People have so many points of view, with so many concepts, and translation of those that it may seem impossible to reach a common point. In between concepts, we fight, analyze, and reject. Some don’t even analyze, but only fight without stopping to think a little about what is going on. It is all about gaining control and power over other people’s opinions and beliefs.
We take it as a rule, but is that good or bad? Aren’t those concepts too?
So, you reach a point you may feel trapped. The only way to over come a concept is with another conceptualization. The infinite loop, can we outsmart it? What is needed to do so?
Concepts have given us the ability to communicate, be understood and united? Have they? Mm. Perhaps, we still haven’t found out the perfect concept application, right?
Words, words, words, that is all I do… Write, and yet, not convinced it is the best way to communicate. Will I ever be convinced? I don’t think so.
Concepts are the ideas that have aliened us from ourselves. I mean… Are words the way we think, analyze, judge, processes, and assess existence? Is what we think everything there is? Of course not, we can just be there… Is that becoming a vegetable? Who can say that? Has anyone been a vegetable, come back into being a human, and then exchange his or her wonderful experience?
Gosh! This certainly is ironic. I talk, talk, write, write, and I am not in favor of it? Not quite, nothing is really black, white or gray. Things are completely unimaginable, but sorry we can’t imagine what is inconceivable. Or can we?
What about breaking some paradigms, today? … How about thinking about something we are sure it is that way, and then… say: what I think is not the way I think…
You may think, ah! At last, you will understand life is not love, but so many horrible things.
I could be tempted into breaking my all love-life-mushy thing. I could elaborate a cruel reality and death (darkness), that is our inevitable fate. I won’t say love is everything, and we are just in a blue jelly pot in which we can’t see properly.
But love-life-mushy thing or dark humid feary stuff are at the end the same thing within our minds! Both are “mind conceptualizations” to give us a certain feeling or sense of security. Now, how can we overcome both, and actually understand life? How can I be sure I do exist, and it is not just a mind “matrix”?
My mind paradigm is: I exist.
Let’s change it to a totally counter-intuitive idea.
What if… I am not existing?!?!?!
This can’t be possible you will categorically reject because you believe in something as “you are certain of existing”, but let’s give the idea a try…
What would happen if “I” am not existing? Who is the “I”?
Could this happen?
No more need for power, no more need to control. I am not what I have thought I were. I am simply what is here as I read, my present moment.
Perhaps, could I be a character of a book o a multi-verse dream in a collective understanding of reality?
But when I hit myself, it hurts. Does it? Let myself go… Why is it so painful?
Ah! However, when it hurts really hard I cannot think properly. Who said: “I think, therefore I exist.”(Cognito ergo sum)? What did Descartes mean? Did they translate properly? Who knows? He might had a lot of thoughts in his head, but did that mean he was right?
I can be conscious, and not thinking. Or I may be sleeping, and not thinking. Or am I always thinking? Mm. I am tired of thinking.
If I could just say to my head: Standby, and enjoy the scenery, could it? Perhaps, and would that mean I stop existing if I stop thinking?
If that man is right, of course, I have never really existed. It is just a mind-thought thing, but if that man is wrong, then…
Remember: People are guides, not a rule book! A book does not represent the reality of a person, and it is arrogant to state what a person would actually believe due to his writings.
If one of those men of the past we use as a rule of life were awaken in our actual context, their beliefs would radically change if this person were intelligent enough to admit their conditioned (to their era and context) thinking.
How do I know I exist? Why do we believe everything they have “taught” us through centuries?
Have you heard the story about the woman who cut the bread in half because it did not fit in her stove, and the generations to come did the same thing although their stoves were now big enough?
Well, perhaps my perfect love beliefs and my dreadful empty depressive reality are the same inside my mind. They are just ideas that provoke certain actions and consequences.
That is the catch in here: If I want to live the “hate it all + I am it all” world, then your reality will bite your buttocks. If you live the “love it all – peace” world, then other type of chain reactions come into place.
