exist Quintessensual Of course none of us knows that any of the rest of us, whom we have never sensed in the flesh, exists. All we know from blathing together is that some machine made marks, that we could see, on a monitor screen in front of us. We assume there is a connection between that machine and another and a unique connection between that other machine and some individual of flesh and bone and mind that took credit through name and sometimes name and e-mail address (real or imagined) for the marks we see on the monitor screen. But we cannot know whether this facile assumption is valid. So we cannot know from blathing alone whether anybody, other than each of ourselves, exists. If you exist, you must be flesh and bone and mind and the only way I can know you exist is to sense you in the flesh. 991125 ... s is the physical a sufficient definition of reality? 991126 ... jennifer I make the effort not to on most occasions 991216 ... old hick His reality existed because he believed it existed. A social construct that created his world. The generalized other was always there because he never thought to check whether or not He really was. His job was just to manipulate the symbols of the construct and respond accordingly, occasionally wrapping himself aroung the taboo chaos and strangling it back down to the strange attracter that was his fleeting world. I'm tempted to call him pathetic, but then who the hell am I? 000209 ... camille It's what we do... look at this "i" and this "u" we exist "o" because we bother to blather as we listen to fellow blatherers which are listening to our blatherings therefore we "r". we have a purpose....to blatherly exist :o) 000209 ... marjorie i tried to convince you that i did not exist but you wouldn't listen to me and i thought that was proof enough 000415 ... Mika I don't exist My imagination keeps telling me that I do but the reactions of others tell me otherwise 000525 ... thomas if it is just one big twisted dream, I'm glad I spent so much time pulling my pud... 000527 ... kitten on drugs why do we exist? what a trippy little question... 001121 ... Edlong Fuzzekher slip the deep and let ride with all the demons of the mind existance is a futile dream if you ask yourself what it means. I think therefore I am. 010131 ... god nutter butters... do they exist? 010131 ... the boy with the thorn in his side Do I sit and worry and ponder and dream and cry and trip and fall and throw and lose and win and scream and writhe and dip and dance and write and crawl and paint and chip away and dust and shake and breathe and laugh and scrawl and slurp and fret and cause and move or just exist? 010307 ... kx21 without dreams and thoughts? The state of Perfect ignorance or Supreme_enlightenment? 010307 ... kx21 The Mother Nature of I:- I Think therefore I Exist... I Feel therefore I Create... I Act therefore I Survive... I Communicate therefore I Blossom... I Give therefore I see Heaven... 010307 ... like rain. i could die right now and i wouldn't understand any more. it's the greatest open ended question... 010424 ... toruslovesyou Of course, I have come into the skeptic's argument: how can anything be proven to exist externally to me without reference to the senses, which are internal. this seems to trap me in a subjective world.(check out the solution that Bishop Berkeley proposes in his "three dialogues", with a little modernization, it will be found to be a remarkable cure for the fragmentation that is implied by being unable to prove the existence of others, or externals) There are patterns. Specific assumptions ("Truths", or "World Views") alter our experiences by the behaviors they engender. If I was to take a solipsistic approach, and deny the existence of others, then the ensuing behaviors would cause me to be further alienated. If I take a Communistic approach, then, I will have communistic experiences, likewise with Capitalist, Christian, Advaitic, Idealist, Materialist,Muslim, Pagan, Atheist, or-whatnot- approaches. Views held are pragmatic in terms of the experiential reality that follows from them.When there is no real reason to suppose absolutely why or how we exist, and all "modelling" seems arbitrary, I recomend the Aesthetic solution; that is, "do it because it's beautiful! Believe it because it leads to Beauty". what I have come up with after a few years of swimming in a mind of suspended truths is this: I am merely a memory (or a memery, if you like). I am self defined on the basis of what I remember myself as being. As I am in flux, I can alter my context, change my very nature, by adding memories to it, or re-evaluating old ones. The flux of experiential image is the mark of the motion of time. It can be molded into a focus, too, a trajectory can be defined ("linear" time, eh... well a free SELF gets to decide just what direction the line is going in, he he he.) Do that which you wish to remember yourself as having done. Believe that which will have the greatest chance of enabling you to do that which you wish to remember yourself as having done. Lest this sound easy, I have to point out that our deliberate wills first have to be freed from the fetters of desire and instict in order to be effective in this activity.This is a slow process. In fact, to achieve it, one must first construct a "memory" of being able to deliberately construct memory: that is, SET THE PRECEDENT, for future capacity. SO, pick the honestly beautiful (in your experience) as your lamp, and then use science to make life an art. Remember: "i am merely a memory; YOURS and MINE". This I say, today, or rather, blather, come Friends,hither, gather. 