‘I Think Therefore I Am’ - How Far Does It Lead?
René Descartes timeless axiom is claimed to be the basis for secure or absolute knowledge - anything deduced from the axiom can be regarded as knowledge with absolute certainty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
Descartes used his axiom to prove the existence of God via an ontological argument (similar to St Anselm’s). Not many people buy his proof, but it is such a good axiom, it seems a pity to waste it. Descartes project was to place all of knowledge on a firm footing.
I wonder what else we can deduce from it?
Here is a start:
1. I think therefore I am
2. You think therefore you are. Any conservation with another person reveals they have a different active train of thought and a different memory. So there is at least one other entity apart from me
3. We both share common experiences. Things in my mind are also in the other entities mind. So some things have some existence outside my own mind.
4. Events in my mind proceed in a linear sequence so something called ‘time’ exists
5. To exist something must have a start, so time must have a start
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
Descartes used his axiom to prove the existence of God via an ontological argument (similar to St Anselm’s). Not many people buy his proof, but it is such a good axiom, it seems a pity to waste it. Descartes project was to place all of knowledge on a firm footing.
I wonder what else we can deduce from it?
Here is a start:
1. I think therefore I am
2. You think therefore you are. Any conservation with another person reveals they have a different active train of thought and a different memory. So there is at least one other entity apart from me
3. We both share common experiences. Things in my mind are also in the other entities mind. So some things have some existence outside my own mind.
4. Events in my mind proceed in a linear sequence so something called ‘time’ exists
5. To exist something must have a start, so time must have a start
Comments (11)
Jesus H. Christ.
Anyway...
1) I think, therefore I suppose I am.
2) There is no way in Hell I know that YOU think...or that therefore you are.
Where did all the rest of that stuff come from?
You can tell by reading this sentence that it is produced by an entity other than your own conscious mind. So there is at least one entity in additional to yourself. So that eliminates solipsism.
It's is true that other entity could be Descartes's evil demon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon). I am not quite sure how to get around that. Perhaps making two people speak at the same time - then it would be apparent that there are two other entities; at least one of which is not the evil demon.
It does not...and...it does not.
Everything may be just me.
I cannot be sure of you...or anyone else.
What I see as "you" posting here...may be me doing both. That I do not know.
Descarte's thing was, "I think therefore I am"...not..."I think therefore I am and because I see what appears to be 'others' does not mean I know that they are."
I guess that depends on how you interpret 'me':
- If you interpret 'me' as your conscious mind and memories only then there are other entities.
- If 'me' includes the subconscious mind I suppose it could be argued that the other entities might be part of the subconscious mind.
The 2nd definition is unusual in my opinion: if you have no control over these entities, including them in the definition of 'me' seems somehow wrong - they are clearly 'other'.
Which of these mental experiences am I the most sure of? Physical sensory perception is not to be trusted at first glance, as dreams teach us for example, but also common sense.
What about physical pain? It is always a reality check as far as I am concerned. But sometimes pain also happens in dreams for no physical reason, and it seems real because the emotional pain is real. You can't mistake an emotion for another, you can't hallucinate an emotion, if you think you feel good, you just do.
Emotions, I think is what we are.
I feel therefore I am, or I have emotions therefore I am, might be better ways to put it then. I can be sure that my emotions do exist. And that maybe they precede my intellect, but I only say that from personal experience.
And, deductively, that's about it, according to Gassendi (1592-1655).
Thinking cannot be doubted, since doubts are thoughts.
Not that there's any reasonable person that doubt the existence of "I" (themselves) or others ...
I've heard it called the Cartesian curse, solipsism.
Yes, from Wikipedia:
‘Apparently, the first scholar who raised the "I" problem was Pierre Gassendi. He "points out that recognition that one has a set of thoughts does not imply that one is a particular thinker or another. Were we to move from the observation that there is thinking occurring to the attribution of this thinking to a particular agent, we would simply assume what we set out to prove, namely, that there exists a particular person endowed with the capacity for thought". In other words, "the only claim that is indubitable here is the agent-independent claim that there is cognitive activity present”.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
'Thinking' requires a 'thinker' - by definition I would say this is true. Gassendi seems not object to thoughts being attributed to an agent in general, rather to the attribution of the thoughts to a particular agent.
So the question is are they my thoughts or someone else's? What does 'my' mean? Maybe it is the set of things that appear connected to you and over which you appear to have direct control.
We can influence and change the thoughts so they must be 'our' thoughts rather than someone else's.
So I am not personally convinced by Gassendi's objection.
How does someone whose teaching runs counter to the Church publish in an age where the Church bans books and imprisons those it judges to be heretics? He does what philosophers have always done in the face of persecution - publicly proclaim one thing and say something else between the lines.
Descartes undermines the authority of the Church, replacing it with the authority of the thinking I who uses reason. When Descartes begins by doubting everything, without the need to be specific he doubts the truth of the teachings of the Church.
If anyone is interested in working this out for themselves, look first at what God says in Genesis about man becoming godlike with knowledge, the tree of life (which God prevents them from eating from, and the story of the tower of Babel where God says that with one language they will be able to do whatever they will to do. An immortal being who has knowledge and the ability to do whatever he wills to do is a God. Now look at what Descartes says about knowledge, the immortality of the soul, and the will.
Next, look at Descartes' proof of the existence of God based on perfection, and compare it with what he says about man's perfectibility - willing only what he knows, his algebraic method of solving for any unknown, mathematics as the universal language, and we have the makings for man to become gods.
Interesting. Important to understand the prevailing cultural influences when reading Descartes (and other historical sources too). I'm not a Descartes expert, but I found this quote:
"When you talk of a corporeal being of the highest perfection, if you take the term “of the highest perfection” absolutely, meaning that the corporeal thing is one in which all perfections are found, you utter a contradiction. For its very bodily nature involves many imperfections, as that a body is divisible into parts, that each of its parts is not the other, and other similar defects. For it is self-evident that it is a greater perfection not to be divided than to be divided, etc."
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/passmore-the-perfectibility-of-man
So he seems to think the body part of man cannot reach perfection. So it could be he saw the body as inperfectable and the mind as perfectible?
There is an argument that there are infinitely many things to discover, but only ever a finite number of discoveries:
finite number / ? = always infinitesimal result
So by this argument mankind can never reach perfection.
Right, but he defines himself as a "thinking thing". He bases his claim of the immortality of the soul on the indivisibility of thinking substance.
Perhaps the three discussions I've posted regarding Descartes might interest you. They are entitled:
Why I Think Descartes' Ontological Argument is False
The Nature of Descartes' Proposition, and
Scope and Limits of the Invalidation Effects of a Defective Cognitive Nature on the Cogito Sum