Arguments against Descartes

Berkeleyan idealism moves a bit further in that direction, but he doesn't go quite that far, essentially seeing reality as essentially in the mind of individuals, with god holding it all together.

Solipsism is literally the position you outlined, but I'm not sure any major philosophers have actually gone far enough to advocate it.

>>3237777
I like his other quote from pornhub more, but yes, the logic behind the claim is sound, but today we know that most things aren't really the way we perceive them. That's why science replaced philosophy.

>>3237777
It has nothing to do with you hearing things or touching things etc. Those could all be fake i.e solipsism. Even your body could be fake you THNK therefore you exist.

>>3237777
Monads lmao

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>>3237777
Descartes didn't really go that far, particularly not with that statement.

The only thing one cannot deny the existence of is one's own perception, is where he was at with that statement. That you were having an experience, is unavoidable, everything else is fair game.

Whether that experience is real, false, your own imagination, someone else's imagination, the mind of god, atoms and particles, or in the matrix - it doesn't really say anything in regards to that. Pure solipsism is still possible.

Granted, he goes into that other stuff later...

>>3237796
>Solipsism is literally the position you outlined, but I'm not sure any major philosophers have actually gone far enough to advocate it.
In modern philosophy, falling into pure solipsism or pure nihilism is basically considered a fallacy in and of itself. There are, however, plenty of metaphysical solipsists (or at least perspectival realists), epistemological solipsists, and these days, a particular large number of methodological solipsists, which tend to claim less that the world is false, but more that all positions are ultimately and inevitably subjective, or at least "fuzzy", when more than one person comes into play. Phenomenologists, also popular these days, straddle the fence a bit, with the concept that there is no reality outside of perception, in the grand sense.

>>3237777
Nice quads...

The idea that nothing exists was central to a lot of the pre-socratic philosophers, though, like many of their proposals, they are largely considered proto-philosophic fallacies.

George Berkeley critiqued Descartes quite a bit:
http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_berkeley.html

Though he was basically a phenomenologists, stating that, effectively, nothing exists but perception, though, in his case, being a Bishop, he ascribed the persistence of the world to the ever-present perception of God, and, like Spinoza, also perception itself - that it is God's mind that feeds us perception and is that perception, in a pantheistic sorta manner.

>>3237777
Sellars.

>>3237777
>has anyone argued against cogito ergo sum
Yes.
The problem is it stands as a unseen dogma in the natural sciences

>>3237777
>nothing exists...
>this solves a lot of problems in physics and math...

kek

>nothing exists

Lol what? At the very least your conscious experience exists.

Anyway, descartes assumes the very *I* that he's trying to prove. Basically he takes as an unproven axiom that if there is thinking then there must be an entity/ego/self that's doing the thinking. but this too can be doubted. "I think therefore I am" doesn't prove the existence of an "I", rather it assumes it. It's basically just "an ego is thinking therefore an ego exists".

really the limit of doubt is something like "there is an experience of thinking, therefore this experience of thinking exists", or "I doubt, therefore meaning exists (doubt is a meaningful world).

In my opinion descartes went about it crazy wrong going from
1. ego exists
2.god would trick us
3. therefore external world

I think what makes far more sense is
1. I doubt therefore meaning exists
2. meaning exists in the context of langauge, which is a shared practice that can only exist with public standards of use/correction (see wittgensteins private language arguemnt)
3. therefore other people must exist in order for my doubt to be coherently meaningful 9i.e. doubt exists only within the context of a shared language
4. others exist in a public world
5. therefore there is more to reality than just my own experience

>>3240658
god wouldn't trick us*

Presupposes existence, period.
>>3237797
Science doesn't replace anything, it only sucks itself off and makes others watch.

>>3238494
Perception can easily be rejected: perception is nonexistent.
Modern philosophy is not modern, it is archaic and sickeningly Newtonian.

>>3240658
Why does conscious experience exist? Why would it? Why must it? Why do you think an axiom can be 'proven'? It cannot be.

>>3240658
>1. I doubt therefore meaning exists
Incorrect
>2. meaning exists in the context of langauge, which is a shared practice that can only exist with public standards of use/correction (see wittgensteins private language arguemnt)
Incorrect
>3. therefore other people must exist in order for my doubt to be coherently meaningful 9i.e. doubt exists only within the context of a shared language
Incorrect

Try again, brainlet.

>>3240677
Well, unless you can prove to me you're some sorta p-zombie, I'm going to assume you are having some sorta experience.

Or are you denying this, and claiming to have entered some sorta zen state of oblivion, yet are still capable of typing?

>>3237777
Honestly I see Descartes' notion being disproven in our life time. He's basically seeing that, since life is all we can conceive using our senses, the fact that we CAN conceive with our senses means that, in some way, what we sense must be true.

