I have to say, this "being unable to edit my posts" thing is really driving me crazy. I can't stand reading a typo or other mistake I made in a long post and being unable to fix it. Grrr.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Let's get started.[/quote]

Phew. OK. On the one hand, a "real" answer to this could require a degree in philosophy, which I have, but also several volumes of writing, which I don't have time for. So I can only answer "briefly" (bahaha!) and try to point you in the right direction if you're curious about this topic and want to pursue it further, as it seems that you are. If you are not interested in going any further, please say so and that way I won't be wasting my time.

First, you way you have framed the question contains an important misunderstanding which I must take the blame for. I was in a hurry and tossed off my comment off-the-cuff, not really intending it to be taken so seriously. If I had know I was addressing such a philosophically sophisticated audience, I would not have said "you can't even prove your own existence." I would have have been more specific, thusly: "You can't even prove [u][i][b]to me[/b][/i][/u] that you exist." Naturally that changes everything. What I meant was that [i]from my perspective I couldn't even be sure you existed[/i] and there was no way you could prove it to me. I think you'll agree that is a true statement.

As for proving to yourself that you exist, it's an interesting question with a lot of ways to answer it, ranging from deeply solipsistic to much more pragmatic. Most people pretty much agree with Descartes that "Cogito ergo sum" - "I think, therefore I am" and let it go at that - a fine place indeed to let it go. There are, of course, counter-arguments, but I leave them as an exercise for the reader because boredom.

How I do, personally, feel about this and other metaphysical questions? I feel the way The Buddha suggested I should feel: I couldn't care less what the answers are. They are meaningless and I will never get them answered anyways. I have more important things to worry about, like my own life and my own troubles. If you want to know more about this viewpoint, what you're looking for is the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow]Buddha's Parable of the Poison Arrow[/url], which was his answer to life's [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions]Unanswered Questions[/url]. I mean, think about it - other than the pleasure of mental masturbation, which admittedly can be nice, wondering about metaphysics is absolutely a pointless waste of time since they are questions that not only [u][i]will[/i][/u] never be answered, but [u][i]can[/i][/u] never be answered. Unless you're on some good drugs, then it can be more interesting. But in general, time spent doing crossword puzzles is more productive.

Me personally, I prefer to spend my time trying to solve my [url=https://os.me/the-84th-problem/]84th problem[/url]. I am willing to help anyone try to solve that problem. I feel a lot better since I have made some progress on it.

Other than that, you have the same issues as every other philosophical questions, starting with terms, such as "What is your definition of the word 'exist'?" Your existence or non-existence depends on that definition. What makes something "exist"? Is it simple self-awareness? Is anything physical required? That kind of thing. Which is the same kind of thing i tell people if they as me if I believe in gods. I usually say "OK, definite that word, please, and then I can answer your question."

For that reason, I've elided several of your further questions and statements, because I can't address them before that definition is established.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
First, I exist. This is [i]probatum est supra quaestione omnino[/i]. If I did not exist, this conversation could not take place.
[/quote]

I think that's a bit strong for an [i]a priori[/i] assumption, to insist that you must exist [i]ab initio[/i] if you want to get all latin-y. And you can't out-Latin me; I was trained in the deadly arts of formal logic, rhetoric, philosophy, and debate by Augustinians and Jesuits. ;-)

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Now, maybe you want to argue I'm a figment of your imagination. Nice try, but since I don't think the same way you do, then clearly, I exist as something separate from your consciousness.
[/quote]

Bzzzt. I can think of/imagine [u]lots[/u] of ways people think that are different than the way I think, so this proves nothing.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Second, going beyond myself, there is a world outside of myself with other people in it. Third, that world is real, and it is as it appears. [/quote]

I count... 1, 2, 3, 4 - yes, four unproven assertions in those two sentences: 1) "there is a world outside myself", 2) "it has other people in it", 3) "that world is real", and 4) "it is as it appears."

I find that it's most helpful to say "It seems to me that a world exist and has others in it, but I don't know if that's true or not - maybe I only exist as an Artificial Intelligence trapped in a virtual world created by some advanced superscientist. Since there's no way I could ever tell, or change the situation, I may as well go have a roast beef sandwich. I wonder what's on Netflix"? Or, as one wag put it, "I think I think, therefore I think I am." Heh. I can live with that.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
I know that my senses are imperfect and they might be mistaken, but it is all I have to deal with the world.
[/quote]

Right! So why worry? Saul good, man! Hey, would they let you have medicinal THC for your pain?

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Even if it's being simulated, someone else is doing that (If I was a "brain in a vat" I couldn't both be experiencing things and at the same time be causing them.)[/quote[

Unless they were clever enough to incorporate your reactions into their simulation.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Well, there is a concept called "point of diminishing returns" in which further and further effort get less and less results. Well, I want to argue the opposite, which I might call "the point of excessive returns."[/quote]

Hmm, can you say more about your reasoning there?