So, after all, it all comes into the same category… Is awareness just another concept or is there a way to break the loop through a hole?
Photo Credit: by h.koppdelaney
How do I know that I exist is a question frequently asked on the net. Most likely not in all sincerity, but more so to be somewhat philosophical, or a form of wishful thinking in times of trouble, but could also be in search for the deeper meanings in life.
My first response to this question is, boy you would have to have real problems if you are struggling with this concept and give the person a flip around the ears to answer their own question. However that is not very kind, but in case you do think you are only a figment of your imagination, then here are some thoughts.
It is an interesting question though and shows an eagerness to explore our origins, purpose and destination. Am I a mere accumulation of biomass that is so proportioned and articulated as to be able to move around and equipped with a few sensors that leads me to the right foods to eat, protects me from walking off the deep end, or into objects that are too hard or too hot, too sharp or too loud or too smelly , or too unfriendly?.
OK, we have our five senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste to find our way about on planet Earth and then we also have that central control system with all it’s nerve endings wired into our brain that controls which way we turn to do whatever, but is that all?
All animals have brains and an instinct that enables them to do most remarkable things we marvel at, but humans have something a bit more sophisticated called a mind and that mind does a bit more than just control our movements, it also has a superior memory, capacity for learning and a conscience to tell right from wrong.
I look upon our conscience to tell right from wrong and our ultimate willingness to learn and embrace the purpose for which we came into being, as the spiritual or third dimension.
How do I know that I exist is as a result of the messages that come back to my brain from which ever realm of my existence, whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual. Sometimes we say: I get a real kick out of doing whatever, well that more or less sums it up, we expect a response of some kind to whatever we do and usually we do get one. But we need to use discretion as to how we experiment with this “ creativity” and make sure we do not hurt anybody or even ourselves in the process, or the kick may be more than we bargained for or than what is good for us. As in football, there are a large variety of kicks and not all of them are good ones for which we receive recognition, but basically, as long as we keep focused and play the ball and abide by the rules, we will all enjoy ourselves and might even win a game, occasionally. When winning the game becomes an obsession as it invariably does in professional football because of the rewards or the ratings that we might miss out on, the game is no longer a game and many resort to playing the man instead of the ball. In a nutshell, that is not unlike the life we live irrespective of our pursuits.
For every action there is a reaction we were taught in physics, and it is not hard to see that this applies pretty much so in our relationship with others. Every good deed deserves another; Do unto others as you would have them do to you, are popular sayings that are an indication that life as we know it is more than just existence that is based on self-survival and self-gratification, it is also very much a team-play. There simply is no self- survival, or survival at all, if there is not some interplay, correct?
OK, before we run with this popular conception, or notion I should say( must not run ahead of ourselves), “ How do I know that I exist? I would say because we have had experiences physically and mentally since birth that we have learned to identify and either utilize to our benefit, or live with, or successfully warded them off,…. so far. But, certain things do have a habit of coming back and back and back and require a certain amount of experience, discipline, courage and determination to cope with .We call this growing up and learning . Most of us have developed some scars along the way to remind us of certain mistakes we have made, whether they be physical or emotional. Even if we were not so sure at that time of our existence, I can assure you that Mum & Dad and the rest of the family were very profoundly aware of your existence as your screams reverberated around the parental home.
OK, the question was not how do others know that I exist, it is how do I know that I exist. Well the thing is that our actions sometimes are such that our cohabitants react in ways that send us unmistakable messages. In the extreme situation this message may put an end to our quandary as to whether we do exist. But for those of us who have managed not to be quite that provocative or steered clear of such retaliation, there is another aspect to life that also comes in the realm of actions and reactions that makes us aware that we are alive. The very fact that we think about these things in itself must be a sign that we are, even Descartes was of that opinion, he said…. “I know that I am because I’m thinking”. That does not necessarily mean that we are who we think we are, far from it. There are only so many Napoleons this world can cope with. It is quite healthy thinking to explore who or what we are, but the important thing is to come up with the right conclusion. This process is much more than a harmless navel gazing, philosophizing experience or a kind of ”Take it or leave it” experiment. Most of us may be able to say;” Been there and done that”, but hopefully we will all come to our senses to stop playing around and make the most of the time given to us.
