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What is?

17:35 / 08.09.01

I didn't care for "I think, therefore I am" on the basis that I couldn't figure out what it meant to be. Or the other version "I am. I exist," for the same reason.

But it isn't too far off. Because Descartes began with the idea that his experience is undeniable. That is, "I experience the sensation of typing" is true whether I am, in fact, typing.

So a good place to start--- and if anyone disagrees, please tell me--- is with the premise that I have experiences, whether or not "I" truly exists, which doesn't follow, because we don't know what that means. The next step is then to find all the things that you think really ought to fit into the definition of existence. And try to come up with the most useful definition possible.

I propose that something can be said to exist iff we find it a more useful model of our experiences than its nonexistence.

Would anyone care to either attack this definition, or help me develop it? I think I may need to defend it some time in the future. Either that or come up with something better.

17:48 / 08.09.01

While we may not understand the form in which we exist, we do exist, even if it is merely as a temporary thoughtform.

To exist one must simply be imagined, even if only in passing.

Then again, I'm quite certain most people will disagree with that analysis and I'm most likely skipping past the original purpose of the post. Nonetheless.

18:28 / 08.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Brenden Simpson:
While we may not understand the form in which we exist, we do exist, even if it is merely as a temporary thoughtform.

To exist one must simply be imagined, even if only in passing.

Then again, I'm quite certain most people will disagree with that analysis and I'm most likely skipping past the original purpose of the post. Nonetheless.

Well, it isn't exactly clear. If I, in reading your posts, imagine you to be some creature Brendan Simpson, when, you posting are a different creature Brenden Simpson, your definition would imply that both Brenden and Brendan exist. And not simply that the imagining of Brendan exists, but also that the imagined Brendan exists. Further, in imagining that I might imagine, then myself actually imagining Brendan's existence must exist, and therefore, so must the existence of the creature follow.

At the same time, if I imagine the existence of Brendan truly implies the nonexitence of Brenden, then that truthful implication exists. You, therefore, are nonexistent, and I am just a crazy person talking to myself.

18:30 / 08.09.01

I agree SMS that Descartes' cogito: "I think therefore I am." only raises the question of the I, or the subject. It seems that this formula is of the nature "a=a" : pure maths; but what is this "a"?
I prefer the term 'presence' to 'existence'.The "I" is that (as process, as thing) which has "presence for" it: the computer monitor, the walls of the room, the red and grey design of the Barbelith page ...These presences exist for this elusive "I". But this "I" also has presence. It is present for others - the people you work, live and play with, etc. Descartes conflates the two "I"s.

SMS wrote:
quote:I propose that something can be said to exist iff we find it a more useful model of our experiences than its nonexistence.

Do you mean here that what exists, what has presence for you (we?), can simply be chosen on the basis of its usefulness? For example, in the category of edible food, you/we would choose a bannana over a bottle of motor oil.
I agree with you on this level, but to argue that the presence of phenomena can simply be chosen into existence is to deny that the presences of the many worlds that we inhabit are mostly social/cultural worlds, that we are born into specific cultures, with specific languages, buildings, her/histories. For example, what is present for we english language users is the world brought into existence by aspects that we share of this language.
SMS, like the free-will/ determinism topic that you started on another thread, (which essentially seemed to solidify into, ironically enough, a classic Descartes split between mind and body posting camps) these questions of self/existence are incredibly complex.

18:54 / 08.09.01

quote:Originally posted by agarchy:
Do you mean here that what exists, what has presence for you (we?), can simply be chosen on the basis of its usefulness? For example, in the category of edible food, you/we would choose a bannana over a bottle of motor oil.

Somewhat. But, if I have all the experiences associated with having a bananna sitting in front of me, then I should be able to say that that bananna is, and further, that it is not a can of motor oil. Because, if I were to say that it is a can of motor oil, I complicate my model, and then have to explain why all my experience point towards it being a bananna. I could, for instance, be crazy. Or maybe it is a very special type of oil, that behaves in every way like a bannana. This type of reasoning, though, would probably make the model pretty useless. I could refer to everything I see as very special elephants, most of which don't seem to behave like elephants at all. But, if, amazingly, I realize that, if everything in the world is really an elephant, that would explain why it is that the planet-elephants) revolve around the sun-elephants the way they do, and then I could go and predict that, if I do just the right thing with a telescope-elephant, I ought to experience seeing another planet-elephant.

