You Don’t Really Exist!
reverendhornibastard
Depraved Deacon of Degeneracy
I know you think you exist but if you will give me your attention for a few minutes, I will persuade you that your existence isn’t quite what you always thought it was.
This won’t take long.
Some people dive into arguments without first agreeing exactly what it is they are arguing about. I am not one of those people. So let’s first agree what we mean by “exist.”
It will be easiest to use three examples to distinguish between different kinds of existence. Let’s use bowling balls, shadows and Mickey Mouse.
A bowling ball has mass. If you ever dropped a bowling ball on your foot you will be acquainted with this concept. A bowling ball can be put into a duffel bag and transported. We can call this kind of existence fundamental.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1948
Shadows have no mass. You can’t peel a shadow off the ground, stuff it in a bag and transport it anywhere. Yet we agree that shadows exist. A shadow’s existence is dependent on the proper alignment of a light source, an opaque object to cast a shadow and a surface on which the shadow will be cast. Shadows are destroyed by interfering with the arrangement of the light source, the opaque object and the surface where the shadow will be cast. This kind of existence is called “emergent” because the phenomena emerges when conditions are just right.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1949
Mickey Mouse has an even weaker grip on existence than a shadow. You have never actually seen Mickey Mouse. Mickey is just an idea – just a concept. You have seen dolls, costumes and screen images that look Iike Mickey Mouse. But these are only images that conform to the defining qualities of Mickey Mouse. Mickey has a certain look and a certain personality. He doesn’t have any tattoos, scars or five o’clock shadow. He doesn’t smoke, cuss, drink alcohol or slap Mini Mouse around and run trains on her with his mousy buddies. The real Mickey Mouse is just an idea, the intellectual property of the Disney Company. Mickey Mouse has no mass and cannot be transported in a bag but, as a piece of intellectual property, Mickey can, nevertheless be bought and sold or licensed. This kind of existence can be called “conceptual.”
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1950
So, are you more like a bowling ball, a shadow or like Mickey Mouse?
Before you answer this question, consider the following:
Your body has mass and can be transported. But is your body really what people mean when they refer to you?
Your body changes constantly. It grows from a microscopic size to your full adult size in about 18-20 years. Your body changes in size and appearance as your life progresses. Despite the physical changes that can render you unrecognizable, anyone who knows enough about your history can still verify that it is you despite all the changes In your appearance.
Even the material that makes up your body changes over time. Your body is 75% water by weight. NONE of the water in your body today was in your body two weeks ago. That means 75% of the material that forms your body is being replaced every couple of weeks. The rest of your body’s material is also undergoing relentless substitution, but more slowly than the water. Within 10 years all the atoms that make up your body today will have been replaced by other atoms and the ones that make up your body today will be back in the dirt, the water or in the atmosphere.
Yet, it’s always still you.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1951
A minute or two after you die, your body will still look the same as it did before you died and the materials will all still be there. But people will definitely say that you are gone even though your body is still lying there drawing even more flies than usual.
Are you more like a bowling ball, like a shadow or like Mickey Mouse?
Is your existence fundamental, emergent or conceptual?
Face it, what defines you is your personality – something that has no mass, can’t be put into a duffel bag and transported across town and that can’t even cast a shadow. Your personality is emergent. It emerges from the sum of your life experiences - the knowledge and memories stored between your ears (but only so long as your brain is still functioning).
Some people like to call this a “soul” but I think “personality” is a more useful and less confusing term.
When you turn off the TV and Mickey Mouse disappears, no one above age 5 will ask, “Where did Mickey go?” When your brain dies, your personality is snuffed out forever. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that your personality (or your “soul” if you prefer that word) will persist after your death.
Why would it?
Your existence is not fundamental.
It never was.
We are each just an ephemeral, emergent personality, no more substantial than smoke in the wind.
This won’t take long.
Some people dive into arguments without first agreeing exactly what it is they are arguing about. I am not one of those people. So let’s first agree what we mean by “exist.”
It will be easiest to use three examples to distinguish between different kinds of existence. Let’s use bowling balls, shadows and Mickey Mouse.
A bowling ball has mass. If you ever dropped a bowling ball on your foot you will be acquainted with this concept. A bowling ball can be put into a duffel bag and transported. We can call this kind of existence fundamental.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1948
Shadows have no mass. You can’t peel a shadow off the ground, stuff it in a bag and transport it anywhere. Yet we agree that shadows exist. A shadow’s existence is dependent on the proper alignment of a light source, an opaque object to cast a shadow and a surface on which the shadow will be cast. Shadows are destroyed by interfering with the arrangement of the light source, the opaque object and the surface where the shadow will be cast. This kind of existence is called “emergent” because the phenomena emerges when conditions are just right.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1949
Mickey Mouse has an even weaker grip on existence than a shadow. You have never actually seen Mickey Mouse. Mickey is just an idea – just a concept. You have seen dolls, costumes and screen images that look Iike Mickey Mouse. But these are only images that conform to the defining qualities of Mickey Mouse. Mickey has a certain look and a certain personality. He doesn’t have any tattoos, scars or five o’clock shadow. He doesn’t smoke, cuss, drink alcohol or slap Mini Mouse around and run trains on her with his mousy buddies. The real Mickey Mouse is just an idea, the intellectual property of the Disney Company. Mickey Mouse has no mass and cannot be transported in a bag but, as a piece of intellectual property, Mickey can, nevertheless be bought and sold or licensed. This kind of existence can be called “conceptual.”