To come to the wrong conclusion can severely limit our quality of life, it can lead from inferiority complexes to under estimating our own worth and abilities on the one hand to an obnoxious over confidence, pride and inability to communicate and make friends on the other. “ Who do you think that you are?” can be a rather intimidating question but it’s not a bad idea to ask ourselves that question occasionally, before somebody else does.
I often find it helpful to approach a question or a concept such as this from its other extreme and that is, “ On what basis could I assume that I do not exist and if I don’t exist, then who or what am I . Starting with the “what am I”, other than the fact that we are the result of reproducing humans, we may not know much more or want to know much more about our origins and make-up or even if we do we seem to come up with a lot of controversies. However, there seems little doubt that we do agree on one thing, a fairly morbid thing, and that is that to dust we shall return. OK then, if we return to it, that is where we must come from in the first place,… that then is the “ what am I”,… Dust.
As for the who am I, that is a bit more complex as it is much more than our physical being that carries us from place to place for about 80+ years if we are lucky. Sciences and research dealing with psychology, human physiology, biology, genetic engineering, medicine etc. over the last hundred or more years have made such fast advances that a schoolchild could be forgiven to think that we are just about invincible and can almost produce life from whatever. And so we place increasing trust in man’s ability to increase our physical quality of life and longevity and be masters of our destiny. We know sooooooooooooo much, especially now that we have discovered this illusive “ God Particle”.
But, how much do we know about the real us, I mean that part that we talked about earlier, that part that distinguishes us from the animal life and has endowed us with a conscience, mind and powers of reasoning. I would suggest that it is these qualities that have caused mankind to have almost an instinctive believe that we have been placed here on planet Earth for a purpose by a supreme being generally referred to as God. Ever since prehistoric days those thoughts have occupied the minds of the majority of people, why? Where does this notion come from? Our present population is about 6.6 billion, that could mean that some 800 billion people who have lived on this planet Earth
who in one form or another have acknowledged this fact in their behavior, lifestyle or customs, why?
The question” How do I know that I exist” we cannot answer until we first of all define who I am, the complete me. This is where the third dimension comes in, Body Mind and Spirit. In this area of our being likewise there has been and continues to be an ongoing exchange of actions and reactions initiated by our Creator God, who has given us a conscience that, if nothing else, causes us to ask endless questions about the how’s, the why’s and the wherefores’. Why this preoccupation ever since the beginning of time? Is that in itself not a pretty convincing phenomena that we are receiving messages on our radar screens so to speak? We may not know how to interpret it and invariably, irrespective of our reasoning we seem to come up with this notion of proof. Proof, a word in our vocabulary that has taken on a huge dimension and significance, virtually the be all and end all of our human reasoning. End all….. that is the question ? I would give it even higher status and not confine it to the limits of our human understanding.
Definition of PROOF according to the Webster dictionary is: The cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact…. and the word COGENCY means: Appealing to the intellect or powers of reasoning; convincing.
I ask you; what is the significance of that which is “ appealing to the intellect of the human mind “ as compared with the wisdom of the One who created us out of nothing? What does the Bible say about the wisdom of the wise?
