Cogito Ergo Sum - Extended?
This is the reality I am experiencing, and so I can conclude it exists in so far as I am capable of thought.
I think, therefore I am, and I am, therefore my reality is as well.
I think, therefore I am, and I am, therefore my reality is as well.
Comments (83)
For me, the validity of this affirmation rests one what one here understands by “my reality”. In one sense, we each inhabit individual and personal realities which at places perfectly overlap and at other places do not. While philosophically problematic, if one were to actually be accordant to a Wittgenstein-like mentality, it is readily meaningful in colloquial usage to express, “Your reality is different from mine.”
In this sense, I’d say sure.
But when addressing reality as being that which is impartially applicable regardless of beliefs and so forth, the philosophical problem is that false awareness of reality can occur. Yes, sometimes in the form of hallucinations and illusions, but, more pertinently I believe, in the form of false beliefs, i.e. delusions. Sometimes, we can appraise from our own perspective (often itself shared with many others) that some group(s) will hold communal delusions of what is reality; e.g., for most of us, those who subscribe to Earth being flat will easily fit this description. Here, “they” will share a false (appraisal of) reality which they nevertheless inhabit with a type of tunnel vision (apparently being unable to conceive of the possibility that it might in fact not be so).
In this sense of “reality”, the OP’s affirmation no longer holds:
What one here thinks to be reality can very well be a falsehood and, thereby, nonexistent (in all senses other than that of existing in the biases of the given subject(s)). That one’s beliefs are commonly shared in unison with many, even most, others will not, of itself, bestow the same degree of certainty regarding what is real that the cogito does. Again, as can be exemplified by those who share a flat-Earth worldview (only that here this possibility of a communally held false system of beliefs would be self-referentially applied).
The trick, I believe, is to find ontological givens that 1) hold the same degree of certainty that the cogito does and 2) are commonly shared by all others (this in the same manner that the cogito is commonly shared by all sapient beings). To the degree that one can incrementally accumulate these, one could, in principle, then obtain an understanding of reality whose certainty is on par with the cogito.
Then again, one does not need a cogito-like certainty about things in order to contemplate and hold onto perspectives of reality.
I think I get what you're saying, in which case, again, sure. But is this quote there might be implied something that does not ring true: my experiences of a physical item, though being from my own unique perspective, is shared with all other sentient beings in that all will tacitly or explicitly agree (minimally via behaviors) that the same physical item is. A different way of saying this is that there can be no personal realities (in the plural) were it not for a commonly shared, singular, and impartial reality ... which we presume to know to at least some degree.
Descartes famously attempted to systematically doubt everything he could, including the reliability of experiences of the world, and consequently of the existence of any physical things in particular; which he then took, I think a step too far, as doubting whether anything at all physical existed, but I will return to that in a moment. He found that the only thing he could not possibly doubt was the occurrence of his own doubting, and consequently, his own existence as some kind of thinking thing that is capable of doubting.
But other philosophers such as Pierre Gassendi and Georg Lichtenberg have in the years since argued, as I agree, that the existence of oneself is not strictly warranted by the kind of systemic doubt Descartes engaged in; instead, all that is truly indubitable is that thinking occurs, or at least, that some kind of cognitive or mental activity occurs. I prefer to use the word "thought" in a more narrow sense than merely any mental activity, so what I would say is all that survives such a Cartesian attempt at universal doubt is experience: one cannot doubt that an experience of doubt is being had, and so that some kind of experience is being had.
But I then say that the concept of an experience is inherently a relational one: someone has an experience of something. An experience being had by nobody is an experience not being had at all, and an experience being had of nothing is again an experience not being had at all. This indubitable experience thus immediately gives justification to the notion of both a self, which is whoever the someone having the experience is, and also a world, which is whatever the something being experienced is.
One may yet have no idea what the nature of oneself or the world is, in any detail at all, but one can no more doubt that oneself exists to have an experience than that experience is happening, and more still than that, one cannot doubt that something is being experienced, and whatever that something is, in its entirety, that is what one calls the world.
So from the moment we are aware of any experience at all, we can conclude that there is some world or another being experienced, and we can then attend to the particulars of those experiences to suss out the particular nature of that world. The particular occasions of experience are thus the most fundamentally concrete parts of the world, and everything else that we postulate the existence of, including things as elementary as matter, is some abstraction that's only real inasmuch as postulating its existence helps explain the particular occasions of experience that we have.
Yes. But reality may not be what you think it is. As TheMadFool said, "the very idea behind the cogito ergo sum argument is the possibility of reality being an illusion." And modern science is beginning to understand that evolution didn't design us to know the world as it really is : invisible and intangible. Cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman, in The Case Against Reality, argues that what we envision as the real world is actually a set of symbols created by each mind. Hoffman calls those mental symbols "icons" in reference to the little low-res pictures on your computer screen.
