Any refutations of "I think therefore I am" or

It's wrong

>>8855046
I think it's sound. You exist because you are a thinking being. You can't be certain of others' existence, or even the world around you, but you can be certain that you are a thinking being that thinks, therefore, your mind that thinks, at the very least, has to exist.

>>8855055
Care to explain why?

>>8855046
It's logically sound.
>inb4 faggots with autistic definitions off existing.
>oh no you like, are there, but you don't reeeeeeeealy exist.
Fuck off.

>>8855066
no

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>>8855069

>>8855065
Even an illusion exists as an illusion, anon.

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>>8855074

>>8855072
You can't prove me wrong, therefore I am right

>>8855074
>I think therefor I am
>Illusion thinks therefore it is
you aren't refuting the point

>>8855077
If it can produce a reaction out of you, it needs to exist relatively to you, no?
And if you think, thus exist, then it also needs to exist in some form or another, no?
Otherwise you'd have a "nothing" capable off affecting the "existing", which is an obvious contradiction.

>>8855088
This is not the point of "I think therefore I am". It only confirms YOUR existence, not the existence of "illusions".

>>8855084
Well, if Deadpool believes he thinks does he really?

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>>8855083

>>8855074
Something must understand and interpret the illusion of "I think therefore I am". That's the "I" referred to by Descartes

>>8855088
In addition, this is completely ignoring the fact that people suffer from delusions. Are those delusions real, because they prompt a reaction?

>>8855091
what do you mean by this?
If the character deadpool is actually thinking then he 'is' in the sense Descartes intends.

Descartes whole thing was we don't know whether we are trapped in an illusion of a devil but that we 'are.' As in exist SOMEHOW.

>>8855046
being and event - alain baidou.

i think. i didnt really understand it.

>>8855095
No, but they do exist as delusions, or am I wrong?

>>8855102
They exist as delusions, but they do not exist in actual reality. "I think therefore I am" is stating that in REALITY, you are a thinking thing that thinks, therefore YOUR existence can be verified by YOU. Decartes was responding to skeptics who questioned their own existence.

>>8855107
What about AI that exist in virtual frameworks?

>>8855114
What about them?

if you have not by now encountered refutations, you need to broaden your literary palette.

>>8855122
>refutations
What are you referring to?

>>8855107
http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/
Tfw you're not sure who's shitposting who anymore
>>8855122
Honestly just fuck off.

>>8855120
If an AI exists within a virtual framework and is able to reason that it exists, doesn't that confirm the virtual framework (ie the external world) as well as the AI itself?

>>8855128
We can confirm the virtual framework exists, because we exist outside of the virtual framework. If we were the AI, to take your example, then no, we wouldn't be able to confirm the existence of the virtual framework.

>>8855141
So the virtual framework is noumenal to the AI like the external world is to man? How does that work?

>>8855127
>http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/
Is there something in that link that you want to point out?

>>8855046
>/lit/ always post about philosophy
>doesn't even understand cogito ergo sum
>refuting things descartes himself already talked about.

jesus

>>8855149
You need a writing class. This statement doesn't make any sense.

>>8855154
>They exist as delusions, but they do not exist in actual reality.
>MIND.BODY.DUALISM.

>>8855149
It's honestly not that complicated of a concept, and this is basic philosophy that we're talking about. "I think therefore I am" is stating that you know that you exist, beyond a shadow of a doubt, because you are a thinking thing that exists. It makes NO CLAIMS about the external world. How many times do I need to repeat this?

>>8855162
This is not a fucking argument, retard.

>>8855166
thinking thing that thinks*

Buddhist doctrine refutes "I think therefore I am." Not directly of course.

>>8855067
>oh no you like, are there, but you don't reeeeeeeealy exist

This ^ is you, >>8855180

>>8855191
what the fuck are you on about?

>>8855166
Seems to me to be an extrapolation of the third man argument, that's all.

If an AI was able to reason it's own existence, surely that's a confirmation of the framework too.

Ie. If an intelligent entity was created in a videogame, it would know that it's surroundings were fake and yet real at the same time.

>>8855194
The entire point of cogito ergo sum is that by thinking you affirm for yourself some form of existence.

Your correction was either unnecessary or if you are trying to refute it/a part of it you offered no explanation for what you mean.