010625 ... Dafremen Sigh...Guns you have to register, but minds? Hell no! Anyone can handle one of those right? I enter the above blather into evidence as demonstrating that minds, like guns, can be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands(er heads). 010625 ... torusstilllovesyou What a thing to say: register minds! Ever heard of the thought police? I'll tell you what the wrong heads are: the wrong heads are those of the people who wish to maintain a status quo (reality construct) that has outstayed it's usefulness for their own personal profit. the right heads are those that wish to emancipate people from what's keeping them lonely, afraid, angry, hopeless, recognizing that what benefits All, benefits self. Besides, "dangerous minds " are required to counteract even more dangerous mindlessnesses. Register this, you cynical shmuck!!! 010625 ... Dafremen Oh sure....perception and existence are subjective....the reality and extent of human suffering are subjective...HEll even "dangerous minds" you say is a term which is subjective. But lo and behold...suprise suprise El Primo Cerebro Fantastico there says "What benefits all..benefits self.." and actually BELIEVES that "what benefits all" is NOT a subjective statement. A crappy political sciences paperback...that's where you need to blather...of course be sure it's listed under fiction. Wouldn't want anyone actually TRYING that crap... ~~shudders~~ 010625 ... birdmad sometimes i wish i didn't 010625 ... Casey I'm not really here, I'm just part of some guy's dream who I have never met. Either that or I am part of a T.V. show that I don't know about, like the The Truman Show movie 010625 ... Dafremen Hahaha...part of a T.V. show...that's ridiculous.(ssssss...I think he might be on to us...maintain radio silence until further notice...ksssssst)Where do you ever come UP with these things? 010626 ... torusfeelsmisunderstood I don't believe I ever said that everything was subjective. everything that we think about everything is, tho. what you may believe won't change the size or shape of a rock, but it will change the context that the rock appears in, and if you are a depressed person, it helps to know that this is not an absolute state of being, but rather that it can be modified by shifting worldviews. IT will always remain IT, no doubt, but we'll allways think differently about IT; that is out nature. That is our CHOICE. 010702 ... torusclarifieshispreviousstatement. in relation to the above, when I say that "this is not an absolute situation", I was refering to the fact of depression, not the rock. forgive the confusing punctuation... he he he :) 010702 ... torusmentionsthecatfish Oh! by the way, did I mention the catfish? 010702 ... scheherazade yesterday i was in there, although why i went in there i'm not quite sure, and i started staring at the mirror - or more accurately, i was staring at myself in the mirror. this sounds really bad, but i couldn't take my eyes off myself, analysing my face, my eyes, my nose, lips, ears, everything, and then i focussed on my whole face. you know when you look at something, but you don't actually see anything? that's what i was doing. but i was staring for such a long time that i began to think there was no glass in front of me. i could see every round and crease of my face prefectly, like i could reach out and touch and the feel of it would correspond with what my eyes were telling me. it was so real, the thing that was in front of me, like i was looking at someone in front of me, with nothing between us, and there was nothing to stop the only thing between us but air. then i ran away. i'm not sure i like the idea of me being 'real'. 010818 ... Dafremen Hmm Peyton? Db? Not really sure who u iz. In any event torus do0d, here's the way I see it: What IS...IS. Not only that, but it IS the way it IS, regardless of how YOU, I or anyone else perceives it as being. Period. There is no subjective reality anymore than there was a Captain Ahab or a White Whale named Moby Dick. Just as Melville's novel sprang from his mind, so to do our perceptions. His novel is fictional and so is anything which we perceive as being other than it actually IS. Here you might contend that it is only through our perceptions that we can make determinations about real and unreal. And although I can't argue with the SEMANTIC correctness of that statement, I do take issue with it's implication. What it implies is that we can know no more of reality than that which is subjectively perceived as being real. THAT is absolute poppycock. Have you seen the planet