[RD] Cogito ergo sum

[Kyriakos]

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.

Well, two points:

a) not sure if your claim is accurate in chemistry (i mean i don't recall it, but it is not the main issue here), but vastly more importantly:

b) we aren't trying to proove the existence of something there by noting that thinking takes place. Thinking itself is not a state without a seperation between a core and more unstable/moving peripheries (eg thoughts in the periphery, and the Ego/I/etc in the 'center').

Thoughts do not think themselves, else you would be unable to respond to what i typed, given i am not part of your river of flowing thoughts without a thinker

 

[brennan]

We experience no passage of time when we sleep, but then we're not thinking, so not covered by cogito in the first place - which requires an active thinker.

I thought the thinker thinks, not the brain.

Show me a thought without a brain, show me a tree without wood. Are you advocating some form of dualism?

But there is no object within me.

Who said anything about 'within you'? You are an object. Kant would have it that the things you think about are conceptualised within you as objects in a conceptual spacetime framework as well. Your feelings can be shown to be physical occurrences in your brain, hell we can ever stimulate bits of the brain these days and make people think about things and experience feelings.

 

[Kyriakos]

We experience no passage of time when we sleep, but then we're not thinking, so not covered by cogito in the first place - which requires an active thinker.

Show me a thought without a brain, show me a tree without wood. Are you advocating some form of dualism?

Who said anything about 'within you'? You are an object. Kant would have it that the things you think about are conceptualised within you as objects in a conceptual spacetime framework as well. Your feelings can be shown to be physical occurrences in your brain, hell we can ever stimulate bits of the brain these days and make people think about things and experience feelings.

The 'thing-in-itself' actually is a notion already in existence in this definition (thing in itsellf) since at least the late 6th century BC, so Kant is not really needed here (or likely anywhere else ).

And entirely regardless of idealism, one cannot think if he is the thought itself. If you were the thought and the thinker then you would have zero control of what you think. I doubt anyone here has zero such control, since (like i noted) if it was the case then they would not even be able to pick up the note that the sentences by others have other POV or belong to supposedly another person. Thoughts are not humans, they do not break up into anything conscious of there being humans either. A human is, though.

 

[Borachio]

What do you mean by having control over what you think? I'm really not sure I do control it. Things pop into my head and they develop as they choose. I might pick up a book and begin reading it only to find my mind has drifted on elsewhere.

 

[Kyriakos]

What do you mean by having control over what you think? I'm really not sure I do control it. Things pop into my head and they develop as they choose. I might pick up a book and begin reading it only to find my mind has drifted on elsewhere.

Which is why i alluded to it being relative. But it is one thing to have some control yet not be OCD, and another thing to have NO control, at which point you are in dangerous territory and probably would be spiralling to being unable to 'function' as someone realising he is talking to others.

I am not claiming we all have equal control on what we think, but i am pretty sure that there is (in any state to be termed as logically healthy) at least some control of thinking something and not another. Eg i can think of being able to keep talking to you now, or (instead) examine some subplot i was working on for a short-story. I am not able to control he tendencies below my current conscience which enable some possibilities for thinking while negating others currently, etc. But surely i am not the same as my thoughts, cause i am not the river but someone navigating it or at least examining it, etc. (at least as an 'Ego', for in total i am both that and my thoughts and everything else which is myself, but that is not what is examined in the distinction between thought and thinker).

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Show me a thought without a brain, show me a tree without wood. Are you advocating some form of dualism?

This conversation is starting to be really difficult.
I think I'll have to recapitulate a bit at this point.
I am interested in why we should assume that there is a thinker who stands apart from the activity of thinking. As you argue.
You reasoned there must be a thinker since there was always an object to any action. To which I replied: In the physical world, yes, but for your analogy to work you have to explain what the thinker consists of besides thought and it has to be the case that there is a thinker even when the activity of thinking stops.
The latter issue you so far only have tried to circumvent (unsuccessfully, I have to say ), the former issue you answered with 'the brain'. So I asked who does the thinking, the thinker or the brain?
If you mean to say that the thinker is the brain, then I have to ask why thoughts aren't. If thoughts are, then the thinker still consists of thoughts and we are back to square one.

Okay?

so Kant is not really needed here (or likely anywhere else )

And entirely regardless of idealism, one cannot think if he is the thought itself. If you were the thought and the thinker then you would have zero control of what you think.

Just try right now to 'choose' a thought. Good luck.
The reason you still do not just act randomly is because your brain is not a random jumble. It is designed for plans etcetera to emerge and be carried out.

 

[Kyriakos]

A very general distinction is:

core: Ego/I

periphery or river/flow: Thoughts/other mental phenomena.

Of course, as i said, the above is very VERY general (reallly just an allusion), but an idea of a POV about distinctions there.

