I Exist, and so do you.

It can't be denied. I exist and so do you, and I mean that in the most literal, non-loaded way possible.

I'm not going to be discreet about it and keep you guessing through 10+ pages of unclear statements, as I'll get to the meat soon. I know there's a lot of people that agree with me, but somethings need to be reminded.

I guarentee you that:

1) I

2) You

3) The world

Exists

How do I know? Because I live in it, and I experience it everyday, even when I'm asleep or in some other state of consciousness.

There could be a world beyond what we normally think as the world, but it's not very obvious that it's there, so how can you take into account a world that you have real feeling about? When I say real feeling, I'm not talking about good feeling from your heart, or some psychic connection you think you have to other worlds or beings. I'm talking about your senses, that every person on Earth is born with if they developed correctly: Sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing. These are the sensors that were given to you to map out your world and to derive meaning from it. And those basic sensations amount to what becomes our perceptions as we experience the world through them.

That should be very important to you.

You and someone else could view the same picture, movie, read the Bible, smell a flower, and use a description of what you experienced that is totally different from how the other person perceived it. Why is that? You both live in the same world, why didn't you describe the same thing using the same words? You don't need the scietific method to prove that those objects were actually there, and it's silly to think that people could only surmise that things really existed before the development of the scientific method. There's no debate whether the book was there. But the subjective reality of that book was different for you and the other person. You don't share their senses, you each have your own.

Humans do have the ability to be empathic towards other notions that clash with their own, but ultimately, your subjective experience is the master of your world. If you didn't follow your subjective experience, how could you be sure of anything? If you're not following your subjective experience, you'd be experiencing someone else's. You'd be blindly following something you have no clear knowlegdge about and I guarentee you'd be living your life in confusion. You would basically be living your life through someone else.

The subjective experience is greatly important to you and you should cherish it, not hold it back.

There are people out there that will basically disreguard that notion, and saying that "I don't exist and you don't, and this world and everything important to you is just a cheap illusion, everything you love and do is for nought, because we are all going to die and be with God/Universe/Our true selves. That notion, while subjective, I don't think is not a normal subjective experience and I'll explain. The notion of other worlds and spirits of higher realms come from a sublime experience, and a sublime experience doesn't necessarily have to have a religious or spirtual slant to it. When do they happen? They can happen through sleep deprivation, fasting, chanting, dancing, whirling, and some just happen sponteneously. The experience can be reproduced through different hallucingenic drugs. But not everyone will experience them, but since people have emphathy, they can see through the eyes of the person that experienced it, but that doesn't mean they will understand what that person experience it as they would. Someone, who after listening to this guy could respond, "That guy is a fool, take him to the looney bin!". Can you imagine what that guy said that would have brought that kind of response? There are crazy idea's, then there are CRAZY ideas, and in a sense, all ideas grabbed from a spiritual vision are because they don't derive from something that is obviously subjective or objective. How can you, after a life of taking in smell, and sounds and light, have a religious experience, then come to the conclusion that NONE OF THIS REALLY MATTERS, and that I DON'T REALLY EXIST. Your one strange subjective experience just negated everything else that you have experienced so far, because "IT NO LONGER MATTERS" If you don't really exist, how could anything in the REAL WORLD WHICH EXISTS CONCURRENT WITH THE LIFE YOU ARE CURRENTLY LIVING matter to you?

People that believe in the afterlife are making themselves feel better about what happens to their ego/soul/energy, after their life here ceases to be, and I do have my own beliefs about what will happen. I believe that the soul or whatever you want to call it will continue after this life, and it will continue so without karma attached, meaning a serial killer and a person of virtue will not have an afterlife that reflects their actions, because as far as I'm concerned, this world is completely self contained, and if anything can move beyond it, it is your essense. Just because I don't think our actions make a difference in our fate in the next life, it doesn't jusitfy me to comit murder and rape without reguard for anyone else, because my morality is completely detched from my otherworldly beliefs. I admit, it isn't based on much, except the fact that I believe it allows the greatest harmony between my personal beliefs and the real world.

