[RD] Cogito ergo sum

[Lohrenswald]

Or "I think therefore I am", the famous assertment of Descartes.

I have gotten the impression that most people view this argument as flawed, but I don't see that at all, it seems perfectly reasonable too me.

It seems to me that the asserment basically says that because I can perceive, reason, think in generally, it must follow that I can not be an illusion. I must exist.

This doesn't say anything about my nature. For all I know, I am simply some other entity's dream. However, this doesn't damage the assertment. The logical follow-up is really simple. It simply means that this other entity's dream must exist.

So I would like to know what it is that supposedly disproves this assertment. Anyone willing?

 

[Tahuti]

It is a misquote, since he never exactly said such a thing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I wouldn't call it 'disproved', I think it just has a failure in correlation. Plenty of things that don't think exist just as much as I do, and plenty of other things that think aren't me. There's also no solid indication that if I were to stop thinking I would no longer exist, or that if 'I" were to stop existing that thought would not continue in some form.

Overall, I think, and I am, and these two things seem to have very little to do with each other.

 

[Lohrenswald]

It is a misquote, since he never exactly said such a thing.

Is that the issue? Even if that is the case, that doesn't disprove the assertment.
Weather or not it came from Descartes isn't relly the issue, I believe.

You are also free to explain what he really said.

I wouldn't call it 'disproved', I think it just has a failure in correlation. Plenty of things that don't think exist just as much as I do, and plenty of other things that think aren't me. There's also no solid indication that if I were to stop thinking I would no longer exist, or that if 'I" were to stop existing that thought would not continue in some form.

Overall, I think, and I am, and these two things seem to have very little to do with each other.

But if you continued to think after you stopped existing, you haven't relly stopped existing at all though?

The assertment doesn't claim that things that exist have to think, but it does say that things that think have to exist, no?

 

[Tahuti]

Is that the issue? Even if that is the case, that doesn't disprove the assertment.
Weather or not it came from Descartes isn't relly the issue, I believe.

You are also free to explain what he really said.

While I don't exactly like Descartes, to his credit, most of his popularly known philosophical viewpoints like 'Cogito Ergo Sum', or the view animals were simple machines were actually significantly more complex. All these examples were dumbed down examples of what he actually said. For instance, Cogito Ergo Sum (which was actually worded Ergo Cogito, Ergo Sum) was accompanied by attributing a measure of certainty - which is not completely certain. The fact that only 'Cogito Ergo Sum' was mentioned - aside from removing the exact wording - constituted a major omission.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Wasn't it "ego cogito, ego sum", I think, I am? I have heard that phrasing before, but I wasn't able to remember it.

I have read a tid bit of Descartes certainty method, but I wasn't able to get much of it, and was never presented to any real examples (I was thinking about making this thread almost two years ago. It would have been better then, when this was fresh in my mind).

Is it certainty method that is the weak point? Or is there something more "substansial" in the dumbed down version? Because I cannot imagine any argument that would support the notion that I, something with the ability to exist, doesn't exist.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But if you continued to think after you stopped existing, you haven't relly stopped existing at all though?

If you use the original assertion as fact, then continuing to think does mean continuing to exist, but that's a circular proof.

My physical form is a part of 'me' that to the best of my knowledge I need in order to 'exist', and so is my thought process...but neither of them independently can be demonstrated to constitute 'me'. So an assertion that my existence solely depends on either one (or even both together) is impossible to prove.

 

[Lohrenswald]

The way I see it, the sense of self is really not important. You may feel like your physical form is a part of you, but from a kind of descartian point of view, the physical form may be an illusion. And it doesn't really matter what the thoughts are, or weather (whether?) they are a core substance of the self or merely a sort of function of it. It just means that I/you/whatever have to exist. It doesn't say anything about free will or the nature of existing, just that the whatever thinking exist.

Am I mistaken that the issue is that thinking may imply non-existence? Is the issue actually the argumentation behind the assertment?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

So if I got that right the question is weather 'I exist' and the answer is that since 'I think' I also must exist.
That sounds logical, but it actually sounds more like a tautology to me than anything.
It is good and well enough to postulate that when something does something, this something must also exist. But doing something is to exist, isn't it? The stone lies on the ground. The stone lies, therefor the stone exists. The rain falls down from the sky. The rain falls down, therefor the rain exists.
What the hell is that supposed to tell us?

The only thing interesting about this tautology is IMO its premise. Which is that there is an 'I' which can do stuff. There is thought. That is true enough. But does this mean that there is an 'I'? There is the idea of an I inside my head. But does the idea, the believe, equate the truth, the actual existence of it?
When I already treat it as established that there is an 'I' which does the thinking, then 'I' exists. But does the I actually do the thinking?

If I ask what I am - the answer may be - a stream of consciousness. A more detailed answer may be a conglomerate of thoughts, senses, feelings etcetera.. But can something do what it is? Does a stone do minerals it consists of?
I do not think. But thinking is part of what I am.

Thinking is part of me. There for I am?

I'd agree that the I is no illusion. That is just a word, a term for something which seems as real as anything. Agency however would require that the I can decide someting. But what else can it do but be? As thoughts, decisions are part of the I. But I does not make decisions any more than the stone makes the minerals it consists of.

 

[GinandTonic]

We can all get behind the assertion that since something thinks something exists. "I" goes further than his logic carries him.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Am I mistaken that the issue is that thinking may imply non-existence?

Not imply it, but there is no evidence that it excludes it. Do the non-existent 'think'? "I think, therefore I am" assumes that they don't. If you are willing to accept that assumption than the assertion becomes valid, but it remains unproven. Your question 'but if you are still thinking don't you still exist' is rooted in that same assumption.

Since I have no personal recollection of experience with non-existence, I cannot say that it implies no thought.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Dunno. Does that mean stones have sentience?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Dunno. Does that mean stones have sentience?

Over time I have grown less and less confident about what has sentience and what does not. But I am not just ready to assume so for a stone

 

[gay_Aleks]

True, but the abridged version literally says: if it thinks, it exists, if it exists, it thinks.

Since there's plenty of things we can't really say that they think, it means we need to see the actual sentence, and not the truncated form we all know.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

But that is the thing, isn't it. We are incapable of directly recognizing any sentience other than our own. It is seems absolutely invisible.

 

[gay_Aleks]

In that case, what's the point of writing tons of things about things we cannot even prove?

 

[GinandTonic]

But if something thinks therefore something exists.

 

[gay_Aleks]

That means that half of the world is nonexistent.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

In that case, what's the point of writing tons of things about things we cannot even prove?

Because we have at least some pieces of the puzzle?

 

[gay_Aleks]

No, not really. If sentience is puzzle, we have our sentience charted out halfway there, but we don't even own the puzzle for other thing's sentience.

It is as if you wanted to arrange a puzzle depicting the Battle of Gettysburg using one that has only unicorns and fairies.