of you for spending your time in this interesting thread. Your time has not been a "waste" if you consider the value you have provided to your readers, speaking for myself and I suspect for some others as well.

If you were to continue the discussion you have started, I think a possible resolution might be to acknowledge that you are using common terms to connote different ideas. You have already suggested a way out of this difficulty; by differentiating between capitalized and uncapitalized words, like 'Truth' and 'truth', you could make sure there was no ambiguity in your usage.

You have ended up concluding that each of your "worlds" is uninteresting to the other. Nameless has dismissed the Sikz's world as "trivial" and Sikz has dismissed Nameless' world as "baseless fantasy". I think that's OK in the same sense that some people find golf or rock music uninteresting. Some people find those endeavors interesting and even compelling, and others do not.

But I, for one, find both of your worlds fascinating and I would love to see a reconciliation. In my view, both of your worlds are legitimate. Sikz's world of science is undeniably useful and of great value. We should do nothing to diminish it. Nameless' World, (the capitalization is intentional in the above sense) IMHO, offers the possibility of coming to an understanding of a greater reality that transcends that of science.

We have many indications that some people (mystics etc.) have come to a deeper understanding of the World. We also have indications from the same people that the concepts involved in that understanding cannot be expressed in language, hence its appearance as "baseless fantasy".

In my view, the connection between the world and the World, is contained in Dubmugga's comment, "all I am is what i think/feel/know/believe, which is totally different to what you are...". Dubmugga even made use of the 'capitalization convention', although I think it could be improved. The key connection, as I see it, is the all-important definition of the term 'I', as others in PF have noted.

In another thread, I suggested using the 'capitalization convention' on all personal pronouns, the capitalized ones denoting whatever, if anything, about the person is non-material, and the uncapitalized ones denoting the material aspects of the person, in particular the body and brain.

So, I would change Dubmugga's comment to, all I am is what I think/feel/know/believe, which may be totally different to what You think/feel/know/believe. And, all i am is what you would see if you ever met me. And if you happened to see me, You might think that I think more or less the same way as You think.

What I am trying to say is that IMHO, thought exists outside the brain in Nameless' World, but my phenomenal behavior is firmly rooted in Sikz's world subject to all the laws of physics. And, to partially quote Dubmugga, IMHO 'I am' is the only Truth. My suggestion is to explore the consequences of the proposition that I and You and Him and Her are all identically one and the same, even though you and i and him and her have perfectly distinct and recognizable bodies. What do You think about this?

paul (the typist), and Paul (the thinker).

P.S. I almost forgot to mention that I think there is a possibility that an understanding of the significant difference between I and i, might lead to a better understanding of the role of a conscious observer in the measurement problem of QM.