I will never for the life of me cop out and say "I DON'T EXIST" That notion strikes me as being exetremly disingenuous, highly demotivating, and nihilistic. In three words you have thrown away everything that means something to you. People may say it, but I don't think they realize the totality of what they are saying. I think a lot of religions teach this, and it saddens me to think that people are being comforted with the notion that "none of this matters". Would a sane person teach their kids growning up that even though they expected them to be a good person, to love their family and to love other people so that they may receive love back, and to use that to grow and learn, EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T REALLY EXIST AND NOTHING REALLY MATTERS.

When I was in 1st grade, I remember going to church well. The specific passages of the Bible didn' really have any meaning to me, but I do remember what I felt was the overall message "Care not for this world, for it is temporary compared to the glory you will receive at the foot of God" and it basically went on about how things here were temporary and meaningless, "Nothing matters as long as you love God". Once this message sank in, I began feeling a dread for this world that made me feel exetremely morbid everytime I entered a church afterwards. But I was eventually able to banish the feeling. For more background, the church was a Church of Nazerene.

Church of Nazarene

The denomination started as a church that ministered to the homeless and poor, and wanted to keep that attitude of ministering to "lower classes" of society.

And learning this later in my life shead some light to me why everyone was joining in on this LIFE DOESN'T MATTER feeling. They weren't opulent by any means and for that reason, I guess they were a group of people that had less hope in them than most people, so instead of trying to actually do something about it, somewhere in life they decided to give up and annouce that NOTHING REALLY MATTERS because they would enjoy the glory of God. But what they really were in was a religous nihilistic funk. I can understand people that really have nothing, have been crapped on all their life, were suicidal because they lacked luck, or were exetremly sick would believe something like that, BUT THESE PEOPLE IN THE CONGREGATION WERE EXTREMELY ABLED, HEALTHY PEOPLE! Why would they exclaim that they are basically already dead? I know these feeling don't exist just in the Church of Nazarene. BTW, the congregation has been disbanded for awhile now, maybe a little over a decade. Hmm, wonder why?

You have been given a life and if anything, your purpose is to be a part of it, not to dismiss what you experience in it for worlds and concepts that exist beyond it. You're not any better off or smarter than someone that hasn't come to the realization that "We are all the same thing, you're ego is holding you back, NOTHING REALLY MATTERS, free yourself from your desire and material things" Your setting yourself up to be someone's stepping stone, and your attitude will be justified to you even more. At the core, it is a completely rotten attitude to have while you exist in this world, and believe me, you do. It is an attitude that will allow you to live a less than vivacious life, even when it's within your grasp. It's an attitude that will instill a sense of meaninglessness that will destroy the spirit in your children. It will allow you to live with less when it's not necessary, and it will allow tyranny to control your lives because your passion for life and liberty in this world is gone, because you're betting on the hope that, ALL THIS DOESN"T MATTER COMPARED TO BEING ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE.

Don't deny yourself. You are a material being, that requires material things. If we existed in a state of perpetual love and understanding, that wouldn't be the case, but we don't exist in that world. Our world has more meaning because there are consequences for falling out with society, and motivations behind pain.

So what if after you die, you're going to be with God and by that time nothing here will matter? We are here on Earth NOW, so while you're here to begin your eternal rest/bliss, try to help with working out our problems here first, why not? It's only a temp job.

So what if we are all one with the universe, and it's governed by quantum mechanics? We aren't one right now, because I completely disagree with you. If we aren't real, then why does quantum mechanics matter?

Why don't you help create a world where your kids won't want to die instead of being glad for the day they do.

The statement NO ONE REALLY EXISTS, is a loaded statement, but I feel that it has no application to our world we live in, and thus can only undermine it. It is extremely disturbing to me that people will gleefully announce that when they have a whole life ahead of their selves. It may seem harmless, but the implications that someone believes in their core, that NOTHING MATTERS, gives me a sick feeling and a feeling it is something that has to be combated.

to simplify this:


Can you feel?

Can I feel?

Can the world feel?

If the answer is yes to any of these then you are as real as the planets orbiting the stars.

Do you feel a connection to your fellow human?

If yes, then you are as real as the energy that connects us all.


I love the "its only a temp job". Just greatness.

