Atheists Corner – A place to post your opinion

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
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You could think you and everyone else exists but can you prove your thoughts exist in a physical realm?


I can prove my thoughts exist in a physical realm....with some medical equipment.
fMRI technology shows thoughts.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
49,720
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You could think you and everyone else exists but can you prove your thoughts exist in a physical realm?

If I think that I exist then I must exist. A person cannot merely be imagining they exist. Because by imagining things, they must exist.

I think, therefore I am.

The only person, and the only THING, that I am certain exists is myself.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
116,362
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Low Earth Orbit
According to "Georg Cantor and the Origins of Transfinite Set Theory", Scientific American 248 (1983), he had depression.

Depressed he couldn't crack the mystery and lost it. There are three more. Dig them up yourself.

I can prove my thoughts exist in a physical realm....with some medical equipment.
fMRI technology shows thoughts.

Which could all exist within your own mind.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
49,720
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Quote: Originally Posted by Twila
I can prove my thoughts exist in a physical realm....with some medical equipment.
fMRI technology shows thoughts.

Medical equipment which you could just be imagining.

The only thing a person can tell definitely exists is their self.
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
48
Many a great mind has gone loopy trying to simply grasp infinity.


Trying to relate the size of the universe, the galaxies has me hanging on to earth like I could fall off. It feels like my brain is actually physically shrinking away from the enormity of it.
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
48
Depressed he couldn't crack the mystery and lost it. There are three more. Dig them up yourself.



Which could all exist within your own mind.


I might be misinterpreting what you're meaning but in case I'm not:

Psychologists and other researchers aren’t using fMRI just to see
what lights up in people’s brains as they perform different mental
tasks.

From:
http://www.apa.org/research/tools/fmri-adult.pdf

This would mean there is some physical change/action taking place in the brain.

Medical equipment which you could just be imagining.

The only thing a person can tell definitely exists is their self.


If I think, therefore I am is proof of exitence then wouldn't sensory perception from touching the equipment also be proof of its' existance?
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
116,362
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Low Earth Orbit
Do those Drs and machines really exist or you just think they do? This is all part in parcel of the quantum realm which some use as an excuse to disprove God yet they can't prove there own existence using the same methodology.
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
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Do those Drs and machines really exist or you just think they do? This is all part in parcel of the quantum realm which some use as an excuse to disprove God yet they can't prove there own existence using the same methodology.


man oh man. When I was little my older sisters took a philosophy class. They enjoyed telling me things from this class. Such as "things only exist when seen" This had me trying to run as fast as possible around corners to see if I could catch things "materializing".

You're going to do my head in too! lol

Are you referring to the thought that reality is an illusion? Quantum mechanics and reality is flat?
 

Locutus

Adorable Deplorable
Jun 18, 2007
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What exactly do you 'hear' when you're thinking to yourself? What is that anyway?
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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Are we thinking our own thoughts or are we just part of an elaborate computer program? The brain is a computer. It records and stores data. But, on the quantum level there is no matter, so everything is just pure energy. The Universe is just pure energy and yet consciousness exists, on a collective (the Borg) and individual level (your consciousness). So, to me, it stands to reason, that what people call god is the sum total of all consciousness and energy that is the Universe. Nothing exists outside this energy field.

Physical reality is just a program, like the Matrix. We are told (programmed) from birth what this reality is all about. Eventually we forget the program we came from, the one where we were just pure conscious energy. But everybody has been subjected to this program so we all co-create this reality. Buddhist say that this reality is just an illusion, a dream and that what we call the dream state is our true reality. This, to me, is consistent with quantum physics and mechanics.
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
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Are we thinking our own thoughts or are we just part of an elaborate computer program? The brain is a computer.

Off topic a bit and unrelated to what you are saying but there is a possibility that our thoughts are not original. They've all come from someone before. Some may find this infuriating and others comforting.

Got an Original Idea? Not Likely - Scientific American

What exactly do you 'hear' when you're thinking to yourself? What is that anyway?

WHAT IS THAT??? crap, what is that. Once, while I was having a nap I woke up with various odd thoughts floating through my concious. They were odd and non logical and there was a number in it. So, for me at least, even at rest my brain is thinking, putting away info, rationalizing. it was a very weird experience.
 

cj44

Electoral Member
Sep 18, 2013
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Perhaps you want me to die of unrelieved boredom while you keep on talking.
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
44,850
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Nakusp, BC
Off topic a bit and unrelated to what you are saying but there is a possibility that our thoughts are not original. They've all come from someone before. Some may find this infuriating and others comforting.

Got an Original Idea? Not Likely - Scientific American
It is kinda related because thoughts are part of the collective process. Some people say we are sprit having a physical experience and some say we are god having a human experience. But breaking it down to the quantum level, they are actually saying we are energy experiencing a (consciously constructed) material reality. Thoughts come from the collective consciousness and that consciousness is the sum total of all life on this planet (different planets throughout the Universe have a different set of rules that they exist by, which is why we may never discover life on other planets - they may exist on a different plain of reality).

When we scan the Big Picture we find there is no such thing as a personal god but some form of consciousness (beyond our comprehension) may have programmed the whole deliriously magnificent dance we call life. I can only speculate that that is the Universe itself.