I think therefore I am.

Just over a line of text is hardly a rant, but ok

 

I love how it took this innocent thread two posts to become a political debate.

 

A very very very long time ago, The earth was a hot and hostile world. Meteorites kept falling and this created lava lakes and land that was absolutely incapable of sustaining life. All of a sudden, less and less meteorites started to fall, that resulted in the solidification of the vast lava lakes. The vapor formed clouds which eventually formed the atmosphere. However, meteors still fell from the sky, but on these meteors were bacteria. The clouds that formed in the atmosphere caused rain to fall on the earth for the first time. It kept raining until mountains and land masses were up to their necks in water, thus the birth of the ocean. In the water, the bacteria began to evolve and adapt to the new environment. These bacteria were single-celled organisms called Archaea. these single-celled organisms grew into double-celled organisms, then quadruple-celled organisms, then octuple-celled, and they kept on doubling. They turned into the first conscious life forms on the planet.

At one point in history, all of life was noting but a germ on a large rock that floated through space. Homo-sapiens are the only species on this planet to apply discoveries to future developments, to discover electricity, to create the internet. If you do not exist, that is extremely unfortunate. You can tell if you don't exist by realizing whether you have complex thoughts, or you don't. If you don't have any thoughts whatsoever, than I'm sorry to tell you that you don't really exist.

 

This entire argument is extremely convoluted. What's even the point of the first paragraph? But regardless, lots of things do not have thoughts and yet exist. Rocks, trees, maybe even insects.

 

I believe it is. Could you explain why you think it isn't? Do you mean conscious thinking? Does your definition of the word "thinking" exclude the subconscious?

 

So although I exist because I have thoughts, the chair I'm sitting on doesn't actually exist because it has no thoughts?

The question is to prove existence not to prove non-existence. We can't say something doesn't exist because it doesn't think, however we can say it does exist if it does think.

 

I think the title of this thread has led to much unnecessary confusion.

It's: "I think therefore I am".

It's *not*: "You think therefore you are".

I don't know for absolute certain that you 'exist'. I could be in a coma, and this (including your behaviour) could all be an elaborate dream of mine. Or I could be in the Matrix. Or hallucinating. etc etc. Point is, because we are thinking, we know that we exist on *some* level, in some form.

AFAIK, own own individual existence along with the 'Logical Absolutes' are the only things we can know for absolute certain. Everything else comes in degrees of certainty.

 

However we can say that if something doesn't exist, it cannot think.