i mean some fucked up guy out there who is dissociative exists, but the 1930s guy, he doesn't. my point is that it's a great axiom, existence, but it's not really a good theorem

As I said before, personalities might change, YOU might think that you are a pirate, or an assassin, or whatever, but you still have but one CONSCIOUSNESS.
A being with multiple CONSCIOUSES would have multiple combinations of parts that all consider themselves to be "themselves" and not part of a collective. We then have two options:
1) The being does not have its own consciousness. In this case, what is the difference between your consciousness being individual or part of the group, since it is on its own and is not part of something greater.

2) This being DOES have its own consciousness. In which case it is a combination of multiple consciouses. How does this deny YOUR existence any more than it does the existence of a mitochondria in one of my cells?

As I said, while WHO your are and HOW you exist may not be what you think, the fact that you think implies that YOU exist to some degree [whether you are a cog, or an individual or whatever]

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

i mean these people don't "think they're a pirate", they are a pirate. they think like pirates, remember pirate adventures and pirate friends, think of themselves as human beings who happen to be pirates, the whole shebang. when the guy reverts to his original persona, he's not following the same consciousness, thought lines, memories, actions, values, ideas or anything else to tie them together, other than residence in the same physical mind

If a man can create a reality in which he is a pirate, then it must also be possible that I, or you, or whoever, have built up this "reality" in OUR minds.

and so there is no TRUE reality, else, there might be one, however it is not seen by any/most.

this is fine for science fiction, but how is this philosophically relevant. Such assumptions provide no insight. The "true" nature of existence does not change the nature of existence as we know it, and if it does not, then what is the difference...

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

that's a pretty basic philosophical assumption, the notion that shit around us might not be there. descartes tried to answer this by saying "well at least i'm here, because i think", and i'm here telling you that that's stupid because you can think you're here but you're not and don't even exist, not unlike a dissociated personality.

the point is that as long as it's possible for you not to be, you can't say "i think thus i am" without taking a leap of faith, ergo, it's logically flawed. that's not the same as incorrect, just, not a good logical argument. it's a good axiom though, as in, a good thing that we're not sure of but we prefer to assume is true for the purposes of this experiment. namely, life

Post edited at 5:29 pm on July 1, 2008 by Apotheosis

I think that this is merely a misconception on your part as to the implications of Descartes's words. He made no implication to the idea that because we think, we must therefore be as we are, only that our thinking means that there is something to think, nothing more.

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

Should it rather be "I think therefore I am someone/thing" instead of "I think therefore I am what I think I am."?

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ню вит хуйс

Again, it is not of nature of existence of self, but of the existence of self itself.

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

but i'll concede

If Descartes had said "I think, therefore I am as I perceive I exist" Then I would hold his arms while you had at him. However, he merely stated that a thinking being MUST exist to some degree in order to think at all. He made no implications as to the nature of such an existence, only that one MUST exist.

In essence, he DID say what you proposed would be a better concept. "I/something think(s), therefore something exists"
He was positing that though we know nothing else about the nature of the universe for sure, we DO know that I, or something, or anything, must exist in order for, at least, me to have thoughts.

Post edited at 7:47 pm on July 1, 2008 by Event Horizon

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

WRT Apotheosis, "I think therefore I am" is just a bad translation of "cognito ergo sum," which doesn't include any mention of self at all.

Post edited at 7:53 pm on July 1, 2008 by Mediocre

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Incest and bestiality are neat.