Can anyone prove to me that I exist?

Question

How? Or why not?

How do I know this isn't some elaborate hallucination? How I am certain that I am not sitting in a padded cell, only imagining I am typing on Yahoo Answers?

Answer 1

who cares?

Answer 2

"How do I know this isn't some elaborate hallucination? How I am certain that I am not sitting in a padded cell, only imagining I am typing on Yahoo Answers?"

In that case, you still exist. "You" - that is, your perception; whether this be the perception of a real existing world or a hallucination. In the latter case, your hallucination exists. But suppose this is the case - suppose everything you perceive is a hallucination: are you then not absolutely alone? As opposed to relatively alone, relatively distant (literally or metaphorically) from other people? If all things, including all other people, are mere figments of your imagination - are you then not God? Of course, I say "you", but I mean "I"... I don't know for sure if there is a person behind this question, I don't even know if the monitor I read this on is a real object... Perhaps there is only the subject, perhaps there is only me - and not my body, for this is also a supposed object, is also part of my perception. No, perhaps only my mind exists - that is, my *perception*. I once brought this idea home to myself, I once scared the sh*t out of myself... How happily I believe in this hallucination now! How happy I am to think that there are other people! I would go *mad* if I felt absolutely alone... I would go mad from the conviction I was God.

Answer 3

If you don't then boy is this question pointless.

Try this.

Look in a mirror, glass, water, another person and judge what you perceive. Then, put something else in your place and judge what you perceive. Keep doing this until you have formed some sort of idea of what the relationship between the mirror and the object in front of the object is. That relationship becomes your belief. Until you can disprove it it becomes the truth. If you think it is not the truth then call it false. In contradiction, something else must be truth. You fall in the set of what is missing from the truth. You can't explain yourself and yet you can't deny that there is a something else and you are part of that. You want to look past the physical plane, fine, read Plato's republic and focus on the Cave Allegory and the Wax Allegory. Judge the relationship between knowledge truth and wisdom. Discover the difference between form and existence. Eventually you will come define your existence as it defines you. Your problem will then be in helping others to share your understanding of your existence. If not, people will think of you what they will and remember you as they might and not as you think they might. Doers do as thinkers think and think as thinkers think they do and do as thinkers thought they did, but; do they believe? You need to believe.

Answer 4

I've often wondered that myself, but in a different way. My version was, "What if I'm the only person in the world? What if everyone I know is just a robot, or they're all in on some elaborate plan just to study my life?" To this, I must answer, "Do I really care? My life is good, why question it?" This works for me. I say, if you're happy with your life thus far, don't bother questioning it. If you're life isn't good, prove to yourself that you can make it better. Set a goal, and forget about your padded room.

Answer 5

Nobody can prove that you are NOT in a cell imagining that you're writing a question. The fact that you thought of that is a signal that it MIGHT be true. Yes, you MIGHT be in a cell. Yes, Matrix can be real. We cannot imagine something that it is, somehow, beyond our previous experiences, therefore what you're talking about is possible. Maybe I am in the next cell imagining that I am writing this answer. But if what we imagined is for real (us in cells), if we are the sum of random (or organized, it makes no difference) thoughts, if we are the sum of the illusions created by a machine, then we are the illusions themselves, therefore we exist AS ILLUSIONS. One way or another, you exist, but you don't' know what you are.

Answer 6

Want me to come over there and beat u to a pulp maybe the pain will help. Actually dats a good question! try somethin that everyone said u would be too scared to do or u were too scared to do urself mabe that will determine weather u exist or its just an hallucination.

Answer 7

Usually animals are proved to exist, or at least having been there, by the trail of dumps they leave behind. One of the factors in the search for the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, was the possibility of finding Bigfoot dumps in the woods. I would recommend just turning around and see if you are leaving a dotted line behind you. When my clucker, Dollyburton, makes a run for the cat's bowl in the kitchen she usually leaves a trail of dumps on the way through the living room and I have to go along beind her and clean them up. I would say the proof of existence is this trail of dumps. Check for yours.

Answer 8

I don't know whether i am right or wrong.....
but when u leave some impressions behind u that's the only way of proving that u have existed in this world. That's what Mother Teresa did............... she has done lots and lots of things which is assuring us of her presence among us in the world.

Answer 9

You are in existence for the simple fact that you are asking this question. Pinch or slap yourself....did you feel it?

Then you exist....
Why ask a question? Do you feel like you are invisible or that no one acknowledges you?

You exist because God made you to exist..

Answer 10

If you didn't exist, how could this question which you pose got on Yahoo Answers?

Answer 11

Can't prove it. I might be imagining you. On the other hand, do I exist?