How would having a proof help you or me? — Valentinus

Indeed; who would have the proof?

If I knew anything in some universally applicable sense then I would know everything and be nothing — I like sushi

Absurd. Was that your point?

Also bear in mind... — Daniel C

How can you, unless there is a you to do so?

The reason to doubt your existence is a consequence of the difficulty to proof your existence. Even old Descartes felt this to be a prerequisite for going anywhere - only after achieving this "certainty" was he ready for "conquering" greater things. — Daniel C

Why do you need proof? Why the preference for doubt here?

Even Descartes? It was a terrible mistake on his part to seek certainty.

Yes, bring in the "kielbasa"!
There's just one thing, before you do that, to bear in mind. Ancient philosophy - west and east - had its beginnings with the appeal to the Rational in man - and that has never changed! (If you try to change that the whole discipline collapses - full stop

That the question is absurd. I was trying to glean some sense from it though by using the term ‘know’ as ‘absolute certainty’, showing it would be absurd to say we can nothing anything in such s complete sense.

Knowing is possible because we can doubt, not because we cannot doubt.

I think how strongly subjective Descartes was, in his search of a first principle, was intentional; in as much as he wanted to obtain certainty or truth independently of any external means/intermediary/apparatus, i.e., unmediated knowledge for the individual (thus to empower it by freeing it from absolute dependency on another, itself being the source or reason of the obtainment of truth or certainty [which is the whole spirit behind “the enlightenment’s” motto, “sapere aude”]), hence, the references to immediate perception in my last post; yet, nevertheless, he was still as objective as he possibly could be, in as much as he proceeded along in his ascertainment in the most universal & general possible way, by only pointing out what could be predicated upon any mind, self or “I”, i.e., all of them, & not solely his subject alone, i.e., a single mind.

(2) “Exactly. Therefore - because thinking without existing is impossible - thinking proofs that we exist! (With all its further implications …..)”

... but the WHOLE point is, that, “existence”, outside of this or any particular state of thought, itself is never something which is actually observed or known by us! Thus the reality or existence of ourself is observable & identifiable with these particular & actual states of thought or perception, & isn’t to be looked for beyond or outside of these.

I don't see how a sausage is irrational.

What would be irrational would be to doubt where doubt is incoherent.

Banno has coffee, therefore, there is a Banno.

I was trying to glean some sense from it though by using the term ‘know’ as ‘absolute certainty’ — I like sushi

SO if we use "know" to mean something it doesn't...

By doubting your existence, you affirm your existence.

This question never made sense to me. The question is HOW would you go about asking this question the right way..

The very fact you ask me this .. is more than enough to at least solidify, I know I exist .. (in part from another, in some sense...) - certainty, not required - just a distraction .. (never mind various minds interacting with themselves on this thread). Seems pseudo. There is only a matter of time before any argument otherwise just refutes itself.

As for whether or not the self exists, who cares. Selves do not die any more than they live.

@OP

I know this: I can't think of any 'grounds to doubt' that I exist which do not also presuppose that I exist; 'doubting that I exist' is, in fact, a performative contradiction.

I would go a bit further, i.e., if grounds for doubt are lacking, then it's not only a matter of not being able to sensibly doubt, one couldn't sensibly know either. There are certain bedrock beliefs that are so fundamental, that without them there would be no knowing or doubting. In other words, the language of knowing and doubting wouldn't get off the ground without such basic/background beliefs. "I exist," is one such belief.

"Cogito Ergo Sum". According to prof John Cottingham (Reading) in the "Oxford Companion to Philosophy" this is perhaps the most celebrated philosophical dictum of all time. Perhaps someone on this forum feels like doing a master's dissertation on the topic - especially if the era of the Enlightenment is what turns you on!

↪180 Proof I would go a bit further, i.e., if grounds for doubt are lacking, then it's not only a matter of not being able to sensibly doubt, one couldn't sensibly know either. — Sam26

I sensibly know he exists. I have confirmed it.

:up:

I know that I exist because when I kick someone in the teeth it is my foot that hurts and not my mouth.

Every person, as a self, body, or both, knows they exist. But that knowledge is certainly variable with concern to each one, as a lot of philosophies about proving one's existence have emerged, and are known for their common contradictions.

What's yours? I would like to hear from you. — Unlimiter

I thought the Devil's greatest trick was convincing the world he doesn't exist. :smile:

Something is typing these words and clicking the Post Comment button. I call that something, "I".

it depends on how you define "exist". I define it as "have subjective experience" in which case you really can't confuse whether or not you have it

Doesn't a question logically presuppose a questioner?

Every person, as a self, body, or both, knows they exist. But that knowledge is certainly variable with concern to each one, as a lot of philosophies about proving one's existence have emerged, and are known for their common contradictions.

What's yours? I would like to hear from you. — Unlimiter

What about the idea of possible worlds? It seems that apart from contradictions everything is possible. This is rather a truism since arguments for nonexistence generally follow the pattern in which the existence of something is shown to result in a contradiction, thereby proving nonexistence.

Proving existence then involves demonstrating an absence of contradictions and proving nonexistence requires one to show that a contradiction follows.

This method utilizes the notion of possible worlds.

I am aware of more than this/here/now. I know that I exist in relation to that/there/then.

