THE AVERAGE DEBATE THREAD ON PC:
- Someone poses a question that could probably be debated at length (and probably has been several times in the past)
- Random people add in random bits of 'two cents'
- A handful of smart people (including but not limited to: Jaimes, sims796, Heatran, and probably some other people too) come on with posts that could and should basically end the thread but don't for some reason
- It becomes more and more glaringly obvious that OP has no clue what the hell he's talking about
- Debate starts to go in circles between the people who do know what they're talking about and the people who don't realize that by trying to prove their point they're just making themselves look more stupid
- Eventually everyone just gets tired of it and the thread gets locked.
- And occasionally, Jax comes in to offer a semi-relevant reference to
The Hitchhiker's Guide.
For example:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore, you don't. Q.E.D."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
What I mean to say is that the more you try to prove that you
don't exist, the more you prove that you
do. Basically, the logic behind this is that in order to prove that you don't exist, you need to first define the term "reality" and attempt to apply it to yourself. While there may be a possibility that a figment of one's own imagination is capable of doing this (see
Stranger Than Fiction), a figment most likely would most likely say "yes" on an egocentric level to all of the questions one poses to define whether or not the term "reality" applies to himself. That is, for example, if you perceive, then you lie on a plane of existence where it is possible to detect the world around you with all five senses. If you did
not lie on such a plane of existence, then you would not be able to perceive with all five senses, as the plane would logically be a plane of
nonexistence, where it should not be possible to exist in the first place.
So, on an egocentric view, you exist because you asked this question. You were able to vocalize it and perceive the letters and words that create it. It's not a Descartian philosophy so much as the logical result of existing. On
my egocentric view, it's completely possible that I could be hallucinating this entire thread, but on the other hand, I would then have to ask myself why I just spent a half an hour perceiving that I wasted my time posting on a nonexistent thread. Logically, if you didn't exist, then there would be no thread, so if I hit the submit button, then I should arrive at an error message because I attempted to type a reply to something that doesn't exist, ignoring the fact that I should not be perceiving this text box in the first place.
Hopefully, that would make enough sense, although I could just be BSing this entire thing.