If so, then your subjective "reality" is merely an imaginary conception that bears only a vague resemblance to the ultimate objective world that Kant called ding an sich --- "a thing as it is in itself, not mediated through perception by the senses or conceptualization, and therefore unknowable". So, your "reality" definitely exists as an ideal concept, but not as the True Reality. And your extension of cogito ergo sum is what Buddhists call Maya (illusion). :smile:
The Case Against Reality : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html
This. We cannot doubt that there is some kind of world or another that we are experiencing. But we can in principle doubt any particulars about that world. Conversely, although we cannot doubt that we ourselves exist to have experiences, we can doubt any of the particulars about ourselves. All that's indubitable is that someone has some experience of something. All the details are up for grabs.
Are you suggesting that without language thought is not possible?
Actually, it depends on what you mean by thought. :razz:
Descartes set himself the task of finding something of which he might be certain, and was dissatisfied until he reached the cogito. He was far too hard to please, putting way too much effort into doubt, for its own sake. But doubt takes place against a background of certainty. The very story of his reaching the cogito involves him seeking refuge from the cold as his company retreat from disaster. He could only report his rumination to us later, presumably from the comfort of his much-loved bed. All this philosophical thinking - his thought - require him to have a place in the world. Hence,
Quoting Banno
I agree that thought requires a subject (the thing thinking/experiencing) that exists, presumably somewhere, presumably physically, if that is what your getting at. I just don’t see where language is necessary for anything other than communicating your thoughts, and feelings, to others.
Then you missed the point. Thought needs much more than just a thinker. Think on it a bit.
Fortunately, the scientific method of obtaining "objective" knowledge has dispelled some of the subjective uncertainty that led to mystical & magical worldviews, and to imaginative religious myths. So, I think it's safe to say that, in the 21st century, we have a deeper & broader understanding of Reality than the cave men. But we may have lost some of the visceral immediacy of knowing, as we gained more cerebral understanding.
I suspect that some on this forum would place the notion of Panpsychism in the cave man mystical category. But our Information-based inferences, although not yet complete, take some of the mystery out of it. We have reasonable theories that the potential for Mind is inherent in Matter & Energy, but the details are up for further exploration of our collective reality. :smile:
I assume you are referring to an external world or objects (things to think about). I was meaning that to be included in “somewhere,” but I’m not entirely convinced of that either. I can have thoughts that are strictly about me and have nothing to do with anything external. Something along the lines “I am me,” a statement about my sense of self, or self-awareness.
"I am" is a self-sufficient and absolute affirmation of being. You could not "think" or do anything else in regard to "I am" if you were not.
All else is unnecessarily and arbitrarily rendering asunder what the king's men in all their futility have been trying to put back together for almost 400 years.
Just saying.
Your “I am” is sufficient as an affirmation of being, but it is reducible, at least according to Descartes, so it is not self-sufficient and it is not absolute.
“....., therefore I am”. The “I” that is, presupposes the “I” that thinks.
Nevertheless, reasonable as it may be, there is something philosophically unsatisfying about it. After all, you could still exist as a self in the ‘I think, therefore, I am’ but still be brain in some vat.
Perhaps you do. From where “I” sit, think is all, and only what, “I” do. That being granted, it is clear there can be no “I” without the “think” necessarily conjoined to it. And the separabiltiy is not concerned with “I” and “am”. But with “think” and “am”, “I” being common, and hence inseparable, from both, and “think” and “am” being inseparable from each other.
Because the the OP is directly from Descartes, proper critiques of it should follow from Descartes as well. In the two sections following his infamous assertion, he qualifies his intentions thus:
“...This is the best way to discover what sort of thing the mind is, and how it differs from the body....”
“....I take the word ‘thought’ to cover everything that we are aware of as happening within us, and it counts as ‘thought’ because we are aware of it...”
It is quite reasonable to suggest from those, that the “I am” merely represents awareness that thoughts occur. Therefore, the “I” that is, presupposes the “I” that thinks.
Post-Cartesian philosophy makes attempts to define thought and conscious being, which Rene himself didn’t, for “covering everything” is hardly a definition, and whether such attempts have more justified his proclamation than refuted it, are debatable.
Quoting Mww
He states this clarification after the fact, but how does it apply to the very argument he provides in his Meditations for the cogito? Last I recall, it was argued by something along the lines of “I can’t doubt that I doubt”. Extending Descartes’s demon, though, it can be conceived that one’s own doubts which one can’t doubt having are, in fact, completely an effect that is fully produced by the demon – thereby failing to demonstrate with the sought after certainty that these doubts one sense to be one's own are in fact one’s own. If it is not “I” but the demon’s thoughts, the proposition of “I think” would then be false. (This, ironically, hinges on the issue of who, or what, causes the thoughts, or doubts, to be.)
