Thread: new username - Please

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I can see the thread title, therefore it exists.

James.

But Jim, how do we know that you really exist? You could be Bruno's alter-ego or is Nelson YOUR alter-ego? Or do I really exist, is this all a dream? Why am I asking this after a Rockstar and 14 straight hours of research?

The username exists, therefore Jimbo exists. What or who Jimbo is doesn't matter. Carry on, SRP-citizen.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I can see the thread title, therefore it exists.

James.

So if all seeing beings close their eyes and CAN'T see the thread title, it ceases to exist?

The It-world hangs together in space and time.
The You world does not hang together in space and time...

Martin Buber, I and Thou

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

So if all seeing beings close their eyes and CAN'T see the thread title, it ceases to exist?

For all intents and purposes, yes, while their eyes are closed the thread does not exist for them. Just like the Conversation forum does not exist until you join SRP and log in.

James.

Anyway, why are you all picking on me? I just gambol around reveling in my gormless twittery! Jimbo exists, I tell you!!

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I can see the thread title, therefore it exists.

James.

What 'is' a thread anyway?

What you see on your screen is 'a' representation of some information that exists on the platters of our hard drives. There are dozens of different representations of that information, depending on how you are viewing it. Even ignoring the different browsers and mobile viewers, this thread looks compeltely different when looked at as an entity in the admin control panel, the MYSQL interface or a disk dump.

Even ignoring all that, if we say this thread 'is' the collection of magnetic particles on the platters, there is so much protocol overhead and redundancy that it is hard to identify that anything really is uniquely representative of anything.

And even ignoring all that, at a quantum level, the particles representing the thread information simultaneously have no size, and are spread out (exist) over the entire universe, superimposed on the quantum state of all other particles in existence. It is everything and nothing.

So if you can comprehensibly describe that it means for something to 'be' something, you'll earn yourself a nobel prize.
What is 'is' anyway?

...The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude.
The atitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak.
The basic words are not single words but word pairs.
One basic word is the word pair I-You.
The other basic word is the word pair I-It; but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It.
Thus the I of man is also twofold.
For the I of the basic word I-You is different from that in the basic word I-It....

...But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawm into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me...

...Whatever belongs to the tree is included: its form and its mechanics, its colour and its chemistry, its conversation with the elements and its conversation with the stars - all this in its entirety...

...In the language of objects: every thing in the world can - either before or after it becomes a thing - appear to some I as its You...

Martin Buber, I and Thou


Why are we talking about this?

Why are we we?

Why are we?

Why are?

Why?

?

Originally Posted by Bruno

What is 'is' anyway?

"It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is." –Bill Clinton