Existence Failure
Feb. 16th, 2009 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdI think I have an existential crisis on knowing if I exist or not. I realized this last night.
I've always craved attention, which is normal, of course. Thinking about it last night though, I think I've wanted it so I know I exist. If people pay attention to me, obviously I must be there, right?
These thoughts began about a week ago when I was looking at some webcams wondering if I should get one. My mom, who was there at the time, didn't think I should. She said I should have some privacy and if I did this, I wouldn't have any left. My thought was but I have nothing private. I don't mind sharing things about my life. It doesn't bother me. Descartes' "I think there for I am" doesn't seem to apply to me.
Some more on that. I have no internal reality. What I see outside I believe exists. If something has changed - like recently with the construction here at the university a tree had been cut down - I will doubt my memory. I will wonder if I remembered seeing the tree and if the tree existed at all. After all the tree is not there, so how could it exist? How do I know my memory is correct? Memory is a fuzzy thing and subjective. There is nothing that confirms what I think is correct except the outside world. The outside world is reality. I exist as part of reality, but I don't exist inside my head.
If I'm in my room alone, I have the tree in the forest conundrum. If I'm by myself and no one is around to see me, how do I know I'm there? Really? What proof do I have? Myself isn't proof, there's just me and how do I know I'm right? Of course I believe I'm right, but I have no outside proof.
However! If more people know about me and pay attention to me then I must exist. People don't pay attention to things that aren't there. I'm reminded, perhaps to explain this better, of a story my mom told me. She said that as long as a person is remember then they're still alive. And this is why Jews name people after dead loved ones. As long as their name exists, their memory exists and they're still alive and with us.
The more people that know about me the more assurance I have that I exist. I think this is why I want to be famous, so that I have validation of my existence. If I'm in a history book somewhere then the likelihood of my existence being false is downgraded significantly. Admittedly I won't be around to see it, but if I do things that would put me in the books! Ah then I know I exist.
I have no idea if the previous made any sense or not, but this is something that I've been thinking about the past couple of days.
I've always craved attention, which is normal, of course. Thinking about it last night though, I think I've wanted it so I know I exist. If people pay attention to me, obviously I must be there, right?
These thoughts began about a week ago when I was looking at some webcams wondering if I should get one. My mom, who was there at the time, didn't think I should. She said I should have some privacy and if I did this, I wouldn't have any left. My thought was but I have nothing private. I don't mind sharing things about my life. It doesn't bother me. Descartes' "I think there for I am" doesn't seem to apply to me.
Some more on that. I have no internal reality. What I see outside I believe exists. If something has changed - like recently with the construction here at the university a tree had been cut down - I will doubt my memory. I will wonder if I remembered seeing the tree and if the tree existed at all. After all the tree is not there, so how could it exist? How do I know my memory is correct? Memory is a fuzzy thing and subjective. There is nothing that confirms what I think is correct except the outside world. The outside world is reality. I exist as part of reality, but I don't exist inside my head.
If I'm in my room alone, I have the tree in the forest conundrum. If I'm by myself and no one is around to see me, how do I know I'm there? Really? What proof do I have? Myself isn't proof, there's just me and how do I know I'm right? Of course I believe I'm right, but I have no outside proof.
However! If more people know about me and pay attention to me then I must exist. People don't pay attention to things that aren't there. I'm reminded, perhaps to explain this better, of a story my mom told me. She said that as long as a person is remember then they're still alive. And this is why Jews name people after dead loved ones. As long as their name exists, their memory exists and they're still alive and with us.
The more people that know about me the more assurance I have that I exist. I think this is why I want to be famous, so that I have validation of my existence. If I'm in a history book somewhere then the likelihood of my existence being false is downgraded significantly. Admittedly I won't be around to see it, but if I do things that would put me in the books! Ah then I know I exist.
I have no idea if the previous made any sense or not, but this is something that I've been thinking about the past couple of days.