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1950
So, are you more like a bowling ball, a shadow or like Mickey Mouse?
Before you answer this question, consider the following:
Your body has mass and can be transported. But is your body really what people mean when they refer to you?
Your body changes constantly. It grows from a microscopic size to your full adult size in about 18-20 years. Your body changes in size and appearance as your life progresses. Despite the physical changes that can render you unrecognizable, anyone who knows enough about your history can still verify that it is you despite all the changes In your appearance.
Even the material that makes up your body changes over time. Your body is 75% water by weight. NONE of the water in your body today was in your body two weeks ago. That means 75% of the material that forms your body is being replaced every couple of weeks. The rest of your body’s material is also undergoing relentless substitution, but more slowly than the water. Within 10 years all the atoms that make up your body today will have been replaced by other atoms and the ones that make up your body today will be back in the dirt, the water or in the atmosphere.
Yet, it’s always still you.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1951
A minute or two after you die, your body will still look the same as it did before you died and the materials will all still be there. But people will definitely say that you are gone even though your body is still lying there drawing even more flies than usual.
Are you more like a bowling ball, like a shadow or like Mickey Mouse?
Is your existence fundamental, emergent or conceptual?
Face it, what defines you is your personality – something that has no mass, can’t be put into a duffel bag and transported across town and that can’t even cast a shadow. Your personality is emergent. It emerges from the sum of your life experiences - the knowledge and memories stored between your ears (but only so long as your brain is still functioning).
Some people like to call this a “soul” but I think “personality” is a more useful and less confusing term.
When you turn off the TV and Mickey Mouse disappears, no one above age 5 will ask, “Where did Mickey go?” When your brain dies, your personality is snuffed out forever. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that your personality (or your “soul” if you prefer that word) will persist after your death.
Why would it?
Your existence is not fundamental.
It never was.
We are each just an ephemeral, emergent personality, no more substantial than smoke in the wind.
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
31 comments
“The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people -- not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul…we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness.”
Thomas Wolfe, God's Lonely Man
"Some people dive into arguments without first agreeing exactly what it is they are arguing about. I am not one of those people."
^ Contradictory statements. Rev you started the whole thread assuming everyone thinks of their existence in some flawed way, thereby creating an argument, but then later claim that you want to agree on assumptions before even beginning an argument.
It might have been better to just ask what people think of existence and how they define it as an open ended inquiry rather than make assumptions that others are or are not even looking at it like you do.
I like it even if I don’t relate to it personally.
I’ve never really been lonely. There are dual reasons for that. 1) I have always had friends and family. 2) I tend to be a bit of a loner and tolerate long periods of isolation without discomfort.
I felt (and still feel) confident that most people believe their existence is fundamental. People who believe in souls and an afterlife are particularly susceptible to this view.
As to defining existence I don't see why it can't be a combination of several definitions rather than just one. There is a physical constraint to our existence... without our physical mass, at least as far as we know, there is no personality for which others can interact with. But then yes there is also something beyond just the physical atoms and cells that define our physical existence.
However that said, one could argue that our personality and even thoughts are truly just the physical and chemical reactions going on based on the matter in our brains and that there doesn't have to be anything like a "soul" to define it. Who's to say yes or no that we (life, personality, etc) are just a bunch of chemical reactions out of the physical world that equate to thought and self awareness. Just a thought...
Also I'm not going to get into the afterlife and such because that is a belief based definition and there's no agreed "truth" to it. So to argue existence based on a belief of the afterlife is just that...a belief and nothing more.
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks the horse if he might be an alcoholic considering he shows up every night, to which the horse replies "I don't think I am" "I think not!" POOF! The horse vanishes from existence.
This is the point in time when all the philosophy students in the audience begin to giggle, as they are familiar with the philosophical proposition of Cogito ergo sum, or I think, therefore, I am.
But to explain the concept forehand would be putting Descartes before the horse.
Well neither do you
“Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.”
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro); Taxi Driver
Likewise!
I recently started reading about phase space. You might find Lee Smolin’s views on phase space and entanglement interesting.
Think I'll go take a nap. Hope naps exist.
Sorry for all the nitpicking but I'm a chemical engineer and have been following the Higgs field theory and story for years. The proof in 2016 is one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever. And to think Higgs developed the math for it in the 60s - 70s is amazing.
SJG
Researching the origins of the Ricks, meetings held at Farben Haus in Frankfurt, end of 1943.
https://www.tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=…
is skibum’s real name fred?
https://www.tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=…
Wooking for any available guard dog 🐕 jobs
https://www.tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=…
Did Jesus Die for E.T.’s Sins?
https://www.tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=…
Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96r_nvkC…
Buy low and sell high.
Good talk.
You pulled off the best troll in tuscl history! Respect reverend! Keep preachin the gospel and brang those dancers to the lawerd and the church of tuscl!