>>8855191
My point was that you do exist, you illterate moron.
>>8855198
>third man argument
No idea what that is, nor do I particularly care.
>If an AI was able to reason it's own existence, surely that's a confirmation of the framework too.
No. It isn't. Confirmation of one's own existence is not confirmation of the world in which they exist.

>>8855205
I corrected it because I mistyped the original post, dipshit. Can you not make fucking idiotic assumptions, please?

>>8855210
Your change is like Descartes changing his quote to "I think therefore I think."
I don't understand why you did that.

THERE
ARE
THOUGHTS

>>8855219
You must be autistic.

The edit was because I was originally stating, " you know that you exist, beyond a shadow of a doubt, because you are a thinking thing that exists"

This is a circular argument. Hence the correction, that you are a "thinking thing that thinks".

This is basic logic.

>>8855219
So, to put it in big FUCK ME letters for you,

YOU KNOW THAT YOU, A THINKING THING, EXISTS BECAUSE YOU ARE A THINKING THING THAT THINKS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum#Criticisms


Time to leave this shithole. Newfags have taken over!

Goodbye, /lit/.

Don't bother replying

>>8855046
Well at that point he doesn't know anything about himself except that he thinks and he doesn't know that anything exists except his thoughts, so really just means "thought, therefore thought"

>>8855230
is it that clear and distinct to you? you are a miserly dualist cunt.
what of the duality of the mind itself? or the mind and the world?
leaving that aside, with regards to mind/body dualism, do you have a solution to the problem of causal interaction?
have you even considered the implications of what descartes is saying when he states "I am thinking, therefore I am?
Not likely I imagine.

@8855235
Okay anon

>>8855046
Nietzsche did one.
The point was, rather, that the "I am" remains quite vague.

>>8855292
What I said, and the content of this thread don't have anything to do with dualism, despite the fact that Decartes is a dualist. I am not a dualist. You are a fucking dunce.

>>8855046

Descartes' reasoning is "I think, therefore something must exist at all."

But in order for that statement to work, logic needs to exist.

Does logic come before anything? Does existence precede logic? If so then there are serious flaws with this kind of reasoning.

>>8855396
Logic is a-priori.

>>8855404
Take away the Universe and everything that exists. Does logic still exist? Does it still work in the same way?

>fallor ergo sum
both criticism and correction

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>>8855046
Why don't you think about it yourself? People just want an answer, a peer reviewed and approved philosophy, such is a thing is beyond intellectually bankrupt. If Descartes is right, and you are so divorced from thought, you may as well not exist faggot.

He assumes there is already an "I" doing the thinking. Circular reasoning.

>>8855413
If it's apriori, then yes. Logic would exist without the framework of a universe.

>>8855413
Do you even think about things before you type them on your keyboard? Do you understand that you're asking me about a hypothetical in which the universe doesn't exist, and asking me if logic is still around? Like as if someone has independently verified that? This is an absurd question.

>>8855098
Self-perception is itself an illusion.
There is no real "you" or "me".

>>8855083
Nice appeal to ignorance kiddo

>>8855046
How can he be sure he is doing the thinking? Makes you think.

>>8855067
Some things are more real than others. Dreams can seem real, and you may even perceive yourself in a dream, but the whole thing isn't necessarily grounded in truth. I once dreamed I was fucking this one girl I like, but in reality I was in bed with a boner and night sweats.

A character in a movie or book can seem real and may occupy a sense of "reality" to them in our minds. Jesus Christ is more real to us than a stranger we may walk right next to in a crowded street.

The real that self-perceives can never hand this self-perception on to others and have any evidence that he/she self-perceives and therefore is real. Any major head injury and you'll forget your own name and identity.
Get the head injury a bit stronger and you'll be a brain-dead body sustained only by machines. If the body does not think, does it exist? Do trees, rocks,and water exist?

Existence shouldn't be egocentric. We must destroy the ego when understanding Being.

There is thought, thinking is being conducted by neural tissue. A large number of independent semi-autonomous actors are active inside your skull. They communicate with each other. For purposes of improving your chances of survival they provide your body with an illusion of personality, so you struggle harder to live in the face of an uncaring and difficult world. There is no "I", there is just an adaptation that allows high intelligence to persist without immediately self destructing.

>>8856297
Not an argument.

>>8855046
No, since all the supposed refutations already admit the truth of the thinking and of the self, as they reference them; but for obscure ideological reasons merely wish to refer to them as being something other than "being".

>>8856259
Does it really? How am I sure it's me who is doing the thinking? Really makes something think...

