Do You Exist?

[Cool-Beans]

Not despair, so much as puzzlement. If scientists can explain it all (and given enough time, I believe they will...they've already begun), then what makes us unique? What makes us US? Genes? What made them?

If you are religious, and believe in souls, you could say that God predetermined it. The neurons are firing in the way they were intended. But then you start wondering why God would create a Hitler or Ted Bundy, etc. Things that make you go Hmmmmmm.

Interaction with, reaction to, and impact on others proves that we exist. Each one of us, if we fell off the planet, would have left some impact behind somewhere. Things that do not exist cannot have an impact.

And the choices we make prove that we are capable of thought and selection that isn't just the result of neurons firing. Neurons do not determine whether I fight my DH about trying to get out of Canada without going through customs or whether I don't. Even if my brain determines it is stupid and pointless, and puts me in a mood to say so, I can decide to just say, "OhhhKaaay, we'll see how this works out." Sometimes, my actions really could go either way and I make the smart choice. Not always, but sometimes. So, it isn't just a set path of electric activity.

That's my dopey take on it, anyway.

I post, therefore I am!

 

[Phrebert]

I exist after my first dose of Caffeine in the morning.

 

[cardaway]

IMO if one lived in a self contained world with no interaction with similar beings, it would be easy to understand these kind of questions.

But IMO once people interect with others and see the tangible effects of those interactions, the question is answered. As soembody put it, if somebody else knows you existed - you existed.

 

[apirateslifeforme]

"All we are is dust in the wind, dude."
~ Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted Theodore Logan

Seriously, considering the number of times people look right at me, then proceed to walk into me and proclaim, "Oh, I didn't see you there!", I have to wonder if I really do exist.