How do you know you're alive?

quixotic_life

I was asked this and would like to know how others might answer it.

If you choose to respond:
Please use spoiler tags, so it doesn't impact
Another.

Like this:

This is a spoiler.

To do a spoiler, you simply put, >! and a space, in front of each new paragraph.

Post yours and then read through...
May be pretty interesting if enough people do it.

---

How do I know I'm Alive?

At times all my senses are activated and I'm fully present in the moment. And other times, I'm hurting so much, that between the heaving sobs, when I tremble, shake and gasp for air, I feel I'm on the brink of death. It's as if my emotions and my mind are conspiring to do me in.

Plus small children! And fluffy/fuzzy/feathery animals!! ~ What a gift to my heart and soul the littlest of beings can bring!! Surely that sort of delight is reserved solely for the living ~ Yes??

How about you?
How do you know you're alive?

kobe86

How do I know I’m alive?

|||||||||||||||||||||||h||||o||||w|||| ||||w||||o||||u||||l||||d|||| ||||i|||| ||||k||||n||||o||||w||||?||

NicoSnuggs

How do I know I’m alive?

I don’t.

Big_Chris

Depends on how pedantic you'd like to get, and what 'alive' means.

Descartes might say that we don't know if we're alive, much less anything, except that we know we're a thing that's having this thought right now. Knowing that you're a thinking thing seems evidence enough that you're alive, but it doesn't necessarily prove that you're a living breathing human. You have to assume that based on available data, like your senses. Similarly, you can't prove anyone else is alive because all you have is your perception of them. Solipsism is the belief that you are the only real person, the only one actually alive. Everyone else is an automaton or simulation. Strangely, there are books written by some Solipsists.

I'm a practicalist in a sense. It's beneficial for me to trust my senses and my senses are often correct. I believe I'm alive because it's obvious that I'm at least a thing, and a constant stream of simulated senses is essentially equivalent to the real deal anyway. I choose to believe that other people are alive because they exhibit outward behavior indicative of life. I have no cause to believe otherwise. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Babichev

I think, therefore I am.

Because of the inherent flaws in human, and therefore my, perceptions there really is no way to prove that I am “alive”. But it’s pretty likely that since I am responding that there must be something there. We define that “something” as life. The real question is “What does life mean?”

Morpheus

How do you do the spoiler thing?

quixotic_life

@Morpheus ~ You put >! (a right pointing carrot/greater than symbol, with an exclamation point, followed by a space) in front of each paragraph to be hidden.

Morpheus

So dope

TheFunCartel

@Morpheus You know you are alive when you choose to not use all the features technology affords us. It’s the little rebellions that make us human.

How do I know I'm alive?

I really don't. But what makes me feel alive? Love and beauty and grief and sadness. I love easy, and I love big.

My friends are lucky enough to be on the receiving end of my love languages, which include making kitchens sparkle and cooking extravagant meals but are sooo not limited to those. I'm lucky enough to take joy in the beauty of my friends and our friendship, and bonus, I get to help other people destress and keep their spoons by taking care of the easiest thing to procrastinate on.

We've all had our little soirees with grief and sadness. It can feel like you are coming completely apart, like nothing can ever cause you to smile again, like you're dying even. How can one feel like death approaches without noticing how alive one is by contrast? How can one not feel alive when it feels like one's heart is aching and not whole?

It isn't always pleasant to be part of this world, but you can't deny the absolute life-giving power of the most intense of our emotional experiences.

CuddleDuncan

Occam's razor

Although there is some early evidence that we really are just sprites in somebody's simulatlion. I can't remember the details but it's related to the precise values of fundamental constants.

TheFunCartel

A serial killer would offer to show you the alternative if you are not certain.

Nature_Lover_

@Babichev @Big_Chris my mind also went to Decartes, ‘I think therefore, I am.’

Provocative question indeed. Enjoying the differing responses.

At times I’ve felt most alive when in love. ❤️

Mela_B

I have felt most alive when I was in pain. What use could a euphoric, nirvana-like dream world have for searing pain?

PeopleLikeUs

I feel most alive while breathing mindfully. Breathing is both a conscious and unconscious effort. The deeper the better.

The only time I feel alive is when I make connection to another being. Human, furry friend or other. Other than that I might as well not be.

NicoSnuggs

@Mela_B — Your post reminds me of these quotes by Susan Gale and RM Drake.

JasonCuddles

Since we define life as us it's hard to argue that we are alive. the definition is tailored to us. This reminds me of a couple videos, one on definitions which is important to realise.

And the other on free will(which I would include for this discussion)

I am looking forward to the rest of this discussion.

Ahmedali999

And present to them the example of the life of this world, [its being] like rain which We send down from the sky, and the vegetation of the earth mingles with it1 and [then] it becomes dry remnants, scattered by the winds.

Big_Chris

@Touch_You_Crave I might have taken the question too literally at first. 😅

I feel most alive when I'm free of worry. Not too often I get to simply be, and enjoy the moment. Camping comes to mind. I can spend all day doing nothing but read and tend to the fire, and feel more alive than ever.

I spend too much time worrying over the future or past. It's hard to live in the here and now, especially in the present chaos of the world.

Ahmedali999

Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children - like the example of a rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the tillers; then it dries and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes [scattered] debris. And what is the worldly life except the enjoyment of delusion

pinch yourself and hope something from deeply within you growls “OWWWWW!”

@quixotic_life, @Touch_You_Crave, @Big_Chris

Ooops…. Drawback to a philosophy degree.

There are no rhetorical questions anymore.

🤣

TheFunCartel

I am alive because the IRS says I am and the life insurance won’t pay up yet.

Maverick07

Pulse

Lovelight

The fact that I'm concious and mentally stable enough to know.

TheFunCartel

Wait a second. Is @quixotic_life playing us and we are in a Cuddle Comfort matrix?

what is real? Is anything we perceive in to be real truly real? and if we don’t know that then what qualifies as being either alive or dead?

MCcuddles2

i'm the only real person here, all ya'll are NPCs.