I'm personally fond of the "Hamlet" criticism. I forget which modern philosopher brought it up, but it goes like this:

Suppose Shakespeare had Hamlet say the lines "I think therefore I am." Does it we should believe Hamlet is real? Does it mean hamlet believes he's real?

>>8855055
This

>>8855046
"The Bible is proof of the Bible".

"I think therefore I am" is only true insofar as the imaginary characters in a book can be said to believe in their imagined existences. Outside of the constructed universe of the text, when you pull yourself out of the imagined imaginations of fictional characters, you'd realize it's all a huge set of Russian dolls, with the smallest ones in a state of fading. It's like trying to find patterns from television static.

We are imaginary, God is the Real which imagines us.

>>8856333
>Suppose Shakespeare had Hamlet say the lines "I think therefore I am." Does it we should believe Hamlet is real?

No. This is stupid. It's stupid because Hamlet is a character in a play - there is not a functioning mind behind Hamlet. An actor plays as him, but Hamlet himself is a fictional being.

"I think therefore I am" is not a mantra where you just say the words and you exist. It is a summation of an idea in which a thinking thing, having a sentient mind, can verify its own existence.

Because Hamlet is a character, and not a real thinking thing, Hamlet can not be said to exist even if he states, "I think therefore I am." Those are not his words/thoughts, they are given to him by the writer, in this case Shakespeare.

Augustine put it best, "If I am wrong, I exist."

>>8856356
>We are imaginary, God is the Real which imagines us.

Boy, /lit/ sure does love to make completely unqualified statements and try to pass them off as truth, huh?

>>8855455

the conclusion to draw is therefore that logic's being a priori is absurd.

>>8856409
Uhh no it isn't.

>>8855046

there is no reason to believe that the one doing the thinking is the you you are experiencing yourself to be, i.e., that the thoughts you experience as your own are products of your subjectivity and not, for instance, products of your phenomenal ego in relation to which you are a hapless, trapped observer. imagine that: everything i am doing, even typing this post, is basically a perfect autopilot, one of the perfectly executed functions of which is to convince the pilot he is the one steering the plane.

>>8856416

sorry, but it is.

>>8856420
>to convince the pilot he is the one steering the plane

You just admitted that there is a pilot. Therefore you just admitted that there is a mind that exists, who is called the pilot. Spoiler alert: you just demonstrated cogito ergo sum.

>>8856422
That's not how arguments work, buddy.

>>8856425
not exactly. i may have demonstrated the existence of the subject, but that is less than what the cogito itself seeks to demonstrate. it wants to identify that subject with the enunciator of the statement, and that cannot be allowed by a principle of absolute doubt such as descartes'

>>8856432
No, it doesn't. It just demonstrates the existence of the subject. The subject, in this case, is "I', or the mind doing the thinking. To use your analogy - the pilot.

>>8856428

neither is this, faggot: >>8856416

plus i got dubs >>8856422 so fuck off.

>>8856435
Yeah, you literally started the conversation by simply saying "the conclusion is that logic being a priori is absurd" without qualifying that statement AT ALL. That's not an argument, and you are a pseudointellectual.

>>8856434

it demonstrates the existence of the subject on the basis of its capacity to think and enunciate. neither of these, i claim, can be guaranteed, even if, i further claim, the subject is.

>>8856439
Well, you can claim that. But your claim is not a refutation of cogito ergo sum.

>>8856438

you haven't argued that logic is a priori, either, you just stated it. so fuck off, bitch pseud boy.

>>8856445
Excellent fucking posts here in /lit/, good work ya shitposter.

These threads really demonstrate just how completely fucking retarded a good majority of the people who roam this board are. You get dipshits like >>8856409 that scour threads just to contribute nothing but a shitpost and general stupidity.

>>8856442

yes, it does, because all one has to do is posit a plurality of entities potentially responsible for the "thinking" of which the cogito claims to be the report in order to show that it is possible that the entity who has thus enunciated is not in fact the subject the statement alleges to be the enunciation of. one is compelled, on a principle of absolute doubt, to allow the possibility that the cogito lies, that the being calling itself "I" is not the "I" to which the cogito refers.

tackling the problem from another perspective, suppose descartes evil genius has really mastered his deception of "you." would he not also be able to deceive you into believing you have demonstrated your own existence? ok, now remove "yourself" from the equation—you must doubt even that you are the subject of deception. cogito thus posits a free-floating enunciation, a universe of discourse.