That’s about as much as I can be certain of.

yea, not necessarily a conscious one though. The OP could've been written by a human looking robot for all I know. Heck I don't know if you're conscious or not. What I can't confuse however is whether or not I'm conscious (I am but you don't have to take my word for it)

As to what the concept of existence is. First, speaking generally, it is the quality of presence in the totality, or the rejection of the absence from the totality of things. In other words, it is a statement about the world. Your being posits that you are part of this totality and have agency in the universe. — simeonz

I see why you want to go there, but I'm not quite sure of that in general. Before even being in a position to question one's existence I think there are at least 3 prerequisites: 1. (self)consciousness and 2. some internal context/framework that 'you' as a consciousness cognitive agent can sense as operate within, and 3. have the ability to control/affect it. A consciousness concluding it exists must have a need a framework to understand itself and what the answer would mean to itself, apart from external reference points. Like seeing one's self in the mirror, pinching your skin to feel the causal connection, hurting yourself to feel the pain, stopping your thought to prove your self-agency, etc.

That is, I'd say the only reason why we believe in our own consciousness as being real and existing is because we have no strong experiential evidence to the contrary. In my current model, consciousness is a resonant condition within the internal and external boundaries the “I” operates within. However, the self-awareness aspect of experiential/qualia consciousness also tracks the time evolution of this resonant consciousness wave function (currently, I’m modelling that as a quantum pilot wave) and we call that (quantum knot) history as defining our unique thinking existence as a coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, so we are completely calling that time evolved resonant wave pattern the “I” ‘story’ and concluding that we exist at least as a thinking being. This is at least one way that I believe Descartes gets it wrong. For example, in brain with a multiple personality disorder, I’d says that they do not have a single resonant consciousness wave function that collapses into one coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, but many. So, any one of the resonant consciousness wave functions will only resonate with the resonant consciousness wave function (of its multiple personality choices) that is a coherent time evolution (quantum knot) history with its own wave function signature. That resonant consciousness would still be aware of the other a time evolution (quantum knot) histories (of the other people/personalities in their head) but ascribe those to supernatural hijacking of their brains/thoughts (e.g., demonic possession, spirits, other ‘people’ in their brains, etc.), thus they would not say that those other, equally valid versions of themselves, are part of them, but foreign mental invaders.

In this way, I’d say that consciousness can never be self-assess as a snapshot in time, but has to be part of a self-consistent path history (like a story/narrative) that all points to the same resonant focal point/pattern that you call you. Mess with that, and your sense of self consciousness/identity should degrade and vanish into a chaos ideas, facts, memories but without any form, function, or purpose, which I not call that ‘thought’ or ‘thinking’, so a problem to the Descartes way of evidencing oneself.

Furthermore, under my framework, to establish one’s self-consciousness we have to be able to explore all our boundary conditions that ware resonating within and their nature must be accessible/determinable wrt their form, function, or purpose in influencing the landscape that the consciousness agent in question is resonating with and within. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to observe a time-evolution history path where their ‘thought’ could in-fact modify those boundary conditions and that had a correlated, esp. if *expected*, effect on their conscious state of being to ‘feel’ they are alive and the executive center of the (resonating) system. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to learn and use those associations as tools to manipulate itself (the best it can) to achieve goal states of being. Towards a definition qualia consciousness, I’m thinking that the degree that the consciousness agent in question can do the above, it has ever higher orders of qualia consciousness.

In the context of the Cogito Ergo Sum vs. Solipsism points of view, I’d say that my above model applies to both, but both are malformed hypothesis b/c they lack to true mechanics of how consciousness works, so both are far to simplistic ways of forcing a circle into a square, and there will be arguments and evidence for/against each b/c neither is a suitable, complete model. To extend my largely Solipsism supporting framework to the Cogito Ergo Sum view, I believe I just extend the sensory motor boundary of one’s consciousness resonance condition to include other humans of like mind and all the same above mechanics work, and to the extreme case you get a mob, acting as one mind/ consciousness towards a unified form, function, and purpose. They lose individuality and together become the new consciousness of a superorganism much like individual atoms can become lost into a Bose-Einstein condensate fifth state of (consciousness) matter. Once they get out of the superorganism (Bose-Einstein condensate) consciousness state they almost have no memory or explanation of how they could come to think or act to kill/destroy/eradicate/etc. and go back to their comparatively boring mundane lives as individual consciousness agents. I’d say the human ability for this superorganism consciousness state of mind/being evidences against the purist Solipsism views.
I could go on and on, but these are my basic ideas so far on the subject.

Every person, as a self, body, or both, knows they exist. — Unlimiter

Why ask the question if every person knows the answer?

Cogito ergo sum. But I can only prove that with any 100% certainty to myself, not to you. — Artemis

Totally agreed.

While René Descartes is rightfully revered as an indisputable grandee in mathematics, through his highly influential work on coordinate systems and on the analytical geometry built on top of that, his work in self-ontology, cogito ergo sum, is just a silly exercise in futile solipsism.

his work in self-ontology, cogito ergo sum, is just a silly exercise in futile solipsism. — alcontali

Well... I suppose it's been perverted into that by some. But I think his point was not solipsistic--he was just examining the limits of certainty. The real lesson from Descartes failure to find any more knowledge absent God's influence (since he did insist on absolute deductivism) is that you can be reasonably convinced X, Y, and Z are true without having absolute 100% certainty that they are.

Really, the cogito becomes a refutation of the merits of the eternal skeptic. The skeptic just doesn't get anywhere, doesn't move the conversation forward, and, in the end, is just kinda boring.

philosophy as industry

Every person, as a self, body, or both, knows they exist. But that knowledge is certainly variable with concern to each one, as a lot of philosophies about proving one's existence have emerged, and are known for their common contradictions.

What's yours? I would like to hear from you. — Unlimiter

Knowledge (or intelligence) cannot define or delineate existence because it is an expression of existence. Therefore, knowledge or intelligence can be defined/delineated with respect to existence but not vice versa.

Also, it's not that we know we exist but, rather, we can't deny that we exist. Existence is an absolute affirmation. IT IS that which IT IS (Existence Is).

I AM that I AM -> In other words, I AM, no matter how we choose to designate it.