Not with VR or Integrated Reality. Not anymore, Descartes.

Descartes is such a byproduct of the 18th century- trust what you see, judge what you hear, and distrust what you read.

Honestly we need new philosophies.

>>3241527
I never said I was a p-zombie, I'm describing how a p-zombie would act. Act, not behave. They have no qualities. A virus is essentially a p-zombie. Were the teenager memes to come true and a virus began taking over human bodies and turning them into zombies, they would be p-zombies (unless they are nu-zombies that can be 'broken through'). A traditionally-represented zombie is already a p-zombie. Now, it comes down to whether this virus would totally destroy the 'qualia' of the host, or would merely take-over the body (nu-zombie), is what is relevant. I think I heard of a virus that zombifies bees. do bees have 'qualia'?

>>3241603
It already has been and has been over and over and so on. Plus, his 'mental experiment' regarding dreams or hallucinations was his skepticism of 'all can be conceived through senses'.

Yes, he is terribly archaic. Even positivists are more interesting than him and the like.

>>3237777
I sometimes think the same thing. For example, what if the entire universe is just what the result of an equation would look like if run. Like imagine the code for a game, if it were just sitting on a hard drive not running, except instead of a game its a universe. Even though its not executing it still exists. Same for us except maybe there isnt even a hard drive, maybe nothing actually exists anywhere in anyform, but the potential for an existence is there and that unfulfilled potential is us.

>>3241911
A vírus isn't essentially a p-zombie, because it doesn't act as if it were conscious. P-zombie doesn't just mean that it isn't conscious, but that even still it behaves as if it were.

You have to get your concepts straight.

all this thread has shown me is that there are a lot of philosophically illiterate people on /his/

come on guys the meditations aren't that long

>>3241603
What you describe is literally the opposite of cartesian doubt. Fuck, did you read a single page of Descartes?

>>3240658
>Anyway, descartes assumes the very *I* that he's trying to prove.

the existence of some form of "I" is proven by me currently experiencing and thinking things. At the very least there is an I where this thing, I, is able to feel and experience things

"I think therefore I am" already assumes the 'I".

>>3241603
This is low quality bait.

>>3242523

t. p-zombie

It seems to me that you can doubt even the cogito, since our minds can't process logical arguments atemporally, and we have to rely on memory which could be inaccurate. As soon as you make any argument at all by the time you get to the conclusion all the previous steps only exist in your memory which could have been edited by a demon or whatever.

I mean it seems impossible to deny that some kind of thinking is going on, since even if everything is an illusion, it still has to be something. But then even that argument is subject to the memory problem and it's impossible to ever confirm if it's valid.

Honestly this seems like a pointless road to go down.

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>>3241603
>>3242580
Gah, again, "I think therefor I am" has no bearing on the existence or non-existence of an external reality. Like >>3238494 says, it's just stating that you are having an experience, that you have perception, in the grand sense. Whether it's entirely your imagination, a dream, or a cold hard external reality, that remains the case.

The dragon of doubt can eat everything, except itself.

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>>3241946
You are completely correct in your assessment. Everything in the Universe can be summarized to a few mathematical equations. Some people ask "what was there before time, space, matter and energy? what was there before the big bang?" and to those people I answer: Math, because Math is immaterial. And it is because of Math that things exist.

>>3241957
That's why a human taken by a virus, a traditional zombie, would be a p-zombie regardless.

>>3243535
The dragon can eat itself, though. You are still applying classical logic by forcing a presupposition of existence itself.

>>3243842
There's no presupposition of existence, only presupposition of a perceiver. There can be no doubt without the doubter.

"Cogito ergo sum" is true but in an insignificant way. It's true in the same way "triangles have three sides" is true. The word "triangle" is just the word we utter when we mean to say "geometric shape with exactly three sides"; it doesn't reveal anything about the world we didn't already know, it doesn't expand or add to our knowledge except the semantic. Likewise, "existence" is just what we are meaning to say when we refer to the phenomenon of thinking or apparent thinking. We haven't explained anything new.

>>3244072
A perceiver requires existence.
>There can be no doubt without the doubter.
wrong

>>3244363
Not necessarily, at least not a material existence.

Though I would like you to explain to me how one has doubt without a doubter.

>>3244383
Both require a material existence you idiot, I was mocking you.

>>3244486
No, they do not. The perceiver could be entirely immaterial, and the material world merely an illusion of his own creation, or some other source.

Scientifically speaking, from a materialist point of view, yes, consciousness is a product of a material brain, but more broadly speaking, material existence isn't a logical requirement, especially given how little is known and debated about how that point of perception is derived. ...and even from an entirely materialist point of view, consciousness may still be a property of virtual constructs.

