Deep Thoughts, With DD: Do we exist?

[rue]

Believe it or not, there are plenty of well read people out there who answer this question: No.  How can they believe that nothing at all exists?  Well they would say, logically, we simply cannot be.  Why?  First some background. 

We know of things which do not exist, or at least, we're reasonably sure that they do not exist.  Unicorns are a favorite amongst philosophers.  If I say the word "Unicorn", I can convey a thought to another human being which no doubt will produce a picture of a unicorn in their minds.  We may differ on our unicorn's size, color and other appearances, but that's no different than if I were to say the word "car".  With both words, we both know what the other is talking about. 

 But yet, it is not reasonable to believe that a unicorn exists.  It is true, that speaking absolutely, we cannot prove that unicorns do not exist.  None of us is omniscient.  But certainly we can reasonably say "there are no Earth dwelling creatures which hold all the characteristics of unicorns."  If there are, then where are they?

So what other things can we say do not exist?  Well by our reasoning above, the Future and the Past do not exist.  We once knew a Past.  We have some semblance of what the Future will hold.  But again in both cases, if the Past and the Future exist, then where do they exist?  Is it as real as a car?  This keyboard I'm typing on?  Do they have any form beyond our thoughts (recall that a unicorn exists in our thoughts, and most people believe that unicorns do not exist). 

But that still leaves us the Present, right?  Well if you believe what these people do, no. 

What is the Present?  Most human beings can become consciously aware of a period of time close to a second.  But a second is not the Present.  A second has a Past, Present and Future as we travel through time.  Ok, is the midpoint of a second the Present?   No again.  The problem of course is that infinity goes both ways, infinitely small is just as abundant as infinitely large.  So, we have another noun which all of us knows of, yet can mean something else to all of us.  Again, what is the Present? Where is it? 

If we have no Past, Present or Future, then do we exist?

Thoughts?

Why is the Present different than the idea of a unicorn?
 

[Zeradul]

Yep, this is a very interesting discussion to have.

My conclusion to extensive pondering of this topic is this.  It does not matter either way.  As long as we have reproducible events, such as, going to sleep and waking up, or driving to work and getting there, etc, then we have all the evidence we need to go about our lives.

This line of thinking directly then causes one to think, well then, what matters?  My answer is simply, people matter.  Relationships are the most real thing in the world, or at least real to me, as I can empathize with my family and friends as to the things in their lives, and I see their struggles and their triumphs, and I realize that these people and these interactions are precious to me.

Ultimately, I believe life comes down to three primary focuses.  Spouse, Family, and Professional Career.  I think those three things are the three biggest things any of us invest time into, and each of them are best achieved (IMO) when you value the people involved.  Of course there are thousands of other things in each of our lives, but most of those things can or should revolve around the big three in some way.  E.G.  If you love golfing, golf with your souse, child, or friend.  Of course I use the word family to include your very closest friends as for all intents and purposes close friends ARE family as far as I am concerned.

So why is the present different than a unicorn?  Because as far as we can tell the present is real, and if not totally tangible, it is at least reliable.  We can rely on it for our expected set of dimensions.  We have no evidence that a unicorn exists, and not to say one couldn't, but until it does, it does not matter to us in any way, other than our imagination.

[Mnementh]

I believe we do exist, at a very base level, and the very fact that we're trying to answer or address this question is further evidence.  Are there scenarios that one could consider in which we would cease to exist?  Yes, I believe so.  For there is no way to prove that what I'm doing right now is completely real.  All of this could be part of someone's daydream and not be real at all.  If you're in a room talking to your Dad, and your Dad leaves the room and leaves the perception of all your sense, does he continue to exist?  Even though you have no proof that he still exists?  You just KNOW that he does, you believe it, therefore he must.  So I suppose the simple act of believing is what defines our existence....maybe.

[Merc248]

why not say we exist in "moments" rather than using a term that implies the definition of "present" in terms of "past" and "future"?  "moment" definitely lies completely within the definition of a "present"...

and i think that since there is a continuum of past "moments," we therefore know that the past DID exist in some form.  though, what about the unicorn question, surely ideas still exist but in some other manner.  oh hey, let's put them all in one world and call it "the world of ideas"!

[rue]

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was fascinated by this question.  He wanted to know everything and anything that could be indisputably true, without question.  What a fantastic waste of time, right?  Well not to Descartes, especially at this point in human development.  The intellectual world at the time was in a heated debate about Epistemology, or more specifically the branch of Epistemology that deals with where knowledge comes from.  Pure Rationalists maintained that since senses can mislead us (and they would say that they often do rather than from time to time), the foundation of knowledge should be entirely placed in things which can be explained analytically (like say, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  This makes sense in our minds once and always, and our senses can only mislead us if we attempt to disprove this).  Pure Empiricists were on the opposite end of the spectrum, believing that the human mind is variable in its ability to be rational, and that we must obtain knowledge solely by what we observe in our environment.  Like all spectrums, there were people whose beliefs had them somewhere between the two extremes. 

Descartes was one of the Rationalists.  To prove that Rationalism had to be the foundation of knowledge, he first had to find the foundation of knowledge (wow, deep).  So what is true beyond any doubt?  It's not a simple question as my first post hopefully illustrates.  Descartes believed he found the answer, though; and you all have heard it before.

