Q&A: An Argument About a Logical Proof of Existence
An Argument About a Logical Proof of Existence
Question
Hello, I had an argument with someone who is currently writing a philosophical article in which he claims, among other things, that he found an improved proof of his own existence, and here it is:
1. There is no intermediate state between life and death (axiom);
1.1 The dead do not think (axiom);
1.2 I think (fact);
1.3 It cannot be that I am dead (from 1, 1.1, 1.2);
1.4 I am alive (from 1, 1.3);
1.5 There is no such thing as "alive but non-existent" (axiom);
1.6 I exist (from 1.4, 1.5).
I argued that this entire deductive tower collapses completely and proves nothing. In my opinion, you absolutely cannot ground existence on the concept of life. First, I argued that the concept of life is not defined at all. And therefore:
- It is possible that we are "alive" and cannot prove it. How do we know that we are alive at all? What is life anyway? Maybe we are a simulation. A computer program might think that it is alive, but it isn't. The problem is that we have no clear concepts regarding the definition of life, and that is where the problem lies. And I also said: why go so far? One could say, "I breathe, therefore I exist," "I eat, therefore I exist," and that is the same nonsense. Only Descartes seemingly managed to escape this when he retreated to thought itself, which cannot be denied, but we all understand that at most he proved that thought exists, not that he himself "exists."
- In the most primitive sense, the concept of life already implicitly includes the concept of "existence," because we have no other definition. So at the very least this is begging the question, since it grounds existence on the concept of life, which is itself defined through existence. And if it is not defined through existence, then it is not necessary, exactly like thought!
The author of the article said that he disagrees with me, so I wanted to hear your opinion on the matter.
Answer
Hello,
The skeleton of his argument is nothing but the cogito argument. This is an argument that is only weaker than the cogito (because it adds assumptions and logical steps to it), so I do not see what it adds.
The most basic refutation is that his argument is not ontological, meaning that it relies on assumptions (which, ostensibly, is not the case with Descartes). The assumptions (such as there being no intermediate state between life and death) are no stronger than the claim that I exist itself, so this argument would add nothing even if it were sound. He is trying to establish a claim with strength 2 on the basis of an assumption that itself has strength 1. So what is the point of even examining the argument? Therefore I will stop here.
Discussion on Answer
There is no such axiom as: "There is no such thing as 'alive but non-existent.'"
Being alive is, after all, just movements of inanimate matter.
By the same token he could have given the axiom: "There is no such thing as there is no such thing."
In short, nonsense—begging the question with lots of unnecessary steps.
Sorry, but I really do not see any point in wasting time on this.
Thank you. Still, I would be interested to hear briefly what you think about the two answers I gave him, which attack the concept of life as a basis for an existential argument, as well as the implicit begging of the question. Does what I wrote seem fundamentally correct to you?