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I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Not the same without the audio
I think they’re 4:00 a.m.
Optional heel-turn arc:
Jokes aside, this is kinda the opposite of Descartes’ point. He was doubting everything, and that included his own existence.
In fact, literally the only thing he could be sure of was that he was doubting, not that he was thinking, which is why it’s so weird to me that everyone leaves off the first part of the idea, since it’s arguably the most important part.
Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum.
I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am.
literally the only thing he could be sure of was that he was doubting, not that he was thinking,
He literally said, “I doubt, therefore I think”, and you say he was not thinking? I feel like maybe you’re not thinking.
If you’re sure of one thing and the conclusion of that surety is believing another thing then you are sure of both things.
You must not have been very good at geometry proofs in high school. Even though yes, both are true at the same time, one can’t know that initially because one leads to the other. Descartes couldn’t conclude that he was thinking until he had concluded that he was doubting.
Doubt is the origin of wisdom.
Woah, I had no idea you were on Lemmy/still alive.
I still think, therefore I still am.
- have doubt
- do needful
- fuck bitches
- make money
- put horse
- before de cart
Existence. by Calvin Klein
I don’t understand. The opposite of saying “I exist” is “I don’t exist.” Doubting one’s existence, as in the first half of the first sentence, means asking “Do I really exist?” And he very quickly answers that by extrapolating that in order to ask that there must be some thinking thing to ask it, and that thinking thing is the self, therefore regardless of anything else, the self exists. What am I missing here?
It’s not. I will never be able to tell that you think. It might be just me thinking that you think, without you existing outside of my head
ahh, the LLM gambit
“We proclaim we exist!”
“And proclaiming is half the battle!”
I think
You’re already making some assumptions
The only thing we know for certain
Darksied Is.
Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” always smelled to me like a lazy way to avoid solipsism.
How? It has always encouraged solipsism within me because being absolutely certain that I exist very quickly casts doubt upon the existence of anything else since I cannot be as certain of it.
He tries to build further knowledge around it, e.g. using it to claim God exists. But it doesn’t really work, and at the end of the day you get stuck into the “I know that I exist because I think.” and nothing else.
Oh sure, the stuff he argued after doesn’t really hold up, but I’ve always had the sense that it would have been dangerous for him to suggest that God isn’t real at the time, and he maybe wouldn’t have made such arguments had he born in modern times.
would have been dangerous for him to suggest that God isn’t real at the time
This is just a personal opinion, but I think you can really see this in a lot of the western philosophers from the past centuries. A lot of the texts and ideas read like tiptoeing around it, like “haha yeah… sure god is real! despite all these things I’m saying that might suggest otherwise… but of course he’s real and these ideas actually support the conclusion! really!”
That’s a fair point.