[MonkeeSage]

Becky:

Its not that Des Cartes is to be faulted because he was trying to use logic and logic is inherently useless or something, I don't think anyone was taking that position; rather, he is to be faulted because he was trying to use logic, and according to the logic he wanted to use, he could not claim to know what he wanted to claim to know--i.e., he ended up being illogical by begging the question and obstruding the problem as the solution.

Des Cartes must exist to think, he says, because he could not think unless he existed. He knows this because he thinks, which proves that he exists. If we take the time to break it all down, what we finally end up with is something along these lines: "Des Cartes must exist to exist, because he could not exist unless he existed. He knows this because he exists, which proves that he exists." Thus he is engaged in petitio principii--"begging the issue (question)."

Christians have an answer, I believe, from the premises supplied in God's Word, for the question of self-reference; an answer which is consistant with that aspect of God's character that is predicated as "logic," and does not reduce to irrationalism as I believe all other attempts have and will.


Shelumi`El
Jordan

S.D.G

[Hisbrother]

It seems to me that no one can prove to any one else that they really exist unless everyone agrees on what existing requires. Just as you can't prove anything in the like of unless you have an agreement.
Also, how could I prove to you that I exist when I'm not even sure that you exist. The only thing that leads me to believe you exist is that I have no reason to doubt your existens. Just as the only way I can believe that anything actually existes is because I have no reason to doubt it's existens. And the only reason I can only believe that things exist is because the definition of existence must rely on my perceptions, which could actually not exist at all.
But then my perceptions and the things I percieve and my beliefes of existence also wouldn't exist. Which would mean that nothing existes to me. Or that there is a world of existence, but I'm not a part of it. Now, if your speech and your face and everything about you is one of my perceptions, which don't exist, then you don't exist either. But if you do exist and I can percieve you, then I must exist as well.
So, if you exist, I exist. If I don't exist, you don't exist. But, can I exist without you existing. In other words, can I have made up perceptions about you even though you don't exist, and still exist myself? I suppose it's possible, but how could I prove it to you if you don't exist? So the fact that it's possible that nothing existes except me, or maybe even not me, makes it impossible to prove that I exist to anyone but myself.
Oh I just thought of another one. What if my perceptions of myself existing are also made up. Then there's no way to even prove to myself that I exist.

[MonkeeSage]

I would personally answer the question of proving my ontological existance by an appeal to my ultimate presupposition, viz., God--who states that:

1. The existance of me is possible (i.e., that there is actually a category of beings who are, all in all, as I perceive myself to be), and,

2. that sense experience and logic provide a generally valid method of knowing;

I then may deduce from my sense experience (and the testimony of others) that I am actually a particular instantiation within that category of beings.


Shelumi`El
Jordan

S.D.G