Quote:
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Originally Posted by Augi
@ Albania:
How can nothing exist if we interact with it in some sense? We may not be experiencing or sensing it in the fullest sense of it's "existence" but we interact with it (meaning any properties we perceive are meaningless except to ourselves since we have limited sensations). Even elements of our dreams we interact with. The only difference between our dreams and the universe is that we can predict the results of our interactions through past experience.
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That is indeed the question, and that question is really the pivot of all “proofs” of existence. They rely on defining existence with respect to one’s own reality. However, because of this all such proofs are at their base circular. They often boil down to: clearly I exist(this first part is usually left for the reader to fill in); it is evident that I interact with something; the process of interacting with these things must therefore be what defines existence in some way. The nail on the coffin to these “proofs” is a rhetorical question: what else could it be? Or, put better by you, how can nothing exist? To which my answer is I don’t know, and I wouldn’t even know how to attempt such a question. But, since this line of reasoning evokes such strong emotional investment it is hard even for me to dismiss it. In fact I don’t. It is my deepest wish to believe in this type of existence. My point was that no matter how comforting this is, it’s not a proof unless you take it as a self-evident given that you exist.