[RD] Cogito ergo sum

[brennan]

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

The chief objection I have seen is that it relies upon an inference that thoughts are related. The suggestion being that you could say 'a thought happened' and remove the 'I' from the equation. I find this absurd myself. Thought is a stream of consciousness, not a succession of unrelated events. Personally I find cogito ergo sum to be a compelling statement - the only drawback being that it can only apply to the entity considering itself.

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

That's not a failure in the cogito, that's a category error you are making in applying it. Cogito proves the existence of the I, it says nothing about anything else.

 

[Kyriakos]

It is one thing to claim that something which thinks, does exist, and another to claim that only if something thinks, it exists. An ant likely does not 'think', but it very obviously 'senses' something, else it would not use pheromones when in danger.
Further out, does a piece of dead wood exist? It seems unlikely to sense (or even 'sense') anything given it was cut from the tree to begin with so it is not part of anything 'alive'. But why argue it does not exist? Maybe (in my view this is far the most likely case) it exists in a vortex of lack of point of view, as the so-called 'thing in itself'.
And at any rate it exists as an evident material form for any human observer as well.

 

[brennan]

It is one thing to claim that something which thinks, does exist,

That's the point of the cogito.

and another to claim that only if something thinks, it exists.

That is not the point of the cogito. I don't know why anyone would think it relevant. Cogito applies strictly to the conscious entity doing the thinking. That entity can know it exists from the fact that it thinks.

The expression is not 'thought is existence' or 'that which thinks exists' it is rather 'whatever knows that it thinks also knows that it exists'.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's the point of the cogito.

That is not the point of the cogito. I don't know why anyone would think it relevant. Cogito applies strictly to the conscious entity doing the thinking. That entity can know it exists from the fact that it thinks.

The expression is not 'thought is existence' or 'that which thinks exists' it is rather 'whatever knows that it thinks also knows that it exists'.

I agree, i was replying to this point brought up by others, which does not represent the (more specific) scope that Descartes had in mind with his latin phrase

His philosophy is very general (and very brief too, of course, at least his book) and not an elaboration on the questions he touches (and iirc -been a while since the first uni year...-he does not even mention any previous philosophers, let alone the presocratics, so i assume he was not conscious of their similar issues with what exists or not or how one can hope to 'know' something, etc).

 

[brennan]

Descarte's chief flaw is that he was a believer.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Cogito proves the existence of the I, it says nothing about anything else.

I disagree. It doesn't just say "There is thought, therefor I exist" but that the 'I' thinks. That wording heavily implies the I to be something which exists beyond the thought and then exercises thought.
And that is highly problematic, if not out-right illogical, as I tried to point out before.

 

[brennan]

Yeah, see my post #41. I just don't buy that argument, how can there be a thought without a thinker?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

By there being no thinker but just thought. It makes no sense that you do what you are to begin with. A tree doesn't do wood. The rain doesn't do water. A thinker doesn't do thinking. A thinker is thinking.
Action only makes sense in relation so something that isn't you.

 

[Kyriakos]

By there being no thinker but just thought. It makes no sense that you do what you are to begin with. A tree doesn't do wood. The rain doesn't do water. A thinker doesn't do thinking. A thinker is thinking.
Action only makes sense in relation so something that isn't you.

I wouldn't agree that 'a thinker is thinking', though, cause in fact a thinker seems to be some kind of operator (or similar) of 'thinking'. Maybe the "ego" is what is thinking, but it is (evidently) distinct from any actual thought at any time.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Can you pick your next thought? I can not. I just have them.
It is true that the I is more than thinking. It is feelings, impressions etcetera. And thinking.

 

[Kyriakos]

Can you pick your next thought? I can not. I just have them.
It is true that the I is more than thinking. It is feelings, impressions etcetera. And thinking.

Isn't that a bit like saying that the core of a molecule is just the electrons moving around it? (which seems either counter-intuitive, or at fault as a notion).

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I don't see how?

 

[Flying Pig]

Isn't that a bit like saying that the core of a molecule is just the electrons moving around it? (which seems either counter-intuitive, or at fault as a notion).

No, it's saying that the fact of the electrons moving in such a way proves the existence of the molecule. A very similar process is actually used in astronomy to find things which don't respond to electromagnetic radiation or, in former days, which can't be seen with visible light.

 

[brennan]

By there being no thinker but just thought... A thinker is thinking.

You've just assigned an object performing the action (thinker) to the action of thought (thinking). IOW, you've said exactly what I have. Thinking is an action, actions can only be performed by things. Cogito ergo sum.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Apparently you misunderstood. I said the thinker is thinking, not the thinker is thinking. I.e. the action and the object are the identical phenomena. There is no difference between the 'object' and the 'action', which IMO means that there is not actually an object, but in deed only the action or in this case perhaps a better phrase is the phenomena.
It is true that usually where is action there always is an object - in the physical world.
A river flows. Rain falls.
If for some reason the flow of the river should stop, the river would still be there, it just would not move anymore. Likewise, if the rain should for some reason cease to fall in mid-air, there will still be rain. It just simply ceased falling down. So the action and the object seem to describe different things. The object is the matter as such (water the river consists of / water the rain consist of) and the action is how the object changes in relation to its exterior (change of position within space).
Now what happens when thought ceases. Is there still a thinker?
And what does the thinker consist of, since it can not be thought itself if that is only something the thinker does.

 

[brennan]

Now what happens when thought ceases. Is there still a thinker?
And what does the thinker consist of, since it can not be thought itself if that is only something the thinker does.

We can answer both these questions by reference to something else you have said:

It is true that usually where is action there always is an object - in the physical world.

Thinking is an action undertaking by a physical object - a brain. We know what happens when thought stops because we undergo a non-thinking state every night in sleep. When we wake up - and think - we know for sure that we exist.

Feelings, sensual impressions, judgments, words, instincts, associations... What I don't experience is an object.

Feelings are about things, sense impressions are caused, at least apparently by things, judgements are made about things... Everything you say is predicated upon the existence of things to have thoughts about.

 

[Borachio]

I think you're seeing the world in terms of objects. But there aren't any objects really, just processes.

So, a river is the flowing river. It doesn't make sense to talk of it stopping. Rivers flow. All of them. A non-flowing river might be called a pond, or a lake, I suppose. It's just not a river, though. And a dried-up river-bed is a dried up river-bed: a process on its way to becoming a river at some stage in the future.

 

[brennan]

An inert body of water is a place where zillions of particles are constantly interacting with each other. Any macroscopic object is infested with processes to start with, for there to be no processes implies that there is no relationship whatsoever between the things that exist, which is to say that they effectively occupy different conceptual universes and cannot be part of a coherent whole - a 'community' as Kant puts it. Without processes there can be no river.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Thinking is an action undertaking by a physical object - a brain.

I thought the thinker thinks, not the brain. Make up your mind, bro!

We know what happens when thought stops because we undergo a non-thinking state every night in sleep.
When we wake up - and think - we know for sure that we exist.

it seems you entirely missed the point. The question was what happens to the 'thinker' once thought stopped. Not weather thought can resume at a later time.

Feelings are about things, sense impressions are caused, at least apparently by things, judgements are made about things... Everything you say is predicated upon the existence of things to have thoughts about.

Yeah, exterior things. But there is no object within me. No 'Thinker'. Just sensation.

 

[Borachio]

It's a good question: where does the thinker go when thinking stops? You mean the thinker vanishes into oblivion? Or is the thinker just a potential waiting to restart?