René Descartes Walks into a Bar...

[Adso de Fimnu]

I noticed someone in the OT forum is sick of the quote "I think, therefore I am." Here's a joke that made me remember (sorry if anyone's seen or posted it before):
René Descartes walks into a bar and orders a drink. When he's done, the bartender asks him whether he wants another. Descartes says "I think not." Poof! He disappears.

 

[Tomoyo]

Yea, that was me. I'm sick of it because at another forum, I opened a thread similar to the "Prove you Exist" thread here, and half of the responses were "I think therefore I am"

Geez, 18 pages and we're still on topic over there.

 

[Adso de Fimnu]

Quite frankly, I don't see how anyone can use Descartes' argument to prove to others that they exist. It's not logical. The theory is I think, therefore I am, not 'I think, therefore you must believe I exist!' Some people have far too much time on their hands... of course, here I am doing something almost just as unproductive... Sigh...
But does anyone like the joke? It was quite funny when I read it for the first time... of course, I can't tell jokes very well...

 

[Lord Draegon]

I think therefore I'm not

 

[nonconformist]

Rene descartes walks into a bar and says "I drink, therefore, I am".

 

[LLXerxes]

Uh oh,
I don't think.

 

[YNCS]

Decartes actually said "I think I think therefore I think I am, I think."

 

[barron of ideas]

Need a joke to put de horses before de cartes

 

[CivCube]

From a t-shirt I own: "Baroque. When you are out of Monet."

*runs*

 

[MikeH]

Rene descartes walks into a bar and says "I drink, therefore, I am".

Credit where it's due .

For those too young to remember Monty Python's Flying Circus:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whisky every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

 

[nonconformist]

Yes, "Bruce's Philosopher song". Actually, there is a line of the first verse missing; after "raising of the wrist" there should be "Socrates himself was permanently pissed"

I have all the Monty Python songs on CD

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Sum, ergo edo

 

[cgannon64]

Sum, ergo edo

I hope I translated that right.

 

[barron of ideas]

I am, thefore Japan's ancient capital.

It doesn't have to make sense, it was said by a super moderator.

edit) in late breaking news, I make the discovery "edo" means "I eat" in Latin. I am still not sure

"I am, therefore I eat"

makes sense, but it makes more sense than I thought before.

Perhaps, I don't eat, therefore I am not? Do dieters not exist?

I breathe, I excrete, I wear clothing, I play Civilization therefore I am? Really this can be taken to extremes, and saying it in Latin or Greek doesn't make it more profound, unless of course you feel that it does.

in which case, iligitimi non carborundum.


(Don't let the bastards wear you down.)

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

To be picky . . .

If we assume that "I think" implies "I am", i.e. T=>A, the preposition "I don't think, therefore I'm not" is not necessarily true, i.e. ~A=>~T does not follow.

IIRC, it goes like this:

T_____A____~T____~A___T=>A__~A=>~T
T_____T_____F_____F_____T_______T
T_____F_____F_____T_____F_______F
F_____T_____T_____F_____T_______T
F_____T_____T_____F_____T_______T

You know, it's incredible; I can still remember how to make truth-tables from 8th-grade math, but I couldn't tell you what on earth they mean.

But (and this is a common logical fallacy) the joke makes no fetching sense.

I apologize to anyone who may inadvertantly read this post.

 

[Manny Kant]

There is nothing funny about epistemology.

Proper criticism of Cogito, ergo sum is that the statement presupposes its own assertion, the existence of the self . Or if the self of which DesCartes was aware was because of the phenomenon of thought or if the thought allowed him to know the thing-in-itself. Was he simply aware of thought or of the thought or even of the self being aware of the thought? Not very funny. Welcome to philosophy.

 

[Taliesin]

There is nothing funny about epistemology.

You have my compliments. I think this is good enough to put on a bumper sticker, and after the election it will be my sig (with your permission).

 

[Andu Indorin]

There is nothing funny about epistemology.

Then again, I've often argued that ontology is a priori to epistemology.

 

[Judge_Deadd]

A policeman says:
"I think therefore I am."
And he vanishes...

 

[Gnarfflinger]

But cogito ergo sum assumes that you can prove to others that you are indeed thinking. They were asked to prove that they existed, but you have to exist in order to think. They are assuming what they have been asked to prove...