Descartes' cogito, the certainty of "I exist"

[Dillinger4]

i dont know. maybe just caught up in the shock wave, where nothing is important.

If I am something, I am nothing, any things are reduced to nothingness in the wave.

You are proper funny.

 

[Dillinger4]

nothing, but not right. its not as simple as that.

Oh, of course it isn't.

 

[Cid]

Here's a question (is it?): Am I your idea?

 

[bluestreak]

So apart from the drug-fucked, does anyone have a convincing argument for why I might not be certain that I exist in some way, shape or form.

 

[max_freakout]

Here's a question (is it?): Am I your idea?

we are all each other's idea

we define our own existence, in terms of the existence of other people

other people are like distorted reflections of ourselves

 

[kopelgep]

Descartes proposed that the statement "I exist" is necessarily true whenever someone thinks it, it is an existentially self-verifying statement

Everything else that followed in Descartes philosophy, started with this fundamental truth, it is the centre of his philosophical universe

But is it really so certain? Is the nature of 'I' really a 'thing that thinks it exists'?

I dont think it is certain, on the basis that 'I think my thoughts' is indistinguishable from 'these thoughts exist', there does not necessarily have to be an 'I' which is the author of those thoughts

The Cartesian "I Think" is a position of doubt though, is it not...?

Further equating thought with being is a bit of an error. Doesn't it already say too much of being to say that it thinks (even a human being)? I think this is overstepping the purely ontological into the ontic somewhat...

 

[laptop]

we are all each other's idea

we define our own existence, in terms of the existence of other people

other people are like distorted reflections of ourselves

The authentic voice of a zombie philosopher!


"Eight stone three pounds"

 

[max_freakout]

The Cartesian "I Think" is a position of doubt though, is it not...?

he started by doubting absolutely everything, and he discovered that the statement "i exist" is the one thing that cannot possibly be doubted

Further equating thought with being is a bit of an error. Doesn't it already say too much of being to say that it thinks (even a human being)? I think this is overstepping the purely ontological into the ontic somewhat...

it equates being with control, it says that what the ego is fundamentally, is a controller of thoughts

 

[max_freakout]

does anyone have a convincing argument for why I might not be certain that I exist in some way, shape or form.

assuming that you mean 'existing' in the Cartesian sense, then the argument is, that there neednt necessarily be an 'I' entity which is doing the thinking


it would be more valid to say "i can be certain that thoughts exist"

and that is itself, a thought

 

[Dillinger4]

assuming that you mean 'existing' in the Cartesian sense, then the argument is, that there neednt necessarily be an 'I' entity which is doing the thinking


it would be more valid to say "i can be certain that thoughts exist"

and that is itself, a thought

IIRC, I think Merleau-Ponty's cogito is something like "somebody thinks, therefore somebody exists"

(dont quote me on that)

 

[Fruitloop]

So apart from the drug-fucked, does anyone have a convincing argument for why I might not be certain that I exist in some way, shape or form.

Your wish is my command! (Up to a point!)

then what is consciousness in Jaynes's definition? As a first approximation: it is a process, not an immediate sensation. It is a narrative way of thinking which makes us capable of making judgments and decisions. It is a sort of self management. With consciousness, we do not need voices of gods or other superior beings. We have the capability of picturing ourselves as individuals with memories, a past, a future and a (more or less) free will. A conscious individual can view himself ‘from above’ and direct himself. He has tools, as it were, to isolate scenes from his life and to project these on an imaginary screen. To edit those at his own will, and combine them into different scenarios.

Where does this ability originate from? Jaynes:

"Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up with a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogs of behavior in the physical world."

http://www.erikweijers.nl/pages/translations/psychology/the-origin-of-consciousness/summary.php

03:30 Jon Hanna introduces Susan Blackmore
08:04 "A lot of people kind of think that scientists like myself are kind of pushing the problem [of what is consciousness] away, some are, but there’s a huge excitement about what we do with this mystery, and it’s a very strange mystery indeed."
09:22 "That’s what we mean by consciousness, in contemporary science, what it’s like for you."
09:38 Susan talks about ‘the great chasm’ between mind and brain, sometimes called the ‘fathomless abyss’ . . . "It’s the chasm between subjective, how it is to me, and objective, how we believe it must be in the real physical world. Don’t underestimate this problem."
11:48 "So that’s the sense in which I mean consciousness might be an illusion: not what it seems to be."
18:48 Susan begins her discussion about free will.
24:34 "You can see the readiness potential building up in someone’s brain a long time, a long time in brain terms, before they know they are spontaneously and freely act."
26:56 "We can believe that free will is an illusion. That’s my preferred solution. I don’t want to press it on you, but it seems this way: When you look at these results, and many other results too, consciousness just doesn’t seem to be the thing that starts things off."
51:07 "I suggest, that when you’re walking around in your ordinary life, just realize how much you are not seeing, but you are not seeing it all."

