Yes this thread does exist. Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls existed for all of those years. This whole thing about things only existing when you perceive them only applies to you specifically. Sure, the dead sea scrolls didn't exist to anyone for all of those years but they DO exist to you, and as you are aware that they were there all of that time as far as you're concerned they existed all of that time.
Time is meaningless, all that is important is now. At the moment you are reading this the thread exists, and once you leave you continue to be aware that it exists. Only when you forget about it does it cease to exist. You don't know the specifics but you do know that there are specifics, and that's enough to consider it still there.
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Originally Posted by Spiker439
I think this question is just the "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound" problem rehashed. I would say that, even if there was no one to ehar the tree, the tree damn well did make a sound. To say otherwise is to suggest that the tree making a sound is somehow dependant on that sound being percieved by someone, which seems to cause some problems with physical reality - if conscious beings cease to exist will all things cease to exist because they are no longer being observed? Assuming an evolutionary standpoint, did nothing therefore exist before there was consciousness? I'm tempted to say no - the universe will likely be here much longer than we will (I'm not trying to open up a different can of worms here), and it seems counterintuitive to say that it will cease to exist as conscious perception of it does, or that it's existance is somehow dependant on conscious perception.
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Remember, only the present matters. As far as you're concerned, nothing existed before your birth. But once you were born and learned about all of the universe those things began to exist. At the moment all of the past completely exists, and all of the future stretching for an eternity exists. But as soon as you die all of existence ends.
If we apply this same logic to the tree falling in a forest story, as long as you know that the tree fell in the forest and that trees make sounds when they fall, it really did make a sound. It doesn't matter if anyone else was there at the time, because you know and that's all that matters.