"I think, therefore I am" 

Essentially Descartes is saying that regardless of any amount of elaborate illusion, the very fact that one can consider "do I exist?" is proof that their consciousness is real. 

[Merc248]

ahh yes, the mischievous godlike being always tricksering us into tricksy things :p

(i personally appreciate descartes' proof on the existence of god)

[Zeradul]

He has proof?

[kai]

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/descartes-god.html

[QB3RT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_rationalism

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and just in time for caturday

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3420432&page=1
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the answer to question DD, i exist.  as for the rest of you, you all could just be a bunch of 1s & 0s demons and zera could be some type of super demon because he can posses the phone.

[Ruckus]

 A puzzled student once remarked, "If it were possible to prove that God exists, what would one need faith for?"

[wargasm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology

that is all.

[QB3RT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology

that is all.

thats not bad

but if that is still to complicated

Bob to the rescue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius

[Zeradul]

God necessarily exists.
So, there is the main conclusion. Now you need to find the premises.
Next we need to start finding the premises. Clearly, the proof depends on the fact that Descartes has an idea of God which has so much objective reality that it could not have been made by him. So, we are probably going to need the list of kinds of ideas. So:
1.   Ideas are either innate (inborn or known from one's own nature), adventitious (come from outside me) or made by me.
2.   Formal reality is characteristic of things.
3.   Some things have more formal reality than others.
4.   To exist is to be good.
5.   Greater goodness or perfection therefore implies that some things have more existence than others.
6.   Substances have a greater amount of formal reality than modes or accidents.
7.   Infinite substances have more formal reality than finite substances.
8.   Objective reality is the reality characteristic of ideas in virtue of the fact that the idea represents some reality.
9.   Some ideas have more objective reality than others, depending on the formal reality of the things which they represent.
10.   There is at least as much reality in an efficient cause as in its effect. (This is revealed by the natural light.)
11.   The ideas in me are like images that may well fall short of the things from which they derive but cannot contain anything greater or more perfect. (This is revealed by the natural light.)
________________________________________
12.   If I can be sure that the objective reality of one of my ideas is so great that it isn't in me either formally or eminently and hence that I cannot be the cause of that idea, I can infer that I am not alone in the world--that there exists something else that is the cause of the idea.
13.   I have the ideas of myself, of God, of angels, of animals, of physical objects and of other men like me.
14.   I could have composed my ideas of animals, other men and angels. (There is a brief argument on behalf of this premise.)
15.   I could have composed my ideas of physical objects without these existing. (There is an argument to show that this premise is true.)
16.   There is more reality in an infinite than in a finite substance.
17.   The more perfect serves as a standard to judge the less perfect.
18.   I use God as the standard to judge that I am imperfect.
19.   My grasp of the infinite must be prior to my grasp of the finite.
20.   The idea of God is completely clear and distinct and contains more objective reality than any other idea.
21.   But perhaps I am greater than I have assumed and so could be the cause of the idea of a being with all perfections.
22.   The gradual increase in my knowledge shows that I am imperfect. (All of these things are revealed by the light of nature)

Well, that’s all he’s got?  He just uses a few arbitrary and unproven claims to support his predetermined conclusion.  I mean, infinite substances have more ‘reality’ than non infinite ones?  Please, as if he has any evidence of that, much less things of infinite quality even existing.  Ideas have varying amounts of ‘objective reality’??  LOL Okay.  He states claims like this, and then later uses them again to support his argument, and he makes his argument many pages long hoping that you forget that HE is the only one saying these things and that when you come around and hear them again, you’ll believe them to be true because you’ve heard them elsewhere.

You can’t blame him though, the people of his time would have looked to him for all sorts of information, and this was the best he could come up with as far as religion.  Darwin wouldn’t provide the keys to existence for another 300 years, and so a lot of history’s prominent minds made various conclusions about the existence of god.  Every prominent scientist until Galileo in 1600 was convinced the Sun orbits around the Earth, like the Bible says.  It doesn’t mean those amazing minds didn't make other contributions that were VERY real and VERY helpful, and the same is true of Descarte.  He was doing the best with the tools and knowledge of his time, and his tools indicated to him that God was real.

With that said, no prominent scientist since Darwin’s time has made any sort of supernatural claim to the evolution or origin of life.  In fact, in the 1950’s they ‘proved’ it, far more conclusive proof than Descarte’s wordsmithing.

The origin of life:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment

[vege^]

where does the Bible say the sun orbits around earth?

[Zeradul]

Psalm 93:1
Psalm 96:10
Chronicles 16:30
Psalm 19:1-6
Joshua 10:12-14
Job 38:4
Job 38:6

It's why Galileo was excommunicated, put under house arrest, and why his books were banned by the church.  He had evidence supporting helicentrism. (the earth moving around the sun)  The church also made him come, and kneel, and recite that everything he had been saying was false, and that he was wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Church_controversy

But the Church does on very rare occasions admit when it makes mistakes:

In 1992, the Roman Catholic Church finally repealed the ruling of the Inquisition against Galileo. The Church gave a pardon to Galileo and admitted that the heliocentric theory was correct. This pardon came 350 years after Galileo's death.