>>8855046
Giver her the dick.

>>8856463
This is absolute horseshit, in pure text form. You could certainly convince people who have no idea what they are talking about that you are right, but unfortunately for you, I don't fall in that camp. You honestly deserve a reward for writing one of the most rambling, incoherent responses I have ever read in my entire life.

>>8856463

and before you say it, at this point the fact that I still must refer to "you" in relation to doubt is a symptom of the language in which the argument is constructed.

>>8856471

but you couldn't even manage that. goodbye, angry pseud. read some continentals lol.

>>8856473
stay fucking retarded and literally trying to argue that you, as a thinking, rational mind, doesn't exist. Put a bullet in your brain as well, while you're at it, do the world a favor.

>>8856476

haha, you're so mad that you can't even defend your existence to some anon on 4chan. but i'm going to continue to play ball with you.

look, it's common to argue that descartes provides no reason for asserting that thought guarantees existence of some other entity—that is to say, he never makes it clear that the existence of a thought implies the existence of a thinker. it's a simple assertion. this is from wikipedia btw, the first "criticism" under the header of that name. all i am doing is radicalizing that argument: it is not only that thought does not guarantee a single thinker, but that it could also presuppose any number of other thinkers.

>>8856489
Yeah, nah, I'm not gonna engage with you anymore because you literally reduced yourself to pseud-babble, which became increasingly more pseud-ish when I called you out on your argument being fucking retarded. You have *not* demonstrated any refutation, whatsoever, of cogito ergo sum. Literally none. You have stated that, "well, you don't *really* know if those thoughts are your own" but that is not a PROOF of anything, you retard. Hence, you DO NOT have a refutation, and you are a goddamn pseudointellectual who likes to convince people he's intelligent by just throwing random words and phrases without any coherent thought connecting them.

Oh, but good job reading fucking WIKIPEDIA to come up with your nonsense pseudo-babble. Hope you don't write like you do on any papers if you're in school.

>>8856489
>he never makes it clear that the existence of a thought implies the existence of a thinker.

Read Decartes, not wikipedia. He ABSOLUTELY makes this clear.

>>8856513

when a statement claims that one singular case is always the case, and you show that other cases are possible, you have refuted that statement. sorry kiddo. keep trying to defend descartes tho. idk why. he can't even explain how res cognitans acts upon res existenza.

>>8856520

show me where?

>>8856523
ALL HAIL KING OF THE PSEUDS!

>>8856523

*extensa, my bad. late here.

>>8856523
I absolutely do not have the time to waste on a fucking retard like yourself. Buy a gun and put a bullet in your pseud brain. Oh, excuse me, not "you", since we don't know that YOU really exist, therefore it shouldn't matter if you blow your brains out, right? It's all an illusion, dude. You're in the Matrix!

>>8856523
TAKE THE RED PILL

>>8856530

for the person calling me a pseud, you sure haven't posted any arguments except for a weak interpretation of the cogito followed by repeatedly calling me a pseud. it's almost as though you have no idea what you're talking about, and are jealously clinging to what you think is a guarantee of your mental existence and agency.

>>8856523
>show me where
Ooh hey! What's it say on your favorite site, Wikipedia?

> Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one's own existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one's own mind; there must be a thinking entity—in this case the self—for there to be a thought

WOW YOU TOTALLY SHOWED DECARTES THOUGH HUH, EXCELLENT WORK

>>8856539
If Decartes were alive today he'd suck your dick at the first opportunity for proving him wrong, you genius.

>>8856545

it isn't hard to prove the cogito wrong... it's not some incredible achievement to have argued against the cogito. any one can do it, it's trivial, as i have shown.

>>8856544

"the very act of doubting" does not guarantee that "you" are the doubter, just as "the very act of thinking" does not guarantee that "you" are the thinker. the existence of thought, the existence of doubt, is not always also the existence of the thinker and the doubter.

idk how much clearer i have to make this for you pseuds lol.

>>8856558
>as I have shown
Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Put a fucking bullet, in your brain, end it all, end your suffering having to deal with mere mortals of clearly lower intelligence than you. Fucking kill yourself.

>"the very act of doubting" does not guarantee that "you" are the doubter, just as "the very act of thinking" does not guarantee that "you" are the thinker.

