What proof do you have that you exist?

Question

Are you sure you'r not just thoughts of something else?

A passing glimer of consciousness.........

Answer 1

I always thought that Decartes quote to border on tautology...at best it's an unprovable assumption (maybe the mother of them).

I know I exist because I am told I exist by a demonstrably separate entity not subject to the limitations of my perception.

Answer 2

LOL.... The fact that I'm answering this question.

And even if what I am is "just the thoughts of something else" or "a passing glimer of consciousness".... I still "am". I still exist. For a brief moment in the universe, that "glimer" existed.

Answer 3

Look... let's put it this way:

Even if I am the imagined being of something else, I still have an existance, because I am that particular thought-entity.

Take, for example, a character from a favourite novel. Though we know that character isn't real in quite the same way as you and I, it has a very distinctive existance. It probably has a set appearance that you imagine, particular behaviours and traits, and so on. You can distinguish it from all the other thought-entities in your head.

I don't see any reason why the same wouldn't be true if I were just a thought entity. This is a KIND of reality, even if it's not quite the reality I happen to think it is.

From there we can go into hazier kinds of proof demonstrating that my percieved form of existance is probably so simply because it's so much simpler than any alternative explanation, and then apply Occam's Razor and all that. It's not an iron-clad proof, but it is also a kind of proof.

Answer 4

I think, therefore, I am.

Even if I'm just "thoughts of something else," "a passing glimer of consciousness," that's what I AM. Even if I AM one of those things, then I do still exist. I still AM.

I may not be what I think I am, but I clearly exist either way. Whether I'm a human being or a self-aware hallucination.

Answer 5

In a way everything is. This is more easily understandable if one considers the actual scale of the components of an atom. If one takes into account the fact that the neutrons, protons and electrons of an atom actually have huge spaces between them it becomes clear that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are made up of 99+ percent empty space.

This alone does not seem too important till you add the idea that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are more of a loose conglomeration that share a similar attraction but never really touch each other.

At first glance this does not really seem relevant, but closer analysis reveals that this adds a tremendous amount of empty space to solid objects that are already made up of atoms that are 99 percent space. When so-called solid objects are seen in this light it becomes apparent that they can in no way be the seemingly solid objects they appear to be.

We ourselves are not exceptions to this phenomenon.

These seemingly solid objects are more like ghostly images that we interpret as solid objects based on our perceptual conclusions.

From this we must conclude that Perception is some sort of a trick that helps us to take these ghostly images and turn them into a world we can associate and interact with. This clever device seems to be a creation of our intellect that enables us to interact with each other in what appears to be a three dimensional reality.

I hope that helps to answered your question.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 6

Every action has some sort of reaction and things spin. No one stands alone like an island. I know I exist because I can make a difference, a happening, an accident, a spill to someone else who I may never even know.

Answer 7

I do take notes along the way. they are simply meant for the day. a passage where I gather thoughts and so that must make me a basket head. when I walk around town there is always someone to dip their mind into my basket and take something home to chew on, enough fun for now...

Answer 8

I think, therefore I am. Like Shaman said, 'a passing glimmer of consciousness' exists if it exists.

Answer 9

My mind thinks of the fact that I exist
My intellect reasons out the fact that I exist
My mind is incorporated to my accidence and its extensions -color, bodily shapes
as it is incorporated to my physicality- they work together in a coordinating pattern.
I think ergo I am
Without further contentions, I prove to be an existence.

Answer 10

No. Because I think, and know of my own existence first hand...therefore I am. If some evil genius was trying to fool me he wouldn't have gave me my own thoughts.....Or am I just writing what he want me to write right now! Oh god.....I'm in the matrix. The sentinels are coming~!