Pluto? Probably not, but SOMEONE did. Someone ELSE perceived that it existed, shared that information and OTHERS verified that perception. Once enough individuals could verify it's existence through their OWN subjective inquiries, a common OBJECTIVE perception was established, Pluto exists. We can't see it, but it's there. If I see something that ISN'T there... are my perceptions flawed? Perhaps...or perhaps I've discovered something through subjective inquiry that is real, but has gone undiscovered. In ANY event, Pluto existed long before that guy saw it. His perception was NOT required for Pluto's existence. Pluto existed, objectively...the entire time. There IS no subjective reality. There is objective reality and subjective perception and the existence of absolutely nothing will change simply because we don't believe or perceive. Rather, our goal should be to verify the objective reality of that which we subjectively perceive. To claim that there is subjective reality/existence is akin to claiming that the world disappears because an ostrich hides it's head in the sand. Tell that to the world, or anyone looking for tasty rotisserie gold ostrich. 010824 ... the_engineer do i really? or am i just dreaming? 011010 ... SuicidalAngel It's weird how I Hate everyone all of a sudden. I don't know why, I just realized I was never that important. I was always pushed to the back of the line. I'm just a place holder until something better comes along. I look at pictures of myself and look at them as an outsider looking in. Knowing what goes on - just under that skull. The pain that flows out from behind those decieving eyes. The wounded and healed arms. The bruised knuckes and hands that have written things such as this, yet carry on, as if I don't know what's going on. I just want others to feel or know my pain. Realize the point blank hints I have told them and simpathise when I become honest. But no - carry on. I dont exist I guess - or maybe I shouldn't. 011101 ... Toxic_Kisses Do you ever wish not to exzist not to be dead (After all to be dead you must first be alive) or to never have exzisted, just maybe that today you dident exzist, that some one elce had taken your place or something, -anything- simply to not exzist 020125 ... me i wonder sometimes weather we actually exist. or are we all in some elaborate dream that some person is having. sometimes life is so painful. i dont know why it happens. lately i have had a hard time believing that theer is anything after death. if nothing is there then why are we put on this hellish earth. i know for a fcat that there are some beautify places on this earth but the things that people do to eachother...i dont know weather in a past life i was condemned...sor something because although my life seems to be just fine. i dont know why and how could there be so much hatred in the world. i can imagine hell being much worse. its funny i live in the US and it seems that almost all the time our government is pissing off some other govt. and these wars start...at this point in time i dont even know what we are at war with...or why we are even at war...if this is all just a dream. i sure as hell that i wor whoever is having this dream wakes the hell up!!! 021125 ... [.:..The SeeR ..:.] Focus not on the negative... But focus on the positive instead. "I could be upset that rose bushes have thorns... or I could rejoice because thornbushes have roses" Everything is all simply a matter of how you choose to look at it. There will always be bad [crime, death, war, tragedy], but then again there will always be good [gifts, life, peace, comedy] as well, no matter what... just happening at fluctuating intervals throughout the world. 021125 ... crazyPUNKkait why do i only love the guys who i have no chance with, and the ones who don't even know i exist? i can't find a guy to love who loves me back love is so damn depressing 021208 ... screwing for virginity existance is over rated 021209 ... Black Argonaut To exist is not enough anymore. We are forced into the slavery of higher education, pushed to better ourselves, not because we want to, but because the higher authority will tax us until we die, and tax even our death, and without good book-learning our income will be so low as to put us into a place many call "the alley" or "cardboard box." And the taxes i slave to pay dont even go to me. They go to the underpriveleged, the washed out, the criminals, the "minorities" (as if there are any, this day and age), and many others who dont even know what an honest day's work is. The bastards. But, that's life. For most of us, anyway. It just isn't enough to simply get by anymore. It just isn't enough just to exist. 030122 ... Jackie McCracken Certain things are for certain! You get cut you bleed! You smile and you open yourself up for invasion! HQOFU is real not some seperate entity created by some slightly off center individual but a real relm in which to exist.......maybe only for a moment, but still. 