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Let's go back to what I call "The start of my existence." Consider me a point, or a part of something that thinks he exists, but does not. And it creates a reality around itself.[/quote]

I don't recall anyone saying anything about nonexistent beings creating their own realities from scratch! :-)

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
[i]From where does it get the ideas?[/i] A person can paint things based on what they've seen before, or even invent new things. But they do this based on what they have seen before. A blank consciousness, or thought process, or whatever it might be, could not create from nothing, with no knowledge of anything, a whole world around it. The concepts and ideas aren't there.[/quote]

Oh, Paul! You're thinking too small! There's a whole world of possibilities you haven't even considered! For example, your discussion is purely metaphysical. You haven't touched at all on how physical or social factors might affect us. Things like DNA/genetics, instincts, brain chemistry, external stimuli, infancy and growth, various inputs along the way, environmental factors, society and culture, gender differences, evolutionary pressures, and so on and on and on! :-)

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
Okay, so maybe you go back to the "brain in a vat" hypothesis, that the world around me is a simulation. If so, then I have manipulated that simulation, and therefore must exist.[/quote]

You say "therefore...." a lot. Be careful there. I understand what you mean in casual use, but when it comes to heavy philosophy, it tends to be seen as "I put forth this concept, and believe can prove it is a true statement with a string of propositions that arrive at this conclusion with no fallacies."

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829] It also wold have to be an [i]enormous[/i] simulation to keep all the things that appear in the world in their places.[/quote]

With a philosophical and scientific [i]Gedankenexperiment[/i] (thought experiment), it's traditional to not consider the practical side of things, such as "what cruel person would put a cat in a box with poison" or "who the fuck is gonna feed and clean up after a million monkeys at typewriters". The means aren't the point.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829] From Ants Marching (cue [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNgJBIx-hK8]the song by the Dave Matthews Band[/url]), to every vehicle on the street, and every object down to pieces of paper, and millions of other people. They would also have to build dirt, and rock layers, and all the other aspects of the world. Plus randomness. And every object with component parts. [...] But these things are happening, I'm causing them to happen, and the necessary capacity to simuolate everything is far too large to be economically viable.[/quote]

For an interesting view on what kind of computational power it would take to run such a large and detailed simulation, and the concominent economic costs, I point you at Neal Stephenson's recent book, "Fall; or, Dodge In Hell." But basically I think Neal Stephenson is a demigod, and that all his books might be the best things yet written.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]Are we to presume they don't exist (never existed) or are simulations? I think that goes a little too far out because the required capacity would be expensive, and the question becomes, for what purpose?

Bah. As the planet-sized computer in the Hitchiker's Guide once said, "molest me not with such pocket-calculators stuff!". It's all castles in the air, dude. How hard it would be to do something doesn't enter into it. When you're imagining, you can imagine anything you want, as much or as little. Physical constraints don't enter into it.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
But, I can quote someone else who was much more eloquent on the point.
[/quote]

You didn't cite your quotations.

[quote=Tdarcos post_id=109826 time=1590803814 user_id=829]
“An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it."[/quote]

Not as devastating as you think. If you tell me something you think is an axiom, well, I guess I do have to admit that it's a Thing which you believe Exists and Is True.... but it does not at all necessarily follow that I accept it or agree with it. I could think your axiom is stupid. So, no "opponents are defeated" by denying it.

If you think those quotes are good, I'll give you a couple more. I have added emphasis in one place.

"We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."

- Charles Bukowski

"The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom."

- Darrow, Clarence

"I don't know whether this world has a meaning which transcends it. But [u][i]I do know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it[/i][/u]. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch - what resists me - that is what I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity, and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my condition?"

- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

"It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do without meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless world because one organizes a small part of it oneself..."

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

Amputai Depart.

Let's get started.

At some point I came to. I referenced this in a video I did, called "[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrOu9_E-r0]Stars[/url]," in which I remembered stars because they were the first thing I remember. On a bottle of soda. (Prime wit Pinback suggested they were six-pointed Star of David on a bottle of "Mountain Jew".) At some point my mind integrated the sense impressions and understood the sounds to be language, and I learned to mimic sounds. I had acquired the power of speech.

This is the point where it was no longer "all in my head," I was now able to communicate with other people.

Now, from this, I realized I exist, because I experienced my senses, although I would not have the understanding of this at that time. Now, I know you're going to object and argue that's all in my head. There's more to this story.

Let's consider what I believe is proven [i]res ipso loquitor[/i] (the thing speaks for itself) First, I exist. This is [i]probatum est supra quaestione omnino[/i] (proven absolutely beyond question). If I did not exist, this conversation could not take place. Now, maybe you want to argue I'm a figment of your imagination. Nice try, but since I don't think the same way you do, then clearly, I exist as something separate from your consciousness.

