No idea which category this should be under but.

I am imagining the concept of non-existance, therefore I have imagined a concept that does not exist.

lol.

sorry. descartes is a laugh riot.

much love

 

Yet Descartes never did this, neither did he intend to. The cogito, or cogito ergo sum "I think, therefore I am" was a one use statement, and was not intended to prove his existence on the basis of the mere fact that he could concieve of it. The reason that it works is that it was the one indubitable statement that Descarteas and been looking for. "i think that is a rock, therefore it is." can be doubted and Descartes would not have accepted it as having any validity whatsoever. You could be crazy, your eyes could be messed up, there could be some kind of optical illusion going on, and etc. there are many ways in which the statement "i think that is a rock, therefore it is." is doubtful. We have all had the experience of seeing something from far off, thinking that it was a particular thing, then finding out that it is something entirely different once we get closer to it, this duobt can be applied to your "I think that is a rock" objection.

Descartes thought that "I think therefore I am" could not be doubted. It is for this reason that Descartes acepted it and no other as indubitable. As a fun thing to do, try and doubt it. You will always come back to the necessity for your own existence in at least some capacity.

 

"We have all had the experience of seeing something from far off, thinking that it was a particular thing, then finding out that it is something entirely different once we get closer to it,"

indeed, nor do i doubt that many if not all of us have had this same dilemma when regarding our "selves". some honest looks in the intellectual mirror will show some major misconceptions about what we are, and descartes, thinking that thought is the basis or justification of existance, could be said to be one of those misconceptions. again this seems highly arrogant to me. and certain experiences of mine, of which i will remain humbly skeptical, keep me equally skeptical of descartes claim. i am not disreputing it outright, but i am not accepting it as absolutely valid. There is more to existance than consciousness. How it interplays with that, where it begins and ends, i cannot rightly say.

much love

 

"You will always come back to the necessity for your own existence in at least some capacity."

and here again, in a veiled way, you make my point. if i think, therefore i am, i come back to the point that i must exist in order to think, in order that i may regard my existance. it's a paradox. a self-engorging infinite loop.

think(haha) about it.

much love

 

You should really read Descartes. Again though you are putting words into my mouth, also into Descartes'. In order for your paradoxical loop to hold, you must add to Descartes' theory that which he never said. In essence, you are trying to alter the theory until it becomes something to which you can object. This, however, is rather irresponsible. I suppose that I have to spell it out for you now.

The theory "cogito ergo sum". Has no aspect of "in order that I may regard my existance". Nowhere in the cogito or in any of Descartes' writtings does anything like this appear neither can it be derived from any of his writtings or theories, it is of your own invention entirely and is groundless as part of an objection. In short, you made it up, it is a non-sequitur.

The strenght of the cogito lies in this: that it cannot be reasonably or logically doubted. You cannot doubt that you are thinking, if you doubt something, anything, you therefore are thinking, there is simply no way around it. Even if you are making up nonesense about descartes theories you are still thinking. If you are thinking you must exist in at least some capactiy, perhaps you are a brain in a vat, perhaps you have no corporeal existence and are merely an energy blob, perhpas you are thought itself. At anyrate if you think then your existence is a foregone conclusion. Try doubting it, go ahead. . . are you doubting it? . . . well, are you? Now that you are doubting it, or trying anyway, are you thinking? Of course you are thinking if you are doubting. Now, do your thoughts exist? Where did your thoughts come from? Doesn't matter really, maybe you and your thoughts are one and the same. If not, then your thoughs came from something that must exist, in this case you. If you and your thoughts are one and the same then, if your thoughts exist you must exist too.

There is no way around this one, unless you want to add a bunch of garbage to the theory until it is nonsensical than come along with some great big objection, whoopied-doo!