Wow, gee, how convincing. Oh, wait, you missed the FUCKING STATEMENT where it states: "the very act of doubting one's own existence served - at minimum as PROOF of the reality of one's own mind". Cogito Ergo Sum is a PROOF of the MIND doing the THINKING, you PSEUDO INTELLECTUAL FUCKING RETARD. It CANNOT be stated any clearer than that. You are seriously autistic if you think that your incoherent rambling amounts to a refutation.

I am legit blown away about how one individual can be so convinced of their "genius" and yet completely ignore words right in front of their dumb faces. This is the classic pseudo-intellectual, ladies and gentlemen. A fucking round of applause for the king of the pseuds, disproving Decartes without batting an eye!

>>8856573

and it cannot be any clearer than stating that what descartes has done is falsely conjoined a subject and a predicate, a thinker with thought, when in reality the only guarantee seems to be that there is thought, and that what you have done is fall for the pithiness of the formula.

>>8856583
Sorry bud, ya got nothing. You lose! Thanks for playing.

>>8856585

are you really illiterate or do you just not understand that "the very act of doubting one's own existence" does not at all imply that there is anyone doing the doubting?

>>8856588
It absolutely implies that there is someone doing the doubting, OTHERWISE, THERE WOULD BE NO DOUBT. This is the essence of cogito ergo sum. Holy fuck you are stupid.

>>8856588
You are so ideologically bound to the idea that Decartes/cogito ergo sum is wrong that you cannot even argue in an intellectually honest manner. Ya fucking PSEUD KING

>>8856590

no, it does not. processes are primary and they do not require subjects, and this "doubt" of which you are so sure that you are the author is no different. you're taking it on faith that descartes formula is an absolute law, when in reality it is but one highly improbable case among many.

>>8856596
> this "doubt" of which you are so sure that you are the author is no different.

Ya know, for a genius, you would think you'd be able to write coherently. Oh wait, that's because you're a fucking pseudo-intellectual.

>>8856593

i have already made my arguments using my own language as well as the language of my opponents—all they seem to be able to do is tell me to "kill myself," call me a "pseudo-intellectual," and repost their own green text and insist that because i disagree with it, i must be illiterate. i would say that the people "ideologically" committed are the ones getting so emotionally invested in a several hundred year old aphorism that they are wishing death upon another one of the thinking subjects they hold so dear

>>8856596
>processes are primary and they do not require subjects
Where the fuck are you getting this statement from? Where is your qualification for this? What do you mean by "processes"? What do you mean by "primary"? WHEN the fuck are you going to realize that your retarded, nonsensical argument doesn't hold a drop of water?

>>8855074

>non-dualists can't even make up a metaphor to describe this stuff without resorting to a dual paradigm (illusion = magician + audience)

>>8856602
You cannot argue. You can't. Your statements basically amount to, "well you don't *REALLLLY* know it's YOUUUU doing the thinking", and this is your PROOF that cogito ergo sum is wrong. This is your argument. And this argument is fucking stupid.

>>8856602
You have failed as an intellectual, ya fucking pseud. You know what you have to do.

>>8856608

is it fucking stupid, or do you just not like its conclusion? you have not provided any reason for the thinker to always be the cause of the thought, except for restating that "descartes is arguing that it is" and telling me to "kill myself"

Not only can I be aware of my own existence by thinking, but I also have to be aware of external, actual, material objects in order to do so.

t. Kant

>>8856614
No, it's fucking stupid. You lose. Have fun in your Matrix fantasy land.

>>8856616

you can say that over and over again, it doesn't make it always and everywhere true. much like the cogito lol.

>>8856614
>you have not provided any reason for the thinker to always be the cause of the though

From where else do the thoughts come from, genius?

>>8856573

No. It doesn't prove the mind by thinking, if thinking isn't a priori real, and that cannot be without something to think it first.

"I think therefore I am" is an inductive paradox that a priori defines thinking absent something to think with, to prove the existence of something that thinks it.

It's nonsense.

Your problem is that you are fooled by the rhetoric of logic, and are an obvious Platonist and Sophist who thinks reality is anything but a story, but in this instance you have also simply taken the myopic dialectic view that assumes givens.

You do this because you haven't widened your scope to thing recursively instead of just dialecticly.

Once you've taught yourself to always find out where the givens have come from, you will start to see instances where the givens "decohere" depending on the situation. This is called a paradigm shift.

This is still novice stuff, but if you can get to where you see that the givens are reinforced by the conclusions as much as the conclusions come from the givens, you will start to see the whole thing as a representation.


