Im glad i read this post. I've never understood the meaning until this point in my life now. If you observe dolphins, they are another species able to identify with "self." Just check out some youtube videos. Think of how many other animals and species are able to do this although we believe or think that they might not have these capabilities.
Lol, oooff course it is. But, let's keep your game going.., how do you know my question is, indeed, irrelevant? Are you certain that it is? Wdu mean, friend?
If one can entertain both polarities of reasoning (doubt/certainty), then they are neither. They are that which "watches" the experience of the doubt when doubt is happening and also that which "watches" the experience of certainty when certainty is happening. I am the utterly intangible watcher of both certainty and doubt. Can this be refuted?
Just because they don't speak our language and follow our way of life doesn't mean they are any less intelligent. Humans are the only species that produces waste. Every other species takes and also gives back to the environment. Check out this link here for some youtube videos of dolphins self identifying: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dolphin+self+awareness There was one episode I watched and the lady wrote on the dolphin with a marker and as soon as she was done it swims over to the mirror to see what she wrote. Nature is just perfect there are no flaws with it I guess all Im saying is that animals deserve to be treated as conscious beings, just rambling.....Thnking out loud really. We arent the only self aware species might be a better way of saying what I was getting at
Every animal creates waste and not all actively give back, we're just better at it all.. which isn't really a good thing. It is cool watching a dolphin recognize itself though.. looking at it's body and getting a better understanding of it. Ever wonder though, mirrors are created by humans and no other animal has progressed to make their own.. but a mirror is pretty much the only way we can find out if an animal is self aware. So it makes you wonder, just how many animals are out there that are/can be self aware? I forget the program, but I watched something that had dolphins checking themselves out in a mirror. All I could imagine was a dolphin with a greaser hair cut, slicking it back and thinking "damn I am sexy".
Indeed, I believe the very nature of nature lies in intelligence (after all, nature, as is it is understood by modern physics, abides and is governed by exact mathematical laws or principles); that is to say, I believe intelligence, consciousness, or 'Nous', to be an intergral component of reality that's integral within its very structure. So, I do not, as a matter of fact, deny there are other conscious creatures (or other creatures who experience mental phenomena) out there, but, there's a reason we are researching about them, and not the other way around. "All other things partake in a portion of everything, while nous is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any; for in everything there is a portion of everything, as has been said by me in what goes before, and the things mixed with it would hinder it, so that it would have power over nothing in the same way that it has now being alone by itself. For it is the thinnest of all things and the purest, and it has all knowledge about everything and the greatest strength; and nous has power over all things, both greater and smaller, that have soul [psuchē]." - Anaxagoras (you would think a that Jew, Christian, or Muslim wrote this quote, but, indeed, the idea of a single and supreme mind is not exclusive to the Abrahamic religions)
We beat em to the punch.. Not sure if you consider it research exactly, but animals do study humans. They have to when they live around humans. Like crows that studied traffic patterns and learned how, when, and where to drop a nut for a car to crush open and safely retrieve said nut.
Hasn't science already proven that thoughts are just to do with neurons and organic electrical signals happening in the brain and central nervous system? The brain is made from matter and will only function with a constant supply of energy and oxygen - you take these things away, the brain dies... as do the electrical signals (thoughts). The matter of the brain is converted to something else (ash, rots into ground/ocean) and remains part of the universe.
ah yes, trying to construct an argument in which you are immune to your own razors and conditions... do we have a name for that yet?
Welcome to the world of willful blindness.. You could show all kinds of data that's been proven, but people will still keep themselves blind to it if it doesn't adhere to their personal belief.
Rephrasing the first line of the OP: Can you know you exist? The only correct answer is, No, no you cannot. You can only believe it. Most people get this confused with "knowing." This is why Cogito Ergo Sum is necessary: we have to decide that what we think/perceive/experience, is actually real... that we are real... so that any futher philosophy can have a useful foundation, from which to lauch. This is also the loophole exploited by solipsists: they think we are not... therefore we aren't!