What we need to realize is that the word proof as defined here, is earthbound it has no application or validity in the spiritual realm. We literally need to trade that in for the word faith if we want any enlightenment whatsoever. Faith in our Creator God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ His Son, who has and continues to show the way to those who humble themselves and follow Him. It is like a metamorphosis where the butterfly emerges from its cocoon to spread it’s wings as it flies into another reality to the live giving light. And then when you think you know it all go to Proverbs 3: 5-6
How do I know that I exist and who I am I can only answer for myself as having been at the receiving end of many experiences and love of an interacting Creator God who has revealed himself to me in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son. The Bible says that God is a Spirit and those that worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and In truth. That spiritual link is our existence and that is the only way to know that we are alive, forever alive . The way I see it is that the fact that we exist is inevitable for a season, however to be alive is the result of our acceptance of the life we are offered in Christ. He said: “ I am the way the truth and the Life” The way is a very important part of our being as life is a journey, a journey with a lot of choices. Somebody once coined the phrase: “ Without the going there is no knowing “, it is not unlike a bike ride, unless we peddle and keep moving we are bound to come off and what’s more unless we peddle our dynamo is not generating power to light up the way when we need it.
Get on your bike, it is the only way to dispel your doubts and live life to the full. I hope I’ll run into you one of these days.
Greetings,
Jim van Ommen.
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You speak of a lot of topics in your text, and overall you define your beliefs and their supporting arguments with great passion. My questions want to go beyond themes of identitarian concern, i.e. the ontology of identity. The ontology refers to the nature of being, and identity is what we think we are such as my religion, my nationality, etc. That said, the post above is a question that is attempting to disrupt the ontology of identity in a simple manner. For that reason, I postulate a counter-intuitive statement and not an argument: “What if I do not exist?” (This “I” meaning identity.)
Thus, I will not argue in favor or against your position. I will not do so because that would create an ontology that defines truth through my identity by entering an argumentative discourse. In an argumentative discourse, I would have to take a certain position. This position would vary as I changed my beliefs and their supporting reasoning or arguments. Nonetheless, what I can do is to further your points by asking these questions:
You write:
What does the “I” mean? What does “truth” mean? If Christ is the truth, then what is the essence of Christ? Could it be unconditional love? If love is “I”, then could the “I” not exist as I believe “I” exist? Could my identity need the awareness of itself to see the “I” beyond itself? Or can awareness by itself see beyond the “I” without the need of identity? How does love change the way the “I” exists? Could living with|in love be the truth?
I do not expect an answer to these questions. I will let each reader of this post to reach their own conclusions. I do not care for being right, and these questions are not about any particular “answer” but each unique perspective that is free to think as he or she wills. Insofar the text you have provided, you seem to have a fixed perspective, and that is fine within your identity. However, the post is about going beyond the concepts of identity and what we think is right. It is more about asking questions, and giving possible answers but not definite points of view. Why? There could be pride in our way of humbling ourselves about the possibility of not knowing. Is pride the neurotic “ego” or “I”? Is it the belief that “I” am right, and the belief that says “I” know the truth but “you” don’t? According to Plato, Socrates is a philosopher who had repeatedly said that he does not know. For example, see Meno by Plato http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html
In this text, Plato through Socrates approaches the notion of virtue, but Socrates finds it indefinable as knowledge. So, philosophy too inquires deeply in a humble manner. If one reads Meno, then one can analyze that to ask a question is to not “know”. One can see that Socrates constantly asks questions to Meno and Meno is mostly answering. Through this text, we can realize the importance of asking questions rather than answering with certainty! Yes, to give a fixed answer is to pride ourselves from knowing the truth. I am glad you also understand this. Knowing a certain “truth” is temporary, and limited to our historical context. It is perfectly fine to be certain of something because it gives us psychological security. However, there is a point when our need for this security becomes neurotic.
What does being neurotic mean? If pride or the uncaring “I” gets into our way of living fulfillment and empathy toward others, then one could be neurotic. For that reason, I mostly ask and provide “thought experiments” that do not assure knowledge. Because how can one be sure that one’s knowledge is the “right” one if the debate is speculative and introspective? I do not know your answers, but you can’t know other’s either. In the meanwhile, why not we let the questions be questions, and our unconditional love be the common ground?
That said, we cannot further a philosophical debate because your perspective is Christian (religious). I respect that, so please also respect my point of view although disagreeing with it. So I am closing comments, thank you!