BTW, I’ve been spewing this about for a while now, so I’m fully on board with the proposition that one’s own awareness (of anything) evidences that one is while aware. This would then include one’s awareness of any doubts (regardless of any Cartesian skepticism regarding their cause).
On a different note, given this quoted affirmation from Descartes, one’s emotions would be classified as a portion of one’s thoughts. But this so far seems to be a category error. Again, especially when taking his Meditation arguments into account.
I would guess he took doubt to be just a negative thought, or, a thought of negative quality. Doubt is no less an awareness than any affirmation. Besides, he is involved in thinking doubt, thus canceling the notion for doubt being a feeling.
As for the demon, because his god would not purposefully deceive him, and deception is quite evident, such deception must in fact be a representation of himself:
“....It is for this reason I am persuaded that I shall not be doing wrong, if, taking an opposite judgment of deliberate design, I become my own deceiver, (...) I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity...”
He imagines a demon within himself, which is himself. Thing is, he can’t blame his god for his illusions, especially considering who the treatise was written for and dedicated to.
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Quoting javra
Yeah....that good ol’ Cartesian theater on the one hand, or the homunculus on the other.
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Quoting javra
I wouldn’t argue that Descartes would have thought so. And some folks do even these days. But feelings have since been shown to not be cognitions, so are not a portion of one’s thoughts, which are the only source of cognitions available to us, but certainly qualify as part of one’s consciousness. We don’t think our feelings, but only think the objects which belong to them, hence we are, as he says, “aware of as happening within us”.
and base reality (the ultimate building block for all of existence, reality number one, first edition)
As for the necessity of my proposal, it is to shed light unto the concept that reality is tangible.
Because if reality is tangible, the argument cannot be made that existence is meaningless because it means that what I am experiencing is not nothingness, but something, and so it retains the justification for being respected as such.
I think you may have misconstrued the point I was making : that your subjective "tangible" reality is different in essence from Objective or Ultimate Reality? But your feelings are indeed your reality, even though they are merely symbolic analogs of "Base Reality". Our Subjective sensory perceptions are the cause of tangible bodily experiences, but those feelings & experiences are mental constructs in the individual brain, not direct links to Ultimate Reality. So, I think we are in agreement about "reality number one" : that we are capable of experiencing it only indirectly, via non-sensory philosophical imagination.
Our physical senses are not capable of detecting Ultimate reality, yet for all practical purposes, they don't need to. Hoffman's interface theory of perception explains the difference by analogy with the icons we interact with on a computer screen, and the actual operations going on the computer processor. That's why I said that your Subjective reality is real for you, but it may not be the same as other people's perceived reality, because the "base reality" is extra-sensory, as in Idealism. Ultimate Reality is a philosophical concept, not a personal percept. Click on the link below, if you want to understand what I'm saying. :smile:
The Case Against Reality : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html
Descartes' cogito ergo sum begins by negating exactly that which you're trying to affirm - your (our) reality. I don't know how someone could begin a line of inquiry by negating something and come to a conclusion that affirms that same thing. It's a contradiction.
how do you know that those thoughts are yours?
Kaarlo Tuomi
"my reality" can't legitimately be inferred to be anything extra to what is certainly revealed by cogito ergo sum.
A modern interpretation is often generalized as "there is thought now" - I ascribe to this view.
Descartes is saying "I am something"
I am saying "my experience is something as well"
Right, which is the cogito....I know you are saying my experience is something as well. To me, it is a tautology, because you are just calling the cogito something else.
I don't thing there is any doubt that Descartes did not feel he was indulging in "faux doubt".....
How do you know, though? How, or what, would he doubt in order to truly doubt? Something more would be required than the mere statement "I doubt." One has to doubt something. Have you ever tried to doubt you were taking a piss while doing so? When you continued pissing, was your doubt resolved--in which case we must ask why continuing to piss was persuasive--or did you continue to doubt despite continuing to piss--in which case we must ask what would be required in order to convince you that you were pissing?
And here is the real problem with Cartesian doubt. Sure, you always might just be dreaming that you’re pissing, but if you always assume that it’s probably just that until proven otherwise, then you will continue to assume that forever, because it could not be proven otherwise, since every proof might just be part of the dream too.
That reduces to absurdity the notion of doubting everything that can possibly be doubted just because it can be, and only believing things where doubt is impossible. In its stead, we are left with believing in whatever so long as it’s a possibility, and only doubting it when belief in it becomes untenable.
