Just what is existence? How I see it.?

Question

I see it this way.

The past is only an abstract thought. It is only in your mind because it has already happened. It is intangible. It cannot be 'held' or 'changed'.
The future is also an abstract thought, it hasn't happened yet. It is only in your mind that it exists. It cannot be 'held', either.
The present is an infinitly small amount of fleeting time between the future and the past. Infinitly small - it really doesn't exist at all.
So is life a dream? Is it only in your head?

I submit that it is. Life is. Tao is.

Answer 1

The Tao that can be spoken
Is not the true Tao...... -Lao Tzu

Answer 2

So the rug you sweep western civilization under is the "Tao"?

OK, don't confuse existence with time. Very different concepts.

Existence is nothing more that the ability of having attributes that can be quantitatively observed (directly or indirectly) and measured. If you cannot measure some aspect of something, it doesn't have existence; it doesn't exist.

Duration of existence is the period in time when those attributes can be measured. Before and after that duration the thing no longer exists. Perhaps it died, or if not life, it was taken apart, or naturally decayed.

As for the Tao, or dreams or life, you want to ground your words in a more practical and useful way of expressing yourself. Otherwise you are babbling nonsense.

Answer 3

I like the idea that the past is gone and the future will never come. It leaves only now, this very moment, to decide what to do with your body.

The present does not make life a dream. It makes life now, and you decide what to do during the present.

If you want to philosophise, assume nothing exists except you. Can you prove anything else exists, or are you imagining it? Are you really sitting at your computer, or are you hallucinating? Do you really know your best friends, or did you invent them because you were lonely?

Answer 4

Time does not exist.
My existence is an eternity.
At 10 years of age, 5 years is half of eternity.
At 20 years, 10 years is half eternity.
As you get older, each second is less meaningful.
The future is nothing, the past does not exist.
Life and Death are the same.
Do not value your life.
Death is the goal of life.

Answer 5

I agree wholeheartedly. So would Sartre who once expounded that "My past is dead to me."

He also, when speaking of bad faith, that any action you would do now because of the future is a deflection of responsibility and therefore an act of bad faith.

The past is, as you put it, held hostage. But not only that, it has been twisted, and reinterpreted over and over in your mind, thereby dulling its sensations and sense of realism, and thusly the perception of it may have changed from when it was actually a moment clarity.

A moment of clarity is what you experience at this moment. Like Aristotle alluded to, you are now a different person than you were when you started reading this. Everything is constantly changing.

Because of that, these perpertual glimpses of clarity that wisp away into the nothingness of the past as soon as they are realised is what makes up your existence.

I do not believe that life is a dream, it is real. And it is No-thing at the same time.

Realize that every one of the millions of cells in your body will be completely dead and gone, replaced with something new in three years. You are constantly changing. So WTF are you? WTF am I? It confuzzles me.

Answer 6

"But by holding fast to the Tao of the ancients, the wise man may understand the present, because he knows the origin of the past. This is the clue to the Tao."

Answer 7

Unless it repeats on you like pizza, beer or vindaloo.

Answer 8

Nice thought but it belongs to someone else.

Answer 9

Sounds as good as any other theory