weird thought

[markporter]

Well, this isn't really something that's really very dicussable, just a wierd thought that occured to me when lying in bed the other night.

"What if I'd never existed?" Just trying to imaging a world without me in it really messes with my mind......I mean, from my perspective I can quite happily imagine a world without others in it, but a world without my own subjective experience??!

Not sure whether philosophy is the best place to put this, it might be better of in the dorm somewhere actually, but there you go.

[Bill the Cat]

Well, if you did not exist, this thread would not be here, so there!! :bow2: :bow2: :bow2:

[bar Jonah]

Well, for one thing, most of the problems we have around here would never have happened. :shifty:


































We'd have entirely different problems! :lol:

:tongue:

[Faramir]

I post, therefore I am.

[NSMinistries]

Or do you post because I am....

[bar Jonah]

Many times in our ministry tent, people have told us that they make their own reality.

I asked them why they created me as part of their reality, just so I could tell them to their face that they don't make their own reality? :grin:

[Paul]

Bill ... mark is using the subjunctive mood here and so is presumably using a counterfactual in his question.

Mark .. I've never thought about this question before. But I don't understand why it would be difficult for you to imagine ... I mean even not considering other possible worlds we could say wrt to the actual world that before you were conceived in your mother's womb that you did not exist in a concrete way and had no concrete subjective experiences ... your not ever being created in your mother's womb would just be an extension of that.

But you do exist as an abstract object in the mind of God ... perhaps your difficulty is in imaginng that you as an abstract object in the mind of God do not exist ....

I don't know. There is a scripture which says: Who am I? ... I think the answer would be nothing apart from God and in God it would be what Francis said.

[markporter]

But you do exist as an abstract object in the mind of God ... perhaps your difficulty is in imaginng that you as an abstract object in the mind of God do not exist

probably it's more of an emotional reaction than anything else, just imagining that at a point in history there was a genuine possibility that I would never exist. The world would be going on without me ever having the opportunity to experience it....in fact I suppose from my point of view there would be no experience to have......erm

possibly it's something that's only retroactively intelligible as it were, I would only worry about such things now that I do exist..

I think it comes with the uniqueness of my subjective viewpoint as well.

[Faramir]

Today @ 03:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=359270#post359270)
RightIdea:

Many times in our ministry tent, people have told us that they make their own reality.

I asked them why they created me as part of their reality, just so I could tell them to their face that they don't make their own reality? :grin:

:rofl:

[JardinPrayer]

When I was much younger, I honestly believed that everyone else existed just to provide me with something to look at...that other people really didn't have entire lives when I wasn't looking. I don't admit that very often and I expect at least one of you (Jim) to make fun of me for it.

Now that I'm older, and Christian, I am actually relieved that I am but one part of the greater whole and the whole universe won't fly apart at the seams if I'm not careful!

BTW, Mark, how many times have you seen "It's A Wonderful Life?"

Happy New Year!

[markporter]

BTW, Mark, how many times have you seen "It's A Wonderful Life?"

never seen it....or heard of it for that matter

[bar Jonah]

:shocked:

[JardinPrayer]

markporter:
never seen it....or heard of it for that matter
Okay, well you have an immediate and urgent homework assignment, young man! Get thee to a video store! It's an old black & white flick starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed...this is the perfect time for you to see it.

We expect a full report.

[Kenny]

Also, think of how many contingent factors had to come about in order for you to be. If you hold to the view that personal identity is necessarily bound up with ancestral lineage, as I do, then you are committed to believe that your entire family history had to precede you in order for you to exist. If your mom had never hooked up with your dad, then you would not be. Not only that, but if your parents had decided to stay up late and play cards on the night you were conceived instead, then you would never have existed. Or, even in possible worlds where they do decide to have sexual relations that night, in how many of them does a different sperm wind up fertilizing you mother’s egg? And you can run this back over your entire family tree.

This is very weird to think about.

As I Calvinist, I believe that each person’s existence was planned by God. It seems though, that if one denies any form of theological determinism, one is committed to either denying that the vast majority of persons were planned to come into existence by God and to hold that the vast majority of people are here “accidentally” or to deny that personal identity is bound up with ancestry. Very interesting issues in that weird question!.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Dee Dee Warren]

Mark I have those thougths and they are freaky!!!! I know exactly what you mean.

[Pinky Pie of Doom]

Sometimes when I was younger I would worry that maybe I was the only thing that was real and everything else was an illusion.now THAT'S freaky.