The basis of "self-existence"
When everyone is one or two years old, they are stupid and don't understand anything. Their mother holds them and looks at the sun. That is the sun. Look at the moon. , it is the moon, look at the stars, it is the stars, see everything clearly and truly, there is never any doubt, I just feel that the sun, moon, stars, they have always been there, they are a kind of existence, close your eyes and sleep , wake up, open your eyes and look again, they are still there. Although I didn't know who I was at the time, I didn't think about whether I existed. At this age, there is no brain to think or ask: Who is "I"? Do I exist?
In fact, in the physical world, I am a piece of matter, with a material body, eating material food, sleeping on a material bed, and wearing material clothes. Everything is material." "I" is a material existence just like the sun, moon, and stars.
Starting from about the age of two or three, I gradually became familiar with the name "I" called by others, and saw "I" in the mirror: my face, body, clothes, and actions, and I began to think of these appearances in my heart. The image is connected with my name to form a more complete "I". For this "I" that combines appearance and name, everyone begins to have some interest in it, and is also trying to distinguish "I" from the moon. What's the difference. I still remember that when I was about 4 years old, I saw a moon in front of the house at night. Then I ran to the back of the house to look, and found that there was also a moon behind the house. Then I quickly ran to the front of the house to look, and there was another moon in front of the house. There is a moon. Just like this, I ran back and forth, and unexpectedly found that when I ran, the moon also ran with me. The moon ran as fast as I ran. When I ran and stopped suddenly, The moon also stops suddenly. After many runs, I finally discovered that there was the same moon in front of and behind the house. It always followed me wherever I went. I was so happy at the time that I told my friend, "The moon is mine, and it follows me. If you don't believe me, just follow me and see!" Indeed, when we were young, we felt that I was the moon, and the moon was me, and we could not clearly distinguish between ourselves and the moon. The moon is two different things, but the moon and "I" are confused together, just like the song "The moon represents my heart".
Later, when I went to elementary school, I would pay attention to my academic performance and hope that I would be a "good student". However, I spent more time playing crazy with my classmates after school, climbing walls and houses, and never cared about "me" It doesn't matter whether "I" exists or not, whether it is matter or soul.
Probably since I was in junior high school, my body has developed a bit, and I like beautiful girls, so I started to pay attention to my appearance. When no one was at home, I would secretly look in the mirror. Make expressions in the mirror to see if you look handsome or not. In school, I also pay attention to how my classmates view me and evaluate me. Although I don't say it, I still think about it in my heart: "What kind of person am I?" Since adolescence, I have paid special attention to my own psychological activities and appearance, and that's when I started to pay special attention to it. Focus on and explore the self. This is probably the stage of rapid formation of self-awareness in adolescence.
Each of us has had roughly the same experience as mentioned above, but the specific time may be slightly different. This is called psychological development, or psychological development. Everyone has almost the same experience in the process of growing up. experiences and feelings.
As we grow into adulthood, we have learned a lot of scientific knowledge, knowing how vast the universe is, knowing that there are electrons in atoms, and there are even smaller particles in the nucleus, but for ourselves, But I have always known very little.
As we grow older, gain more knowledge, and enhance our thinking ability, we will begin to wonder: Is this the world really like this? When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we only see our own clothes and cannot see the naked body inside the clothes. So, when we look at the external world, do we only see the "clothes" of the external world and never see the naked body inside? What about seeing its "nude" interior? Is our scientific knowledge knowledge about the "clothing" of the world, or is it knowledge about the "nude" inside it? Such an expression is an important concept put forward by the philosopher Kant, "thing-in-itself", or "thing-in-itself", which means that we can only see the appearance of the external world, but the true appearance of the material world , we can never see it, because it is always wearing a layer of "clothes". At most, we can only guess the size of its "nude" through the shape of the clothes, but we can never directly see its body. .
If the material world really has a "thing-in-itself" that will never be recognized by us, as Kant said, then well, since it cannot be seen or touched, we Why bother? It is better to simply give up exploring it. We just need to believe in the appearance of the material world we see. This is a more worry-free approach. At this time, we will ask, what is existence? Existence is nothing else. Existence is everything we can see and perceive. All that is perceived by us is what we call "existence." This is exactly what Berkeley said: "Existence is what is perceived." ".
This is how the external world is perceived by us. We perceive the existence of the external world. In other words, it is precisely because the external world can be perceived by us that we form a belief. The external world is an objective existence. In fact, we have not yet been able to distinguish between "perception" and "existence" in our thinking as different concepts.
If the external world is a kind of existence, then what is "I" like? Does "I" exist? In what way does "I" exist? How can we know that "I" exists? You see, people are like this. The older they get, the more problems they have, the less they understand, and the more trouble they have. When we were children, we never paid attention to these issues, but when we grew up, we began to care about them, and they really became an important issue. Moreover, some people have been thinking about these issues all their lives, and they are Called a "philosopher". The French philosopher Descartes spent a lot of time in this regard. He was skeptical of all existences in the world. In the end, he felt that he could no longer doubt whether he existed, because if even his own thinking and existence were If he has doubts, then he will have no way to survive and think about problems. Therefore, he adopted a method similar to mathematical proof for his own existence and proposed "I Think Then I Am". What he meant was, how can we know that "I" exists? Because "I am thinking", since "I" are thinking, therefore, it is possible to reason and prove "I exist".
Argument by contradiction: How can I think if I don't exist? !