 

*sigh*

i was not putting words into either your mouth or descartes(whom i have read by the way). i am however amending the fact that you must exist in order to think, and just because you can think about your existance does not mean that your existance is comprised solely of thought.
so i am not doubting that i am a thinking existing being but that my existance is comprised solely of thought. and if we are then to say that conception of something is proof of its existance, than i am sitting here concieving that my existance is not solely comprised of thought, and though i am indeed thinking this, this still in no way validates descartes theory, for i am feeling it, and intuiting it, as well as physically expressing it. there is a symbiotic relationship betwixt all of these things(and many others), that descartes' theory would wish to seperate or trace back to thought as its origin, but thought is only a part of the ultimate expression/manifestation. existance is not merely thought, though thought may possibly merely exist. feeling can also possibly merely exist, as a residue of energy in a room. have you ever felt a charged atmosphere? you can think about that charge, but your thinking doesn't make that charge a thought alone, your thought is the thought and the charge is the charge, yet the charge and the thought exist simultaneously, thought regarding the existance of the charge through the perception of a deeper sense. and maybe you don't feel that charge, or attribute that as some psychological delusion, and perhaps it is, but if it is delusion, what is it that makes you so sure it is psychological in nature- because you think so? and indeed if it psychological in nature, than it is your thinking mind decieving you not the existance of the charge, so where does that leave you? (note i am using you as in "a person" not necessarily you. i've not discussed enough with you specifically and probably can never know you that much in order to truly understand the depth fo your perception)

there is more to this than either you, i or descartes is percieving, and i am not willing to accept his theory as inalienable, but as a portion reconcilable to all other theories, both those that have been surmised and those yet to be surmised.... and this may all seem nonsense to you, but it certainly would if the only sense you use of the subtle multitudes inherent within you is that of your intellect, as, apparently, did descartes, and countless philosophers before and since.

shrug.

much love

 

to simplify that- i can intuite, i can emote, i can biologically lust or feel pain, and i can analyze all of this after the fact through my intellect and express it through verbal communication, therefore, all existance is not comprised of thought.

of course the process can go any number of ways, involving all or only some of those senses. when we try to isolate any one as the cause we find ourselves tangled in a web of deception.

much love

 

lol. sorry, but my intuitive thought process is in spiraling emanation.

i am also willing to accept that consciousness in some way wills existance into being, but not that all of existance is the product of conscious will.

much love

 

Ahh, perhaps then our existence is not comprised solely of thought. Again though, for the cogito the nature of our existence does not matter, all that matters is that we exist and, of course, that we think. That our existence is comprised solely of thought is only one possibility. Another possibility is that we exist physically exactly as we perceive ourselves, which Descartes ultimately concluded was in fact the case (more or less anyway).

But who is saying this anyhow? Who has been saying "conception of something is proof of its existence"? Descartes didn't say it, I haven't said it, it is not a concept that has been strongly present in this thread.

The difficulty here, at least in terms of Descartes seems to be one of interpretation. Descartes did not think that all of existence was comprised of thought. He merely thought that that we think is how we can be certain of our existence. He did not reduce feeling and intuiting to products of thought, he in fact labeled them as kinds of thought, though they were differnt from the thought that the cogito refers to.

To end my spiel for the moment: What you are getting at seems rather similar to Husserl's (I might be wrong about it being Husserl actually) idea of what we can know for certain. He thought that to say "I think therefore I am" though valid enough in itself, was too limited and set itself up too high. If one feels hot, for example, the statement "I perceive myself to be hot" is just as indubitable as "I think therefore I am" or if one should see a blue truck the statment "I perceive a blue truck" is again just as indubitable as "I think therefore I am". Neither the statment about hot nor the one about the truck suggests or is meant to suggest anything about anykind of external reality. Yet, to have these peceptions we must be aware and must be perceiving, which then implies our existence. It could of course be the case that the perceiver is being decieved, is dreaming, is a loony, and etcetera; none of this matters. Try it with something, your keyboard for example, or maybe jab yourself with a pin. This works with emotion too, so look at something funny or sad or whatever. Now that you have done this can you doubt that you have or have had such perceptions? Even if you are looney or being decieved or dreaming you still have had the perception.

Again this seems more along that line of whta you were getting at, and in fcat is both more useful and more descriptive that merely "I think therefore I am"

much love [/QUOTE]

 

yes, you are more or less summarizing my point. i just get such an emanation of damned pompousness from descartes, especially that particular treatise... and again, as you say, he regarded intuition and emotion and whatnot as forms of thought, and i see this to be his most erroneous assesment, and the crux of my disapproval of his entire philosophy. you can think about it, but that doesn't make that which you think of to be thought. only the subject of your thought, even when referring to your self.

but we just went there. i can shut up now.

much love

 

So is my existence contingent? I know I exist (because I cannot doubt it), but does that mean that the statement "I exist" is universally true or is the statement true only under certain conditions (namely that I think)?

Hmmm...