Still supposing an existence to perceive. Perceiving must first exist to have a perceiver, like doubting must first exist to have a doubter.

>>3244611
for: >>3244587
And yes, the converse is true, simultaneously.

>>3240672
>Science doesn't replace anything, it only sucks itself off and makes others watch.

That would actually be the other way around, Philosophy is the pointless eternal dicksucking while science gets shit done.

>>3244611
An immaterial perceiver requires no material existence in order to perceive - anymore than your dreams require physical existence to be perceived. (Skipping the materialist explanation for dreams.)

>>3244637
See, you're sucking yourself off right here.
>>3244638
I didn't say material existence you illiterate.

>>3242523
Something thinks, therefore something at least that something exists (as opposed to nothing existing), the something calls itself "I".

>>3244645
Merely correcting a false statement.

>>3244658
No, yours is the false.

>>3244662
no u

>>3237777
check'd

No known link between mind and brain is a problem for Descartes.

>>3244670
It isn't, as the statement doesn't insist that consciousness or even reality be material. It merely states that one cannot deny the fact of perception, it doesn't say anything as to the nature of the source of that perception nor what it is perceiving.

We maybe souls dreaming of a material world, or material beings dreaming of souls, but either way, we are experiencing.

>>3244758
You're still presupposing an existence, perception cannot exist without existence.
Fucking brainlet

>>3244817
You just proved his point, perception implies existence.

ITT: people being deceived by evil demons

>>3244854
Yes it does, but I am not claiming perception exists. In addition, one cannot claim 'only perception exists' without showing that there is an existence.

>>3237777
There is a tiny penguin that lives in my pocket and he is magical. Just yesterday he poked his head and flippers up and out of my pocket, said "sim sim al a bim!" In a human voice, and suddenly he shrunk my pencil and notebook down to his size. When I got a magnifying glass to read what he wrote, I could the words "I now exist in the mind of every person that has read this post"

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>>3237777
>cogito ergo sum

Hume argued against this with bundle theory. Although experiences are perceived, we have no reason to assume our experiences aggregated constitute a whole "self" or subject. Similar arguments are found against the self in Buddhism, where the five aggregates that we consider to constitute "self" exist, but the gestalt is an ephemeral illusion with no fundamental being. Even Descartes line of reasoning here contains an unfounded assumption: that a though necessitates a thinker.

I would go one step further. Consider what you said:
>This is proof that something, whatever that something might be, exists. Something exists. It makes sense.

Can we meaningfully distinguish "something" from "nothing"? I don't think so. What are the properties of nothing? It has none. It's an inconceivable abstraction. One cannot imagine "not riding a bike", but we can imagine walking, taking a train, driving a car, sitting down, etc. We cannot describe the sound of silence, but we conceive it as "something", just like blackness, cold, weightlessness, or tastelessness. What we call negative is abstracted as being dualistic, when really, it has no properties to contrast and distinguish it.

Something cannot be meaningfully imagined or distinguished from nothing, so we cannot be sure that something exists.

>>3246802
*thought necessitates a thinker

>>3242501
>>3244652
>Something thinks

But that's an assumption. Descartes was trying to find the limit of doubt, which involves doubting assumptions, so he didn't go far enough.

You are just *assuming* thinking cannot exist without a thinking doing it.

Modern science goes against this, buddhism goes against this, plenty of people doubt this.

You are just assuming it to be true.

>>3246802
>Something cannot be meaningfully imagined or distinguished from nothing, so we cannot be sure that something exists.

Wait what? Because nothing is a human concept within a language we use to describe the negation of various things, therefore we can't be sure we exist?

>>3240672

philosophy contributes to nothing. Go kill yourself /humanities/

>>3243777

Its an interesting idea but you have no proof whatsoever.

>>3247386
it's not an assumption because I have direct , unambiguous evidence that thought activity i.e. experiencing something is taking place. the thing is the infrastructure or entity that undergoes or experiences this thought activity. you can't have thoughts being experienced without at least some sort of thing experiencing them.
This is less a claim about the universe or religion than a trivial consequence of language.
Also, occams razor it's far more convoluted to try and justify "ok sure , feelings and sensations are being felt, but that doesn't imply their's any object or infrastructure there which is experiencing those feelings and sensations. both stimuli and the perception and sensation of stimuli could actually be nothing being experienced by nothing"
>>3246804
you call whatever is experiencing the thought the thinker.

I think therefore I am doesn't assume or show that the I is a human, or a seperate entity. But there is at least some entity or infrastructure that's experiencing the thinking, the sensations.
>>3242523
no it doesn't. There is evidence proving the I from the fact that you're thinking and feeling and know that you are. The form of the I is not certain but if there was no I whatsoever then you would be no sensation or experience.
THE FACT THAT SOME ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING (in this case, experiencing/sensing something) is sufficient for something existing

>>3243535
exactly
>>3244611
that is correct. once you know some activity is occurring you know that an entity , structure or thing exists in some sense in order to be doing or experiencing that activity or having that activity done to it.

