Off Topic: The Flood
This topic has moved here: Subject: late night silliness
  • Subject: late night silliness
Subject: late night silliness
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I'm sure you've all heard "I think, therefore I am.", the english translation of a famous philosophical statement. Before you go to sleep, try to hypothesize that you don't exist. It's a really hard concept to imagine, isn't it? It seems obvious that one has to exist to consider existence, but suppose that a flaw in our logic is causing us to come to that conclusion? Perhaps every time you find one added to one to be two, you are making an error programmed into the very core of your being. For an illustration, read the following hypothesis in your own first person conjugation after clearing your mind:

"I might not exist. It may be by an error in my reasoning that I conclude that only something that exists can ponder existence. I can show evidence of this possible error by imagining a nonexistent being pondering whether it exists. Such a nonentity can ponder existence. How can I know that I am not that nonentity?"

Obviously this reasoning is flawed, but what if the reasoning that leads to that conclusion is flawed? Flawed or not, our reality is based on our reasoning. In our reality, you do exist. All bets are off in other realities, though. Good night y'all, enjoy.

  • 06.07.2004 11:53 PM PDT

mendicantVOTARY
Votary of the I AM

Magyar ODST 19th Shock Troops Battalion

my brain just exploded..... ....can i be excused?

  • 06.07.2004 11:57 PM PDT
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Not one person offered useful feedback?!

  • 06.08.2004 2:58 PM PDT
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Posted by: forumrunner
I'm sure you've all heard "I think, therefore I am.", the english translation of a famous philosophical statement. Before you go to sleep, try to hypothesize that you don't exist. It's a really hard concept to imagine, isn't it? It seems obvious that one has to exist to consider existence, but suppose that a flaw in our logic is causing us to come to that conclusion? Perhaps every time you find one added to one to be two, you are making an error programmed into the very core of your being. For an illustration, read the following hypothesis in your own first person conjugation after clearing your mind:

"I might not exist. It may be by an error in my reasoning that I conclude that only something that exists can ponder existence. I can show evidence of this possible error by imagining a nonexistent being pondering whether it exists. Such a nonentity can ponder existence. How can I know that I am not that nonentity?"

Obviously this reasoning is flawed, but what if the reasoning that leads to that conclusion is flawed? Flawed or not, our reality is based on our reasoning. In our reality, you do exist. All bets are off in other realities, though. Good night y'all, enjoy.

I did not understand any of that. Can you put it in one sentence?

  • 06.08.2004 3:00 PM PDT
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That's really wierd.

  • 06.08.2004 3:05 PM PDT
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You sound like Jane or Cortona. Probably more like Cortona....

  • 06.08.2004 3:06 PM PDT
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Well I know how you feel forumrunner, it is really hard to type such a complicated theory in a forum. i think you are asking if it is possible that we do not exist, and we just think we do because we believe there is no other possibility. That is sorta what I got from it.

  • 06.08.2004 3:15 PM PDT