So then I do that, and voila, I have that experience. And I have the experience of seeing my elephant-peers look into the elephant-telescope, and behave as though they had seen what I had seen. Then, the model is useful.

But I hadn't restricted the model to being useful in a predictive sense. Because for that to be the case, I'd have to prove "future."

19:06 / 08.09.01

quote: . I could, for instance, be crazy.

You said it grasshopper.

Quimper

09:28 / 10.09.01

quote:Originally posted by SMatthewStolte:
I propose that something can be said to exist iff we find it a more useful model of our experiences than its nonexistence.

What properties should something have in order to exist? You're saying we can say it exists if it is useful to say it does.

.

09:28 / 10.09.01

here's my thoughts on the cogito.

1) if the cogito is an existence claim, then it can be broken down into an argument that looks like this:

Premise a) I think
Conclusion) I exist

now, there are two criticisms to be made here. firstly, the argument needs another premise to work at all logically.
Premise b) a thinking thing necessarily exists.
yet why should this be the case?
secondly, the argument is circular, in that one is trying to prove the existence of "I" and yet one presupposes that existence in premise a. So the whole argument should look like this:

Premise a) There are thoughts
Premise b) Thoughts require a thinking thing
Conclusion) A thinking thing exists.

2) The cogito then is probably not an existence claim, but rather an example of a self verifying proposition. The act of thinking or working through the cogito verifies it as being true. Such propositions play an important part in building up our foundations for knowledge, but are not strong enough to act as the metaphysical claim that the cogito is often used towards.

.

09:28 / 10.09.01

anyone here read any Bishop Berkeley? now there's an interesting theory.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:28 / 10.09.01

[bleugh]

Jack The Bodiless

21:34 / 11.09.01

Descartes was a philosopher, right? Then of course he'd base existence in thought. A chronic alcoholic might well say "I drink, therefore I am".

What is 'thought'? What about those incapable of what we might consider to be 'thought'? Are they?

Ellis

21:48 / 11.09.01

Berkeley in a nutshell: "To be is to be perceived." And since God sees all, we exist, and the world still exists when we close our eyes because God is percieving it.

00:55 / 13.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack The Bodiless:
Descartes was a philosopher, right? Then of course he'd base existence in thought. A chronic alcoholic might well say "I drink, therefore I am".

What is 'thought'? What about those incapable of what we might consider to be 'thought'? Are they?

Hmmm. I think that if I were a vegetable, incapable of thought, that I would not, effectively be.

Are there no holes in my definition of existence? (That's the one about usefulness.)

[ 13-09-2001: Message edited by: SMatthewStolte ]

deletia

05:57 / 13.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack The Bodiless:
Descartes was a philosopher, right? Then of course he'd base existence in thought. A chronic alcoholic might well say "I drink, therefore I am".

He would probably have told you he was a mathematician, or a natural scientist - thus, "I smell of milk, thefore I am".

.

07:37 / 13.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack The Bodiless:
What is 'thought'? What about those incapable of what we might consider to be 'thought'? Are they?

i stated above that i didn't think that the cogito was an existence claim. i.e. it is not a definition of existence to have thoughts, and furthermore, even if it was, it is not the only part of what defines existence, another could be extension in space (3 dimensionality).
nor is it even a definition of what it is to be human.
it is not a definition of anything at all, or an existence claim, rather it is merely an example of a proposition which cannot be wrong, upon which descartes preceded to build the rest of his metaphysical claims.

berkeley on the other hand would say that effectively you did not exist if you were not either thinking, or thought of.

05:23 / 14.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Ellis:
Berkeley in a nutshell: "To be is to be perceived." And since God sees all, we exist, and the world still exists when we close our eyes because God is percieving it.

That's almost true. But God doesn't perceive virtual particles popping into existence in outer space and killing each other right away.