Hygienics of your example aside, Descartes' conception of doubt is as radical as it gets. Radical metaphysical doubt was how our professor characterized it back in the day. So you may doubt what Rene meant by doubt, but it's a minority view.
We doubt something when we're uncertain of it. That's not a minority view, as you'll find if you consult any dictionary. Uncertainty isn't something we generate when we're feeling philosophical, there are reasons why we are uncertain. In what sense was Descartes uncertain of his existence, and what was the reason for his uncertainty? Was he, sitting in his chair, writing, wearing clothes, etc., suddenly struck by the fact he might not exist? Was he consumed with uncertainty whether he truly was sitting in his chair, writing, wearing clothes, or think that fact he was doing so wasn't pertinent to whether he existed--although he obviously persisted in writing, etc., though he claimed he was uncertain he did?
Yes. Though I'd maintain that we readily distinguish between dreaming of doing something and doing it, and have no reason confuse one from another.
I suggest you read his Meditations. It is an interesting topic to debate, but right now we are really only discussing what his opinions actually were, and they are well-documented.
...and you can do this only because you also have thoughts that are about other stuff. That's how you worked out the difference between "me" and "anything external"; without which, not.
Actually, the Discourse on the Method might be worth considering. It makes clear that Descartes was bored, and engaging an a bit of whimsey.
:up: good luck
One of my all time favourites opens the Discourse:
Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.
I’m not sure. Suppose I had been born entirely senseless; without vision, hearing, taste, smelling, or sense of touch. I have no way to consciously experience the external world, but I would still be aware of what is internal; my feelings, needs, etc. and could form thoughts about them. Or could I? Perhaps without sensory experience I would have no feelings, needs, etc.? Am I essentially dead even though my body, or at least my organs, is functioning properly? For some reason I want to say that I could still experience things like fear or sadness, but like I said, I’m not sure.
I'm happy to be corrected on this, but so far as I am aware the evidence, from locked-in people and those not exposed to language at an early age, shows that they do not form much of what we might call thoughts, being unable to differentiate between whatever experiences they may have.
You have a private language?
The issue here was if someone could have a concept of "me" without a concept of "not me". You've moved to someone with no concepts whatsoever.
I don’t know what the correct place to start would be. Assume I do because I’m a human, and humans have similar biology and experiences, or that I don’t because I’ve shown no evidence of thought? But my point is that either way all you can do is assume.
Quoting Banno
I’ll tentatively say it’s possible. “Me” could represent a set containing parts (hands, heart, feelings, beliefs, etc.) that collectively make up the concept of “me.” I don’t need to know about or have access to anything external. I can simply identify with everything I do have access to.
Otherwise: Sure. Go ahead and make up whatever you want.
Prior to this, I questioned the methods used to assess thoughts in the evidence you referenced. You sidestepped the question, and haven’t tried to answer it.
Prior to this, I asked about the necessity of language to have thought after it seemed you asserted that it was necessary. We both asked each other to define “thought” and neither of us complied.
To sum up, and try to get back on topic, I’m mainly interested in learning more about your claim that language is needed in order to have thoughts. I don’t claim to know enough to know whether this claim is accurate or not, but I need something more than just this assertion to figure out whether I agree or not. Maybe this isn’t even what you are claiming, as it seems to hinge on the so far undefined term “thought.” I’m happy to accept however you define the term. After all, it’s your argument.
I'm going to take the other approach, since the private language argument and what little evidence I have found leads me there.
And I'm not all that interested. Google it.
I'm sorry, says who? I am something other than my experiences? Fancy that.
Your psychology might be an accumulation of your experience, but you are also an entity. A real thing.
Are you still you after you die and cease to experience?
I wouldn't know, that wasn't at issue.
My experiences are real. My experience of my physical form is real. My experience is inclusive of everything I am. I'm an advocate of the embodied/embedded school of cognition.
You can take any key part of your experience, and say that because of this, the simulation exists.
It gives no idea of what "I" is, the pronoun I is not explained; the key words in that phrase are "think" and "am", and both can be exchanged in multiple ways.
The problem is that you walk away from this thinking I is explained.
So you think, therefore, you exist (no random thought about 'you' should come to mind; because it lacks meanings). Therefore, 'you' is? A thinker?
Cogito ergo sum doesn't say thinking is the cause of existence, only evidence of it, qua certainty.
So "I" is defined as "certain of existence"?
In fact, I'm the only one thinking now. I'm that demon Descartes was always going on about, and I'm pretending you're thinking, just as I pretended he was. Sorry.
Aha! A dispute!
I am
Just am
He's just saying he is an entity. An existence. He isnt describing it. He's saying he's capable of recognizing that he is an entity because of his ability to report the nature of his existence to himself. If he weren't able to do this, he could not even prove whether or not he exists at all, but because he can think, he can know he is existing.