Discussions
Do You Exist?
Posted by thefrontline • 8/23/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: existence, knowledge, logic, philosophy, reality, reason, truth
Do you Exist? How do you Know? Why do you Exist?
Just wondering?
FrontlinePhilosophy.blogspot.com/
User Comments
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Well....mommy and daddy's all around the world seem to never stop doing the nasty allowing everyone to exist. -
I exist because you've asked me and I've answered it back. -
no i dont exsist ..neither do you or him...her..they...them .... we are all a fragment of our own imagination as dictated by the architect ... wake up!-
Who is this architect? How do I know I need to wake up? If you don't exist why are you even asking me this? How did a non-existent entity even reply?
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The exsistance is non physical (quantum physics) the reply and the obsevation and interpretation of a reply here was part of your underlying inner conscience retorting to your questioning... the architect is the one
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If the truth is that I don't exist, then how can a non-existent being have a conscience, if the being itself is not there? If I myself don't exist, then no fragments on my existence should exist, not even my conscience.
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things do not exsists they appear to exsist
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hell yeah i exist! everyday i see traces of my existence! in my home, garden, class, desk, etc! lol -
Einstein was able to come up with a very real demonstration of just how incomplete the physical view of our world given by quantum physics really is. Imagine a box in which there is a radioactive source, a Geiger counter (or anything that records the presence of radioactive particles), a bottle of cyanide, and a cat. The detector is turned on for just long enough that there is a fifty-fifty chance that the radioactive material will decay. If the material does decay, the Geiger counter detects the particle and crushes the bottle of cyanide, killing the cat. If the material does not decay, the cat lives. To us outside the box, the time of detection is when the box is open. At that point, the wave function collapses and the cat either dies or lives. However, until the box is opened, the cat is both dead and alive .
On one hand, the cat itself could be considered the detector; it's presence is enough to collapse the wave function . But in that case, would the presence of a rat be enough? Or an ameba? Where is the line drawn ? On the other hand, what if you replace the cat with a human (named "Wigner's friend" after Eugene Wigner, the physicist who developed many derivations of the Schrödinger's cat experiment). The human is certainly able to collapse the wave function, yet to us outside the box the measurement is not taken until the box is opened . If we try to develop some sort of "quantum relativity" where each individual has his own view of the world, then what is to prevent the world from getting "out of sync" between observers? -
Perhaps you are fascicled from the particle wave duality or from Heisenberg's uncertainty relation, but this what you will learn here will make the other things less important for you. The experiment begins very simple. You need a light source, a wall with two holes and a screen. On side of the wall there is the light source and on the other side there is the screen. When light passes the wall we can see an interference sample on the screen. The maxima are not behind the holes on the screen, but there is one maximum between the two holes on the screen, otherwise it would not be an interference sample. On the right and on the left of this maximum there are dark areas and then again bright areas, but these bright areas are not as bright as the maximum in the middle. Then we have got two dark areas again and so on. This result should not wonder us, because this are waves and because some waves have got a longer way from the light source to the screen than other waves some waves strengthen each other and other waves extinguish each other. When two wave combs clash then they strengthen each other and when a wave comb and a wave valley clash then they extinguish each other. When one hole is closed the maximum is behind the opened hole. Now we will replace the light source through an electron source and we will make the experiment again. This time we get the same interference sample when both holes are opened. This proofs the wave character of the electrons. But it is important that light or electrons cannot be a wave and a particle at the same time. Now it becomes interesting, we do not let many electrons throught the wall, but only one after the other. When one electron passes the wall it cannot handycap himself and because it can only go throught one of the holes it would be logical that the maxima are behind the two holes. But when we wait until many electrons have passed the wall we saw an interference sample again. When we repeat this experiment and we close one hole the maximum is behind the open hole. It seams that electron knows wheather both holes are opened or only one. When we try to measure throught which hole an electron goes we get two maxima behind the two holes. So it is wrong to say that the electron goes throught one of these two holes, because we can say that it goes throught both holes or we can also say that it goes throught not hole, both answers are correct. The consequence is that nothing is real until an observer saw it. We do not know a reciprocal action between the electron, the observer and the instruments, but there must exist a reciprocal action. An electron has got many possibilities and because of our oberservation the electron must choose one of the possible ways. So when it goes throught one of the holes it is logical that the maxima are behind the holes. It is called collapse of the wave function and every particle has got a probability wave. This means that never can be sure where a particle is, we can only say where the most probable place is. A human being has got also a probability wave which we can find in the whole universe, but her strongest point is there where we are. But there is everytime a very little probability that you can find yourself on Mars for example or somewhere else, but this probability is so little that you need not be afraid. When we know throught measurements where this person is then his wave function collapses, because we know his exact position. As long as we observe something it is real and when we do not observe it it is not real any longer. There is another illustration which is called Schrodinger's cat. It is a thought experiment. We give a cat into a box with a radioactive material and a bottle of poison. Because we never know when an atom decays a radioactive material is very good for this experiment. The probability is very improtant for quantum physics. The box must be closed. When an atom of the radioactive material decays the bottle will be broken and the cat will die. But as long as we do not look after the cat if she is alive or dead, then we can say that she is alive and dead or not alive and not dead, both answers are correct. But in this situation we could not never say that she is alive or dead. I hope that these both experiments could tell you something about nature. So when you believe all this, which is not total sure until today, your conception of the world has changed I think.