030605 ... scifininja i don't exist. your making this up. 030720 ... ashmanzhou do we really need to exist? after all we dream so much existance and it is not so why have it be? 030720 ... oldephebe i have no words to add to this elegant sprawl of thoughts on the theme of reality - more aptly existence - no sir not going to heave the deep and ponderous upon shoulders this morning - too damned early i'm still wading through the thicket of cob webs here trying restore the old cognitive engines - really enjoyed the exchanges here though - can i be a little equivocal here though? I sort of agreed with a little of what everyone had to say aah now that's blithe and banal nice and bland and non-confluential safley straddling the ideological staves er fence do i exist? i guess - only as long as i want to was that all whiney and tragic? yeah - exist take a trek into the vast chasms of introspection too much too early today, i just wanna keep everything fuzzy and gray 030720 ... Dafremen see also: claptrap 030720 ... oldephebe okay i hope i won't have to brush up on my Wittgenstien though - i was really trying to stay away from all the dense architectures of reasoning today - hazy and gray i said - hazy and gray put on the phillis game - consume mounds of prohibitively viscuous carbohydrates and wash it all down with a gallon of pepsi - now i have to actually think - and on a picturesque Sunday afternoon at that - i tell ya - all you learned folks out there are gettin' me frazzled see you in claptrap 030720 ... lethargic oldephebe put on the Phillies game - that's what i meant to say 030720 ... no reason give me a reason 030720 ... Dafremen@hotmail.com Trust me chickling, there is nothing as fuzzy and gray as claptrap. 030720 ... Dafremen Trust me chickling, there is nothing as fuzzy and gray as claptrap. 030720 ... oldephebe okay so i was basically amendg a proir post - it was like a directive or suggestion or meant to be implicitly construed as such - I'd misspelled Phillies and just wanted to correct the error for relentless inner critic who is basically me - schism of being - and all that - now I'm off to wade throgh all the concentric ripples Dafs incisive and perhaps to some obliterating and or withering salvo - i suppose one could liken it to the rhetorical/verbal equivalent to the ceaseless soundscape of of long unwinding train of traffic - so you should feel no explicit or implicit request desire from me to watch the poetic flow and ebb of a baseball game not just trying to appear spiritually sated but also linear as well 030720 ... oldephebe again i have to correct myself - was should be wasn't - it wasn't like I was making an implicit or blah blah 030720 ... Dafremen You are implicitly, deliciously (in an entirely platonic sense of course) and profoundly cute. Did you say you had a canteen? We should go for an adventure hike! Would you like to fill it up with Tang? Mom just made some. No ice cubes though, someone keeps leaving empty ice trays in the freezer. 030720 ... oldephebe i see -your tongue lodged firmly in cheek -ehh- not sure how to interpret your last post but ah there's a dissonance in some of its overtones or maybe not overtones but still dissonance anyway - still trying to clear out the cobwebs i call upon the rain carrying clouds to carry a message - what that messsage is i have no idea 030720 ... oldephebe oh and uh adverbial modifiers notwithstanding, i'm not too vested in what people think about me or at least the thin sliver that is revealed - soo ... 030720 ... jane these hours of my waking_life seem too light and airy for me to exist. existance is heavy, a burden we all carry, because "reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." [philip k. dick]. sometimes i want to switch into observer mode, walk away from my life, and watch someone else babysit my soul for a while... 030721 ... nomme no_escape 030721 ... Dafremen That works out perfectly! You see, I'm not too concerned with what anyone thinks about what I think about them or what they think about me for that matter. That's the great thing about blather. It's only words..and you DON'T have to read em or take em to heart. (Even though it's fun to sometimes : ) ) Now about that Tang? (It's cold now.) 030721 ... oldephebe dissonant overtones and crouching tigers i asked the clouds that carry rain to carry a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . nil admirari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i ask the clouds that carry rain to carry a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . quo animo ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . oh and the thing with tang is that it always galvanizes this abdominal heaving - roils the gastric acids as it were - cognitive dissonance and adeptly planted non-sequiturs notwithstanding - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i have asked the clouds that carry rain to carry a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . solemn mass i'm going to bask in the ocean bottom floor black for awhile dissonance non-sequitur(s) and the following line is irony free: virtus post nummos yeah virtus post nummos i think i'm going to stay out of the fray for a while all these words enough. enough speaking out of emptiness later 030722 ... oldephebe yeah..safely strapped in to our subjective states of being.. 