How much sense does it make to have a verb with no noun?
0.
a verb with no noun means the verb, the activity isn't occurring since nothing is doing it or having the activity done to it.

>>3247465
>you call whatever is experiencing the thought the thinker.

This presumes an experience needs one to experience it. I agree it's a reasonable and intuitive idea, but it's still an axiom.

>>3247402
>Wait what? Because nothing is a human concept within a language we use to describe the negation of various things, therefore we can't be sure we exist?

I said "imagine or distinguish". We have a word for "nothing", but the concept itself is not really conceivable. Since existence is defined by opposition to non-existence, the two are both meaningless.

>>3247413
Philosophy contributes questions. Science contributes means to gather evidence to support or not support said idea to answer said questions.

Example: "what is life?" used to be a very difficult question. You had some really "out there" theories like vitalism (tl;dr: think dualism but replace "conscience" with "vital (life)force"). And it was supported centuries ago by many prominent scientists such as Pasteur. Others thought it was mechanistic like we do today. They did not know what it was, but they did think that it was ultimately physically explicable. They turned out to be right.

Philosophy has a lot of "baggage", academic equivalents of mental masturbation and, at its worst, shitposting. As much as I hate the baggage that philosophy comes with, it is the best way to ask important and relevant questions in the first place.

>>3247610
Questions and ideas*

>>3247591
as soon as you have admitted that some action or activity is occurring , you have already implicitly admitted that there must be some thing that is experiencing or doing the activity.

this holds for all verbs.

nothing can't do something. an occuring activity must be occuring in or to something. assuming the opposite yields a contradiction.
if an activity is occuring but the activity is occuring in or to nothing then that activity hasn't actually occured.

>>3237777
issue with the circularity of clear and distinct perception.

>>3247742
>as soon as you have admitted that some action or activity is occurring , you have already implicitly admitted that there must be some thing that is experiencing or doing the activity

It is implied, yes, and this implication is a feature of language that relies on axioms and unproven intuitions. I'm not saying it's wrong, but this argument is intellectually dishonest. It's like the anarcho-capitalist argument that "merely arguing proves you agree with the NAP, because you're attempting to persuade rather than use force", or the Kantian argument that God must exist, because he's defined as perfect. Language is analytic, and does not surmount the synthetic problem of doubt towards experience that OP describes.

Word classes are defined somewhat arbitrarily in relation to each other anyway. Chinese verbs aren't inflected for person, for example.

>nothing can't do something. an occuring activity must be occuring in or to something. assuming the opposite yields a contradiction.

Even the law on noncontradiction is an axiom. It's neither verifiable nor falsifiable, but adopted analytically for utility purposes.

Based on your grammar nazi logic, nothing *can* do something, anyway. "Nothing extinguished the fire" is a grammatically correct sentence, even if it's semantically awkward.

>if an activity is occuring but the activity is occuring in or to nothing then that activity hasn't actually occured.

This involves an unfounded assumption that entities have primacy over processes. Process philosophy disagrees, and reverses the presumed subordination of processes to substance. Change is far more absolute than the ephemeral entities in which it manifests itself.

>>3248076
saying nothing extinguished the fire is a turn of phrase which communicates that the activity of extinguishing the fire did not take place , it doesn't mean that nothing actually did or performed something.

I accept that it is a feature of our language, but can you provide a coherent or meaningful idea as an example of nothing doing some activity or some activity happening to or within nothing where the activity has occured?

saying that nothing did some activity is effectively like multiplying that activity by zero. whatever that activity is, it says that that activity didn't actually take place.

So if you have concrete evidence that the activity IS taking place (I know that I am experiencing some sensation of colour, sound ,touch , etc.) then you know that it can't be nothing which is having the experience or else the experience would not be being had. so there must be something doing or within which these sensations are being felt, and that something is the I, the experiencer.

>>3247386
Modern science does not go against it, science as a whole paddles a boat to find land on a sea where no land exists, and instead of smashing the boat and building a submarine, they continue to paddle.

>>3247413
'philosophy' is not a humanist field. Humanism is a disease, any 'philosopher' claiming humanism is a mere rhetorician or socialist.

>>3247610
>waaah why isnt philosophy beign super deep and LE SCIENCE instead of SOCIALLY INAPPROPRIATE AND MEAN
Letzter Mensch

Contribution is a disgusting humanist meme. Science does nothing, evidence does not exist, science cannot discern anything but what it already presumes.

>>3237777
You never read his text did you?