Can you see, smell, feel, taste and touch your surroundings?

If yes, then you are as real as every other part of this physical space.

In the interest of fairness, I'm going to post a little something I posted in a thread about how we all Don't exist.


"I have not explained that the world is eternal or that the world is not eternal.

I have not explained that the world is finite or that the wold is infinite.

I have not explained that the soul and the body is identical or that the soul and the body is not identical.

I have not explained that the enlightened sage exists after death or that the enlightened sage does not exist after death.

And why have I not explained these things? Because it profits not, nor tends to Supreme Wisdom and Nirvana."

Sutra 63 of Majjhima-Nikaya

Marinate on this for a little while.

Originally posted by Gigatronix
In the interest of fairness, I'm going to post a little something I posted in a thread about how we all Don't exist.


"I have not explained that the world is eternal or that the world is not eternal.

I have not explained that the world is finite or that the wold is infinite.

I have not explained that the soul and the body is identical or that the soul and the body is not identical.

I have not explained that the enlightened sage exists after death or that the enlightened sage does not exist after death.

And why have I not explained these things? Because it profits not, nor tends to Supreme Wisdom and Nirvana."

Sutra 63 of Majjhima-Nikaya

Marinate on this for a little while.

Nor does it have a real world application

reply to post by satron

You'll have to elaborate, do you mean the quote itself, or that sitting around thinking about metaphysical paradoxes has no real world application?

Originally posted by Gigatronix
reply to post by satron

 

You'll have to elaborate, do you mean the quote itself, or that sitting around thinking about metaphysical paradoxes has no real world application?

edit on 30-11-2011 by Gigatronix because: (no reason given)

I guess I shouldn't have said it has no real world application, because art could be inspired by ideas like that, but yeah, it don't see what a greater application than that would be in the world. They are unanswerable questions.

EDIT: I feel like they don't say too much about our reality. They encompass us, but at the same time they are infinitely far away. It would be better to answer the more worldly, pressing things at hand, like, how am I going to pay my bills and how am I going to get my kid out of bed to get ready for school?

reply to post by satron

Actually this quote has some of the greatest potential for real world applications you could imagine. What the Buddha is saying here is very profound, in that all that which mans seeks to know(ie the questions he doesnt answer) does not actually matter. Clouding your mind with questions of eternity and the afterlife and the soul, that mental effort would be better spent improving your here and now. Supreme Wisdom is not knowing whether you live after death, it's not knowing the order of reality, Supreme Wisdom is accepting that you know very little and accepting that truth and enjoying your immediate existence.

I exist. The IRS says so.

Kidding aside (well not really), we produce and consume energy, and see and feel that consumption. We witness cause and effects of our actions - so of course we exist, but maybe just to pay taxes.

Edit: I'll add my own philosophy into the mix, which is: Live now. Prepare for tomorrow but live in the moment. Reflect on the past, but be here now.

Originally posted by Gigatronix
reply to post by satron

 

Actually this quote has some of the greatest potential for real world applications you could imagine. What the Buddha is saying here is very profound, in that all that which mans seeks to know(ie the questions he doesnt answer) does not actually matter. Clouding your mind with questions of eternity and the afterlife and the soul, that mental effort would be better spent improving your here and now. Supreme Wisdom is not knowing whether you live after death, it's not knowing the order of reality, Supreme Wisdom is accepting that you know very little and accepting that truth and enjoying your immediate existence.

I was talking about the questions, and not the quote. I liked the quote, I agree with it.

reply to post by satron


Yep I see that now, you beat me to the punch!

Originally posted by Jason88
I exist. The IRS says so.

Kidding aside (well not really), we produce and consume energy, and see and feel that consumption. We witness cause and effects of our actions - so of course we exist, but maybe just to pay taxes.

If you stop paying taxes, do you cease to exist?

reply to post by satron


I believe so. The IRS would end my existence in a jail cell or death row, or whatever heavy handed approach they use to squeeze the life out of you.

Yeah but liek how do you know doooood? I saw this movie the matrix and... crap i forgot trinity was hot. Red pill or blue pill or some crap like that

Even if you take drugs, you're still in this world physically.

And you are still in your world mentally.