Certainty thought experiment.

GregS

GregS

Well-Known Member
You might find what you are looking for in Descartes. Cogito ergo sum. You might suspend disbelief or belief with anything else, but can you doubt your own existence, even for the smallest fraction of time?
 
Zaehet Strife

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
GregS said:
You might find what you are looking for in Descartes. Cogito ergo sum. You might suspend disbelief or belief with anything else, but can you doubt your own existence, even for the smallest fraction of time?
Click to expand...
If I can Imagine that my thoughts and actions, everything about me, is merely part of a simulation being played out by another creature in another realm, and that I am only being given the illusion that I exist... in that sense, I could doubt my own existence as merely an illusion.
 
Beefbisquit

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member
GregS said:
If you exist as an illusion, don't you still exist?
Click to expand...
If you exist as an illusion, there are still only parts of you that can be illusory. Your own mind cannot be an illusion, because you're using it to question whether or not it's an illusion, proving its not illusory. If it were, you couldn't question reality in the first place.
 
Zaehet Strife

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
Beefbisquit said:
If you exist as an illusion, there are still only parts of you that can be illusory. Your own mind cannot be an illusion, because you're using it to question whether or not it's an illusion, proving its not illusory. If it were, you couldn't question reality in the first place.
Click to expand...
Why cant the mind be an illusion given by a god?
 
Beefbisquit

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member
Zaehet Strife said:
Why cant the mind be an illusion given by a god?
Click to expand...
Because an illusion doesn't have substance, or it's not an illusion, it's real. The fact that I'm using my mind to respond to you, means it can't be illusory. Your responses to me, could possibly be an illusion, but not my internal monologue and thought processes.
 
GregS

GregS

Well-Known Member
"Why cant the mind be an illusion given by a god?"

Please define your terms. What are these gods? I really do not know and would sincerely like a response. I've never seen or heard from one.
 
eye exaggerate

eye exaggerate

Well-Known Member
Here's a question that I think might fit here. Either way.

If our universe was created from nothing, why would the universe be the only thing that was created? How could nothing differentiate the potential for everything? How certain are we that nothing still exists outside of the universe as the cause of that which is within it. And, most importantly, did nothing go somewhere else for a beer after? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top