Start by rereading HUME, and ignore everyone else.

>>8856623
>Start by rereading HUME, and ignore everyone else

Ooh, another pseud appears. Fuck off.

>>8856621

you're asking a person defending skepticism where thoughts come from.

>>8856627

Projection.

You are a waste of time.

>>8856630
...what? Are you seriously backpedaling away from a legitimate challenge to your argument?

>>8856630
You are the one who made the statement that thoughts do not necessarily come from the thinker. WHERE THE FUCK ELSE WOULD THEY COME FROM, THEN? This is called "begging the question", if you didn't know.

There is something extremely ideological about asserting, over and over again, that anyone disagreeing with the writ of the cogito must be a pseudo-intellectual.

>>8856633

no, i'm just making sure you understand what you're doing. if i had to guess i would argue for a materialist account which has no need for "thinking substances" of the sort descartes likes to peddle in. but hey, you logically-minded folk like wittgenstein, so here's another pithy aphorism for you: whereof thou canst not speak, thereof thou must remain silent.

>>8856635

descartes has begged the question by assuming the "givenness" (to use this anon's vocabulary >>8856623) of thinker to thought. i am simply articulating a question that has already been begged.

>>8856635
>WHERE THE FUCK ELSE WOULD THEY COME FROM, THEN?

i don't know, a unicorn might fart them into a void. this answer is no less ridiculous than "I, the thinker!"

>>8856639
OHHH, you don't actually have an answer because you're a FUCKING PSEUD. Nice playing with ya, fuckface. I hope your reign as king of the pseuds is long and plentiful.

>>8856643
>the answer is no less ridiculous than "I, the thinker"

It is. It is more ridiculous, you fucking idiot. This has been fun, but I can't keep responding to you fucking nonsensical retards all night.

>>8856644

slow down a minute, try to read and think clearly before replying. why should doubting the cogito compel one to rebuild a whole metaphysics? why not get on to more important matters like engineering, mathematics, or criticism?

>>8856645

why is that?

>>8856646
You know, it's ironic that you're criticizing me for using "pseudo-intellectual" when you used it yourself. So not only do you argue dishonestly, but you also are a fucking hypocrite. Good night.

The "I" is just assumed

>>8856647

ah, i figured you wouldn't be able to answer that question. so you take on faith?

>>8856651
LOL and then he criticizes me for not being able to answer a question when he dodges them himself. Does your hypocrisy know no bounds?

>>8856651
Keep on pseuding, pseud.

>>8856654

your question demanded i defend claims i haven't made, i.e., that thoughts "come from" anywhere at all. i am just asking you to explain positions you have already endorsed.

>>8856657


it's sad, really. you'd think people so interested in defending a philosophy would be interested in philosophizing!

I don't get why people are blowing a fuse at the idea of disagreeing with "I think therefore I am," as if there is no precedent for it. Speaking as someone who hasn't read much philosophy, I thought Nietzsche made a pretty convincing case for why it doesn't really prove anything.

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Sounds racist.

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>ctrl + f + pseud
>26 matches

This thread really exemplifies the people who have read their Buddhist philosophy and the people who haven't.

>>8856623
>Platonist
>Sophist

Pick one, ya dingus.

The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking—that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me."—In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain"—will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?"

>>8855046
Not so sure about the "I" but something must exist in order for the thought to exist, even if it is just the thought that exists.

It relies upon deduction, something that Decartes did not prove.

>>8855046
>implying I think not I am someone else's thought
>Implying "I"
the best thing you can say is "there is a thought"

>>8857880
Basically agree--"It thinks" is perhaps the most accurate way of putting it

>>8855046

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QZ2Ko-FOg

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>>8855046

>be martin heidegger
>see this thread
>has descartes been refuted
>ctrl + f myself
>nope, nothing
>check mirror
>still greatest philosopher of 20C
>welp
>stare out window

guys

guys wait

guys i'm just saying

i'm just saying you guys

>>8855046
Is everyone in this thread for real? DESCARTES NEVER SAID THIS

I Think Therefore I...Errrr....?

This entire thread is overflowing with stupidity.

I kind of want to give a thorough explanation of this quote, but their are just so may mistakes and misunderstandings amongst all these posts that I don't even know where to begin, and even if I did, it would take too much time.

>>8855088
Yes, but you can't prove that those things that are causing you to react don't exists externally from the mind itself.