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A very interesting possibility are time travels, because we see time travels in many movies, but only little prople know, that there are physical theories which make time travels prossible. All what we know, it is space and time, we call it space-time. We always talk about three dimensions and a fourth dimension which is the time. There are so called space-time-diagrams. On the y-axle we have got the time and on the x-axle, the horizontal axle, we have got the space. In a diagramm like that we can draw lines. When we stand for example the line is parallel to the y-axle, because only the time smears. When we travel faster the line comes closer to the x-axle. The line of an object which has got an infinite speed would be parallel to the x-axle. All known movements can be illustrated in these space-time-diagrams. These lines go from the bottom to the top, from bottom left to top right or from bottom right to top left. Lines which go from the top to the bottom, top right to bottom left or top left to bottom right would be movements back into the past. We cannot imagine movements like that, but for photons which fly with the speed of light it do not matter if they go into the past or into the future. The consequence might be for example that something can be formed of nothing, because Einstein's formula (E=mc2) allows to transform matter into energy and energy into matter. An electron-positron-pair for example can be formed by a no existing photon, which collide to form this photon. This is possible, because photon do not know the differenc between past and future. When we will crook the space-time so strong that the time will be one of the space dimensions and this space dimension will be the time then time travels could be possible, because in the space dimensions we can go forward and backward. In real it is very difficult to crook the space-time so strong, because we need a very strong gravity field. The possibility of time travels is fascinating.
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"...we will crook the space-time so strong that the time will be one of the space dimensions..."
I'm not sure we can do that. In almost all 4 dimensional functions, time acts differently than the other 3 space dimensions.
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As someone famous once said, 'I think, hence I am'.-
René Descartes implied that we think, therefore we exist. But indeed, if you think about it, as a result of our existence we are able to think. I don't exist because I think I exist, but because I exist I think. In other words, I would say, "I am, therefore I think".
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What you say also makes sense. But who am I to disagree with RD. After-all, he is the one with the wiki page, not me!
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That's a profound misreading of Descartes and misunderstanding of the context of his work.
He wasn't out to prove his own existence. He had no reason to doubt it.
At the time, there were a number of competing philosophical systems being offered in intellectual circles-- it was also an age of religious wars between different Christian denominations. Descartes' idea was to find one point with which no philosopher could disagree and try to build a new philosophy from that proposition.
"Cogito sum" does not mean, "thinking makes me exist" so much as mean "Since I know that I think, I know without doubt that I must exist and so any sound philosophy can be built from that point of certainty like a geometical proof." Remember that Descartes other major contribution is analytic geometry.
Descartes was hoping that by affirming "Cogito sum" he would eventually prove that Catholicism was the one true faith. He was a brilliant mathematician but a lousy theologian.
Descartes' work has always been controversial within philosophy, and one could say that many of his main claims have been largely refuted over the last two centuries by professional philosophers who have questioned just what "thought" is, what "ego" is, and what "being" is and even whether geometical reasoning belongs outside of geometry. See Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, et cetera. The only prominent advocate of Cartesianism who attempted to reconcile Descartes' ideas with modern developments was Jean-Paul Sartre. -
wrong post. -
I think there's a bug, each time I'm pushed back here
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Ian, ironically I have heard Catholic priests make the same misinterpretation as Frontline seems to make here (essentially, that "I think, therefore I am" claims a causal relationship rather than an evidentiary one) and point to it as one of the early elements of the self-sufficiency that rejects religion.
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I don't exist until you visit www.zm0ney.com =( Help me to exist -
If you wanna know me whether I'm exist or not, you would know it at surayblog.blogspot.com -
Hmmm... if we are all part of something, which is nothhing, and that nothing is something, then yeah, we exist. -
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there, does it make a sound? -
When you say "exist" do you really mean...?
Sounds like a Family Guy episode .. remember when Brian was watching One Day At A Time on T.V. and getting hooked?
www.familyguyquotes.com/top-rated-quotes-66.html
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Schnieder: Oh, I'll fix your sink Ms. Romano, and by "fix your sink" I mean I'll have sex with you, and by "have sex with you" I mean I'll fix your sink, and by "sink" I mean your reproductive organ, and by "reproductive organ" I mean the thing between your knees, and by "the thing between your knees" I...well I guess that one's kind of self-explanatory.
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> when you say "exist" do you really mean...?
Martin Heidegger argued throughout his career that over the course of the history of Western philosophy that different eras had essentially different understandings of what "to be" meant-- and he saw it as his mission to recover what exactly was meant over the course of centuries-- a lot of European philosophy after World War II, while often critical of Heidegger's work, was very influenced by this endevour.
The question still is, "why do you doubt that you exist?"
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I think,therefore I am.
- Descartes -
Take a large heavy brick and slam it on your bare foot, you will find out if you exist or not. -
My head hurts. Yeah, I must exist.
Pain lets you know you're alive. Trust me, I know. -
Hmm, to exist or not to exist. Personally I find the question irrelevant. I am. -
I think the only valid answer to this question (and all others of its ilk) is "depends on what you mean by 'exist'".
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If we do not exist, who would make up this nightmare that causes pain?
The nightmare is existing.
If you have ever felt pain in your life now u can blame it on someone or something.
For the Believers in God, Jehovah, Allah etc...
We know why we exist. -
So anyone care to provide evidence that they don't exist? Or at least state a reason why we should doubt our own existences?
If you don't have good reason to doubt something so self-evident, then why do you need a proof?-
It is very likely that you are a simulation:
www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html -
If I am a simulation, I still exist as a simulation. Even if I am mistaken about my nature it does not mean I do not exist.
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I know I exist, because I have Bills to pay in the Morning. If I didn't someone is sending the mail to the wrong house...
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i am here.. you are there.. we are everywhere..
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