Unexisted
Cogito, ergo sum
One perceives the world through thier senses. All of which can be arguably recreated like a brain in a vat. If everything we ever know is confirmed through our senses, how can one be sure that anything really exists? René Descartes asked a similar question and deduced his way to the following.
“Cogito, ergo sum” which roughly translates to, “I think therefore I am”, and the argument goes as follows.
- I ask the question, “Do I exist?”
- Questioning is Thinking.
- To think I should exist.
- Ergo I exist (in some form).
Sounds plausible. Although I should agree with the few that argue that the conclusion should include the time dimension as it’s the act of thinking that supports this argument.
“I am thinking therefore I am”, or a more precise version would be “I am thinking therefore I exist”.
Makes sense. It’s self-evident that to be able to think, one should exist in the first place. Awareness is a feature of a conscious being existing.
Here’s a thought experiment. What if we are in a simulation? We, the consciousness, exist in the human form inside the simulation but as some form of variables in memory of a “complex” system outside the simulation. To exist is to be; here, we are a result/side-effect of the abstract layer inside this “complex” simulation machine.
The consciousness doesn’t really exist outside the simulation, but constituents that make us do. There’s no concept of “We” outside, so when we say “We exist in some form”, what it really means is that our constituents exist.
And what if these constituents are reused to create across the simulacrum? Intuitively efficiency will be at its peak; relatively speaking. And if there’s a simulation machine, it only makes sense to reuse similar constituents. How does that affect the definition of “to exist”? Prolly not much.
Have some feedback or thoughts? Let me know — at hi@unexisted.com