Quote:
How do I know?
You state right there.
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Oh, so you mean you know that I think he doesn't exist because you see a post by me? Well, where do you get off assuming that the post is real? Is it just there in your reality? For that matter, how do you know that there actually is a computer in front of you which is displaying some comprehensible letters?
It's fine for you to think that I believe that this guy doesn't exist. You can believe that you are actually sitting before a computer reading posts made on an internet forum called GameTavern, if you want. But you don't have the right to impress on anybody, least of all me, that your beliefs about what my beliefs are are true.
As for you using my belief of his non-existence as a premise to my argument, you're right. I don't know that you're actually doing that. What I do know is that you could be making one of two arguments. One is that I don't have the right to impress my beliefs on others. The problem is this argument is completely pointtless. So I can't force people to accept my views about someone's existence. So what? It would be like you walking up to a random person and picking an argument with them saying, "You don't have the right to murder innocent people." That person would be entirely in the right to just look back at you and say, "And...?"
I don't know that this isn't the argument that you are making. I'm inclined to believe that it isn't because I haven't found you to be usually given to picking pointless fights. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you really did just come into this thread and pick an argument with no point whatsoever out of the blue and take the conversation off on a tangent which accomplishes nothing. If that's what you are doing, absolutely be my guest.
Otherwise, it could be that what you're arguing here is that I don't have the right to impress my beliefs about a particular person's existence on other people,
and that I'm doing exactly that. Your argument would be trying to convince me and other people that I'm doing something wrong, in other words. The problem is, as I've pointed out, you don't know that I actually believe that the guy in this article doesn't exist. Or maybe you do know (or think you know), but you can't force me or anyone else to accept your belief. The thing is people will have to accept your belief about my opinion about the guy's existence in order to buy your argument. Since you can't get people to do that, your argument doesn't hold water.
So take your pick. Either you're voicing a totally pointless argument or you're voicing one that is wrong.
Seriously, though. I'm a Buddhist and I studied Taoism for a semester, GameMaster. Metaphysical questions about existence don't phase me, and in fact, I practically sleep-walked through this entire post. The argument you've posted here is practically the same, point for point, as the losing half of one of the dialogues that takes place in the
Zhuangzi which is a classic Taoist text. All I've done here is more or less post Zhuangzi's response to an argument just like yours. I can keep this dance going all day if you want. Seems kind of silly, but if you want to waste time on petty nitpicking, I'm happy to help you along.