031024 ... mak a friend of mine doesn't exist. we found out today. i swear she's really... i think? 031230 ... skalix i'm a squeeky guy, i have squeeky pants, watch me do the squeeky pants dance! 040129 ... oldephebe hee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! *appropriates Letterman's gap toothed iconic and exxagerated and it strikes me exhausted grin/laugh thing that he does* let the flatulent cannons roar Dave, i want to say... 040227 ... pete within the reality i breath there is an emptiness, a void. energy, like water in a bathtub, seek this out and drain down into it, never to be seen in that form again. muddled by mistakes this loss can become overwhelming, the world goes dark and white seems bright again for some reason. at times apologies seem necsarry, but how can i be sure you want them or will accept them? fading thoughts reach around me, embracing the worn joints, and closing the senses. i can't feel, but it feels like icing sugar. and then like licking a wooden spoon. this existance is a curse. but one i love very dearly. it can be a blackish oil spill, but so can i at times. it can be a torrential downpour flooding the streets, but so can my words and my actions. life is imperfect, and i strive to never be perfect. perfection comes only in death. then you can be perfect food for the worms. well, perhaps with exception of the bones. but they'll go sooner or later. existing as i am i wonder again and again where the darkness comes from? or should i perhaps ask what existed before lgiht and dark where separated? before love and hate became to entities. peace and war, good and evil, trust and betrayal, dreams and waking life. throughout the words only a few words matter. sometimes they come near the beginning, some times near the end, in a certain case both. to one who knows, they are obvious. if i could do it all again i would have left earlier. the darkness would have absorbed me, and there would have been things undones and thoughts unthought. seek the start, get lost in the process. you know its there somewhere. it exists 040403 ... z turing machines 040403 ... Perpetual Puppet When I was a child, my imaginary friends told me I didn't exist 040519 ... pendulum-like arms clever. it's difficult, yet easy, to be yourself. my brother had twins, Mack and Lack. i had a girl, Missy, who was about two inches big, and i used to smash her like a pancake. 040523 ... applegirl esse: beauty in back of a parking lot caffeine and nicotine and existing on a bench rocks were reaching reaching to a swelling moon that wont cease to rise and fall and pull all things toward it i want to pull like the moon 041212 ... chrity Chritysjournal 041217 ... spinsugar I must say once I thought I only existed if I was in anothers thoughts, wouldn't that be true...Really? Sure we may know we exsist because we are we........but to exsist to another person, musn't you be in their thoughts, and when you are not thought of or being spoken to, or seen...you are in a singular exsistance....do some exsist more than others? And a child thinking of a monster under a bed.........DOES EXSIST......maybe not in the flesh but the very idea gives it life.........i may go on forever 050315 ... andru235 that's right, SpinSugar, you may go on forever you have your very own infinite number of permutations and if you want 'ta, you can go on endlessly if posthumous rebirth exists in your mind, does it matter if others agree or not? energy is neither created nor destroyed and at our death, our previous life becomes the inertia that carries us forth into a new one it_all_exists 050315 ... HT (V)!!! I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow.- Jean Paul Sartre 050930 ... badjonni to exist is to end to end is to start again 060117 ... megan quietly 060117 ... They call me Truth If this whole world is a dream that i created...what the hell is wrong with me? I am pretty sure i could have done a better job. 080715 ... tourist I'm pretty sure if I created this It'd Be a lot more like some Looney Tunes Cartoon. The Backsides of Planets held up with props, that sot of thing. I have a feeling that I'd Never Pay close Enough Attention To All The Little Details. I'm Just Not Anal Enough. 080716 ... praeludiums. i don't think you really realize the full extent of what i mean when i say things to you. you aren't fully comprehending the deeper meaning behind all of these words because you really are so stupid but goddammit you're cute. 131112 ... praeludiums. i don't think you really realize the full extent of what i mean when i say things to you. you aren't fully comprehending the deeper meaning behind all of these words because you really are so stupid but goddammit you're cute. you don't really know what exactly is going on outside of your little circle of awareness, which is so impossibly small that i wonder how you go about without bumping into walls, but i hope you realize a little bit eventually. 131112 what's it to you? who go blather from