podcast: http://buddhaglass.blogspot.com/2008/01/susan-blackmore-consciousness-isnt-what.html

A number of contributors worry that my position may lead to epiphenomenalism, the view that consciousness has no effect on the physical world. If the physical domain is causally closed, so that there is a physical explanation for every physical event, and if consciousness is non-physical, then it can seem that there is no room for consciousness to play any causal role. Conversely, it can seem that if consciousness is non-physical and plays a causal role, then there will not be a physical solution even to the "easy" problems. Hodgson and Warner spend some time discussing this issue, and Seager and Stapp allude to it. I discuss this issue at considerable length in my book, but will summarize the state of play as I see it below.

In essence, I think that (1) while epiphenomenalism has no clear fatal flaws, it is to be avoided if possible; that (2) the causal closure of the physical domain is not to be denied lightly; and that (3) denying causal closure does not really help solve the problems of epiphenomenalism, which run deeper than this. Most importantly, I think that (4) it may be possible to avoid epiphenomenalism even while embracing the causal closure of the physical domain, by taking the right view of the place of consciousness in the natural order. I will consider these issues in order.

First, is epiphenomenalism an acceptable view, or should it be rejected out of hand? There is no doubt that the view is counterintuitive to many, but it is also hard to find fatal flaws in it. While we certainly have strong intuitions that consciousness plays a causal role, our evidence for these intuitions lies largely in the fact that certain conscious events tend to be systematically followed by certain physical events. As always, when faced with such a constant conjunction, we infer a causal connection. But the epiphenomenalist can account for this evidence in a different way, by pointing to psychophysical laws, so our intuitions may not carry too much weight here.

http://consc.net/papers/moving.htm

Let me know what you reckon!

 

[rogue_lettuce]

He doesn't want a meaningful discussion. He wants us all to realise that he's the smartest most cleverest super philosopher that ever did exist and that we're all thickies and that nothing exists and we even imagined the whole argument because reality is an illusion for the ego.

Shhh you might cause people to overlook my subtle implications if you state it that explicitly!

FWIW, I don't see the problem with considering the "I" in the statement "I am thinking" to be somewhat akin to the "it" in the statement "it is raining", in which case I think we can all agree that it is raining... I mean, thinking...

 

[max_freakout]

I don't see the problem with considering the "I" in the statement "I am thinking" to be somewhat akin to the "it" in the statement "it is raining", in which case I think we can all agree that it is raining... I mean, thinking...

right that is a good way to put it

it comes down to the question of whether or not 'thinking' is an activity that requires a controlling "I" agent to be responsible for it, or if it just happens of its own accord like the rain does

there is perhaps a difference, between relaxing your mind and letting your thoughts go randomly wherever they want, and focusing your thoughts on a specific subject to try to work something out (for example if you are doing mental arithmetic)

 

[the Magus]

Descartes proposed that the statement "I exist" is necessarily true whenever someone thinks it, it is an existentially self-verifying statement

Everything else that followed in Descartes philosophy, started with this fundamental truth, it is the centre of his philosophical universe

But is it really so certain? Is the nature of 'I' really a 'thing that thinks it exists'?

I dont think it is certain, on the basis that 'I think my thoughts' is indistinguishable from 'these thoughts exist', there does not necessarily have to be an 'I' which is the author of those thoughts

Lacanian re-configuration of this was 'I think where I am not, therefore I am not where I think'

 

[max_freakout]

'I think where I am not, therefore I am not where I think'

Where does thinking happen?

Your thinking seems to happen between your ears and behind your eyes- but is that because that's where your brain is, or is that because you locate yourself, roughly, at the place you see from?

 

[the Magus]

Well the reason it happens there is that we are thinking subjects only insofar as we represent to ourselves the data which is inputted through our sensory perceptions. Thoughts are the result of perceptions, which are necessarily mediated through our central nervous system and into the brain. So our thinking takes place in the brain. Even the most anti-identity philosopher of mind with their 'yes but there is no identify between electronic pulses and the experience of say, pain (or a reflection on pain)' arguments would be hard-pressed to say that there is not at least an extremely noticeable A-priori link between patterns and movements of the brain and thought. So of course thought takes place 'in' the brain, even though, as it were, thoughts don't weigh anything or take up any space and so therefore cannot in some logical sense take place anywhere. The best evidence we have of thoughts is brain patterns. They are only a few years away from inventing a mind-reading computer console.

 

[newme]

He doesn't want a meaningful discussion. He wants us all to realise that he's the smartest most cleverest super philosopher that ever did exist and that we're all thickies and that nothing exists and we even imagined the whole argument because reality is an illusion for the ego.

Sadly he falls at the first base, due to being a complete spork.