Or maybe you want to argue the opposite, that [i]you're[/i] a figment of [i]my[/i] imagination. Well then, in order for you to be something I'm imagining, that can only happen because I exist.

Second, going beyond myself, there is a world outside of myself with other people in it. Third, that world is real, and it is as it appears. I know that my senses are imperfect and they might be mistaken, but it is all I have to deal with the world.

Now, maybe you want to argue the "Brain in a vat" or "body in a pod" theory, made popular by [i]The Matrix[/i]. Okay, but where are the sense impressions coming from? Someone else is doing this? Aha, you've just conceded my existence. And, it also proves the other point, there is something outside of me that is (or appears to be) the real world. Even if it's being simulated, someone else is doing that (If I was a "brain in a vat" I couldn't both be experiencing things and at the same time be causing them.)

Or maybe you think I could. Perhaps everything is being simulated by my brain. Well, there is a concept called "point of diminishing returns" in which further and further effort get less and less results. Well, I want to argue the opposite, which I might call "the point of excessive returns."

Let's go back to what I call "The start of my existence." Consider me a point, or a part of something that thinks he exists, but does not. And it creates a reality around itself. [i]From where does it get the ideas?[/i] A person can paint things based on what they've seen before, or even invent new things. But they do this based on what they have seen before. A blank consciousness, or thought process, or whatever it might be, could not create from nothing, with no knowledge of anything, a whole world around it. The concepts and ideas aren't there.

Now, once I gained not just the ability to listen, and to talk, I gained the ability to move, and with that, the ability to manipulate objects. And that becomes the point my existence is proven conclusively. That I have the capacity to alter the fabric of the space-time continuum, by manipulating objects within it.

Okay, so maybe you go back to the "brain in a vat" hypothesis, that the world around me is a simulation. If so, then I have manipulated that simulation, and therefore must exist. It also wold have to be an [i]enormous[/i] simulation to keep all the things that appear in the world in their places. From Ants Marching (cue [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNgJBIx-hK8]the song by the Dave Matthews Band[/url]), to every vehicle on the street, and every object down to pieces of paper, and millions of other people. They would also have to build dirt, and rock layers, and all the other aspects of the world. Plus randomness. And every object with component parts.

The keyboard I am using right now, consists of over 80 pieces, each key which performs a different action. All these things are being done, by me, and they change the universe; sometimes in medium ways (when I post something here) and in minor ways (when I edit a document on disc.) But these things are happening, I'm causing them to happen, and the necessary capacity to simuolate everything is far too large to be economically viable.

We all know of other people, and pets, that crossed our lives, and now they are no longer with us. Are we to presume they don't exist (never existed) or are simulations? I think that goes a little too far out because the required capacity would be expensive, and the question becomes, for what purpose?

But, I can quote someone else who was much more eloquent on the point.

[size=85]“Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

“If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.

“When a savage who has not learned to speak declares that existence must be proved, he is asking you to prove it by means of non-existence—when he declares that your consciousness must be proved, he is asking you to prove it by means of unconsciousness—he is asking you to step into a void outside of existence and consciousness to give him proof of both—he is asking you to become a zero gaining knowledge about a zero.

“When he declares that an axiom is a matter of arbitrary choice and he doesn’t choose to accept the axiom that he exists, he blanks out the fact that he has accepted it by uttering that sentence, that the only way to reject it is to shut one’s mouth, expound no theories and die.

“An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it."[/size]

I wish I could have said it that well.

Yeah, you exist. We all exist. There was a time when you didn't exist and there will be a time when you don't exist, but currently you exist. This whole topic is retarded and anyone who can't tell the difference between right now and 1,000 years ago when they didn't exist is retarded as well.

"You sly dog! You got me monologuing!"
- Syndrome, [i]The Incredibles[/i]

I come here today to talk about, that is, to monologue about something and make my arguments in support of the proposition. What I want to monologue about is something near and dear to my heart (presuming I have one, which might not be the case, as I explain). What I want to discuss is: My existence.

Now, the [url=https://www.joltcountry.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11386&start=40#p109777]argument has been made[/url] that I can't prove my existence. (By implication it would also mean you can't prove yours.) I believe I can prove my existence. And that is what this thread is about. If you disagree with my conclusions or think I've made an error, please feel free to challenge me on this.

I mean, you may believe this whole discussion is pointless, that obviously you know you exist. Aha! But why? "Well, because..." and then you would state your reasons, if you could think of any. So that's what I'm going to do.

It all began with this:
[quote=Finsternis post_id=109777 time=1590710483 user_id=149] [In message thread "Do you believe in God? And do you have a religion?"]
But if you do that [presume Buddha is a god because at least some Buddhists probably do], then you must also use the same standard on other things. You can't even prove you exist.[/quote]
Not a good point to challenge me on! I'm going to show why that last statement is wrong, and I can prove it.

I want this to be a placeholder so I can reference this in my reply to his message, so please don't reply to this until after I make my opening arguments.

Thank you.