 

[warpus]

Isn't the thinker just a complex neural net that is our brain? That seems obvious to me.. no? Or are you guys talking about something else?

 

[Kyriakos]

Isn't the thinker just a complex neural net that is our brain? That seems obvious to me.. no? Or are you guys talking about something else?

We aren't trying to define the set relation of the 'thinker' to 'thoughts' (btw that was my main interest in my first year of uni, and it cost me at the time..), but to allude to there being some seperation between the two, cause thoughts are not inherently conscious of external and internal worlds (outside world, world of thought/emotion), while a core (eg the so-called "Ego") is capable (evidently) of that.

I am pretty sure that a thinker and his thoughts are very distinct phenomena. A human and a stew are also distinct, despite a thug being able to crush your scull to the point that it resembles a stew.

 

[warpus]

What's the controversy?

The thinker is the brain, the thoughts are electrical impulses being sent between neurons. Isn't that pretty clear? What am I missing?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

What are you warpus? Your brain? Or your thoughts?
The problem is that it is said that you are a thinker, an entity in itself, which then engages in the activity of thinking. I am saying that makes no sense. I am saying there is thinking and then there is the physical reality of it. Your brain.
So you are your thoughts. Well and feelings and all that jazz. Whereas there is not actually a 'thinker', though we may call the physical realities of your mind the thinker. But I'd rather not. It is confusing.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. I'm inclined to agree. (I think!) There's no thinker of your thoughts, just your thoughts. There's no homunculus, "the thinker", sitting tidily in your brain thinking stuff for you.

When I say "I think", there's a thought "I" and a thought "think". And nothing more.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well... if you have 1+1/2+1/4+1/8+... you won't get to 2, but that doesn't mean that what is common in all those flows of the river of division is not that each one is 1/2 the previous one. You can try to see it (in a very abstract manner, of course), as 1/2 being the 'thinker', while any bit of the progression is the 'thoughts', and the progression being potentially infinite (or going on for more time than it can be examined with any stability). In reality the relation between the thinker and the thoughts is more complicated and i would not try to examine it here (i am sure it would need thousands of pages to even hope to have something stable as a treatise on this).

 

[gay_Aleks]

What makes me uneasy is that it essentially says "if it doesn't thinks, it ain't existing". Since things do exist..

 

[Borachio]

Not at all. All it's saying is that if you think then you must exist. It's not an "if and only if" relationship (P <=> Q). Just an "if then" one (P => Q). It doesn't work both ways.

There are clearly non-thinking things in the world.

 

[Kyriakos]

What makes me uneasy is that it essentially says "if it doesn't thinks, it ain't existing". Since things do exist..

Brennan covered this bit, and indeed Descartes was just trying (in context it is more obvious) to argue that he can only prove that he exists by being able to notice that he is thinking. He wasn't arguing that anything which exists has to be able to think.

 

[gay_Aleks]

That makes sense, I guess. It means he exists because he's thinking, but he's applying that only to the human race, and not to the surrounding us physical realm.

 

[warpus]

What are you warpus? Your brain? Or your thoughts?
The problem is that it is said that you are a thinker, an entity in itself, which then engages in the activity of thinking. I am saying that makes no sense. I am saying there is thinking and then there is the physical reality of it. Your brain.
So you are your thoughts. Well and feelings and all that jazz. Whereas there is not actually a 'thinker', though we may call the physical realities of your mind the thinker. But I'd rather not. It is confusing.

It's just wordplay and confusion about definitions, it seems.

I am a human, which includes a brain. The brain is an organ with which I can think. My thoughts are the products of the activity of the brain.

Seems very clear to me.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The contention is that strictly speaking you do not think with your brain, but instead are thoughts (and emotions etcetera) produced by your brain (or in a wider sense by your body [or in an even wider sense by the environment which created you to begin with]).
And that is not just word play. Because if there is no thinker but just thoughts as produced by your brain there also is no agency, but just the impression of it. And that sits very uncomfortably with about everyone.
It means that strictly speaking personal responsibility does not exist, nor freedom of choice.

 

[JohannaK]

Oh, i know nobody cares or will read, but here's my two cents:

I had to read Descartes' Metaphysical Meditations two or three years ago. To my understanding, and as far as I can remember, the proof for one's existence is one's ability not to think, but to meta-think: to reflect on one's thoughts, watching them form and pass through one's own mind.

This is, of course, only proof for the existence of one as an entity, not as a body, but due to some sort of relationship between thought and perception, it is clear that the body must exist. Or something like that.

The one thing I remember extremely clearly is how ridiculous his proof of God's existence was: God exists because it is self-evident that if one exists, God must also exist. Which is instantly rebuked by not believing in God.