Again, I don't deny there are other conscious creatures besides man; but, again, man's capacity or potential is in another echelon and category when compared to the rest of the creatures of planet earth. I mean, what other species of animal can come to form an orgnaization with animals of its own kind to create something like a computer or a rocket? What other animal, besides man, can contrive, or has the capacity to contrive, a device or medium that transmits bits of information across the globe in the matter of seconds? Let alone, in the first place, knows what bits of "data" or "information" is.. Believing something presupposes existence. Derp.
And presupposition is a fallacy, if you want to frame it as such. If you believe a "mind" can "exist" outside the physical realm, then you might have noticed that you have presupposed an extraphysical or metaphysical realm. But presupposing that, does not equate to proving it exists. You could be entirely imaginary. ^^
That's why I threw the "don't know if you consider it research" bit. I wasn't trying to negate what you said, just add a different perspective. Lol, damn Boats.. you take everything like it's an argument. I agree, other animals can't do that stuff.. because we beat them to the top. Our evolution landed us in the sweet spot and once we were there, we held on to it. Now if humans were to just up and disappear one day, even take everything man made away too, I have no doubts that another animal will fill in our niche and travel a very similar path we did. It'd more than likely be another primate, like bonobos or chimps. If all primates disappeared, it'd more than likely be another species with opposable thumbs that rises up. A computer, a rocket, and long range communication are examples of tools we created, tool creation isn't unique to humans, but like every other aspect of us, it's many many many times more complex and advanced.. Our complexity is pretty much the only thing that sets us apart from animals, and I don't consider us set far apart at all.
The presuppositon isn't nominal, as you would like to portray it, friend, it's ontological. That is, questioning and-or doubting "existence", means you necessarily exist or are existent. "I would first of all ask you, so that we may start with what is supremely evident, whether you yourself exist, or whether you perhaps fear that you may be deceived even as to this point, although, in fact, if you did not exist, you could not be deceived?" Cheers, friend.
See? You think you're immune to your own conditional requirements. If i "question or doubt prosperity," does that mean i am necessarily prosperous? You're bypassing the profound nature of the question: if the question "do i exist?" is even relevant, then you have to accept that even as whatever you think you are, you might not actually exist. Therefore, to say "i think; therefore i am" is useless. To question whether you, yourself, actually exist, is pointless... but the reason people question it, is because such a thing cannot be "known," only presupposed. And so, such a presupposition must be taken as granted, prior to proceeding with any useful question. However, taking one's own "existence" for granted, does not equate to proof that one does in fact exist. You could be "not you," while believing you are you. You could be deceived by some supernatural event, and how would you know otherwise? You wouldn't. You can't. You can only "believe" and/or "assume" that your observations are indeed accurate (enter the concept of "phaneron"), and then proceed from that basis... even though that could actually be incorrect. "i think i am what i think i am, because how could i possibly discover otherwise?" <-- the point. If "otherwise" is true, you wouldn't be able to know it anyway.
I don't know, we'd have to explore it to the best of our abilities and just because it cannot be refuted by us does not necessarily mean its irrefutable. It is possible that someone can be eating something and you can taste what they taste without eating it and there is evidence that the subvocal thoughts you "hear" can be generated by someone else. short version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDsXa5nNbI long version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKwT1Ol3nY0 One of them likes ketchup and the other does not and when one tastes the ketchup you can see the other ones make a gross face. when one closes their eyes and you flash a light to the other girl ,both will see the flash. and there is some evidence that both can communicate with eachother without speaking according to the parents. It's not out of the question that they are communicating subvocally. with the assumption that conceivability implies a possibility , these possibilities makes it possible for there to be doubt of us being the thinkers.
If i "question or doubt prosperity," does that mean i am necessarily prosperous? Lol.. so this the logic you're going with? If i "question or doubt prosperity," does that mean i am necessarily prosperous? No, it means you've question the fact of whether or not you're "prosperous". If "otherwise" is true, you wouldn't be able to know it anyway. So, I know that I don't know, right?
You don't know. You don't know whether you do or don't know. You have to just pick whatever seems right and just go with it, to avoid wasting time on a problem that can't be solved. In my perhaps nonexistent opinion: i think it's very likely that we do indeed exist... whether i "think so" or not. This question would be FAR more profound, if you were the only one of your kind that might exist, and you had never seen another person. But in seeing so many others who seem similar to what you think you are, it's easy to pass off that "belief" as "knowing" you exist.