How can one question existence?

[flobadob]

I can understand how people can question the existence of a higher being, or even aliens. However how can someone possibly question the fact that we, as people, exist?

[jackthehat]

Who's been doing that..............?

[birdie1971]

Are you asking about Solipsism?

[naomi24]

I didn't read the question in that way, birdie. That's taking it a bit deep.

[chakka35]

Well, I certainly exist. Cogito ergo sum, as Descartes said. I think, therefore I am.
But there is no way I can know that any of you lot exist: you might be just characters in a dream I'm having.

In fact, I might not be an earthling at all, but a ten-foot jelly on Mars dreaming of living on a planet called Earth. As with all dreams, their contents seem quite rational - until you wake up. It might be that my Martian friends and I will have a laugh at the idea of a race of creatures who manage to walk, even run, on two stalks without falling over, whose lives are dominated by little chips which are supposed to hold huge amounts of information and whose space probes say that Mars is uninhabited!

I just don't know. And I never will - unless I do wake up...

[mibn2cweus]

Chakka, I implore you to keep washing up behind your antennae . . . just in case.

http://www.tudou.com/...ams/view/RiFThozc98U/

[flobadob]

Sometimes I don't know what the heck I'm on about. But solipsism is close to the mark. That can't be true.

[Garmard]

Existence comes about by how we perceive ourselves in our surroundings, basically we cannot understand where we are or who we are beyond what we can recognise with our own minds. It is a profound philosophical question that will never be answered unless God gives us a head start and gives us a clue?

[naomi24]

I once took part in a long debate, the conclusion of which was that none of us existed! Work that one out if you can! Haaaa! :o)

[mibn2cweus]

How unlikely we are. If someone had suggested to me before the fact that I would exist someday, I could not possibly have believed them.

[chakka35]

Garmard, that is what I said, rather less portentously and without involving God.