>>8855046
I think Hume, Nietzsche, and Russell all criticized it along these lines: The existence of a thought does not necessarily entail the existence of a thinker. The step from one to the other is underwritten by a subject-predicate metaphysics that gets smuggled in, often unnoticed, but is in fact an additional presupposition.

>>8858796
so the argument itself is valid, but the first premise (I think) cannot play the foundational role Descartes wants it to

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>>8856248

Perception itself is a spoolk which does not exist

>>8855235
NO PLEASE COME BACK. WE NEED YOU!

>>8856463
is this even relevant? something thinks, therefore something exists. Is that better?

Doesn't really matter what the I actually is

>>8856579
>>8856573
>>8856590
>>8856608

I'm surprised you guys have never heard this argument before.

>>8858802
It's not a syllogism.

>>8858924
It's an implicit modus ponens:
>If I think, then I am.
>I think.
>Therefore, I am.

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>ctrl+f
>no putnam

people, please.

the brain in the vat is supposed to be the modern equivalent, which eventually sprouted matrix memes.

putnam used the BIV hypothesis to show that it was self-refuting because of the way that language refers but many have found that the account is unsatisfactory because its never certain what language youre speaking or what it is referring to, among other problems.

so, think of the BIV scenario to be a modern reformulation of descartes' evil genius. cambridge published an essay collection of this problem and ive read a few. pretty good and anon should check it out.

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107069671

>>8858932
But it's not a syllogism. Decartes said it was not intended as a syllogism.

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>>8855046

>I

Define.

>Think

Define

>Therefore I am

What does he mean by this?

Does thinking prove being?

Must I think to be?

Is thought necessarily a feature of being?

Do unconscious forms of life, incapable of thought, therefore not exist?

What does it mean "to be"?

I can see where Heidegger was coming from.

>>8855046
Hume obliterated it with his bundle theory.

>>8855074
You're at the very least supporting his point

>be the only anon defending the disjunction of thought and being against two raving, fascist egoists telling me to kill myself
>proudly battle tooth and nail for the right to not exist
>come back today
>>vindicated

>>8860315
Yea those guys were fucking idiots.

It can't be refuted. All that can be done is semantic nitpicking about what he means by "I" or "am" or "think". Everything else can be an illusion or dream but what he refers to as "I", your consciousness itself, is obviously existing, experiencing different sensations, whatever they may be.

The core point of "I cannot sincerely deny the consciousness I subjectively experience" simply can't be refuted. If you think you have, you're wrong, addressing definitions and "what ifs" that aren't relevant.
>>8855187
No it doesn't. It just redefines "I" to mean the broader universal consciousness behind what you otherwise think is "you".

>>8860318

>tfw despite this, the possibility of existence, however slim, nevertheless remains the burden of experience

>>8860330

sorry, but you don't get to toss out metaphysical arguments by calling them "semantic nitpicking" while at the same time making metaphysical claims. pragmatism and quietism must be absolute, or else the are not.

>>8860338
your logic doesn't matter. your metaphysics don't matter. your labels don't matter.

I think and I am.

quibbling over what "I" is doesnt change the reality of my subjective conscious experience. same with the "am" or "think". you could come up with a sound logical explanation for why it's wrong, but the core point of the claim is something that won't ever go away until I stop experiencing things.

>>8855046
Can I contend with this thought without actually existing?

What if my concept of I is not correct, as in something else thinks on my behalf? Like if I dream I am a butterfly, can I be sure I am not a butterfly dreaming of me? In some sense I exists as a man on a Korean street food review site, and in another sense I am a beautiful flitty insect. In another sense, is my conscious viewpoint tied to my physical body or is it a more fundamental aspect of the universe?

It's not a question worth asking at this point since we can only think from our own perspective. One can only answer it for themselves.

There's two main refutations to the cogito.

One is Hume's objection, which was that when we look into our own thoughts, we can't be entirely sure of anything except for the thoughts themselves. Hence Descartes goes too far in positing a "self" that has those thoughts, the best argument he can come up with is "There are thoughts".

Russell's objection was quite similar, he believed that the concept of a "self" was harder to prove because it doesn't have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences. For example, if I were to look at a brown colour, it would not be that "I am seeing a brown colour", rather that "A brown colour is being seen". It could also be that the something that sees the brown colour is fleeting and temporary, and quite different from the something which has some similar experience moments later.

>>8858823
I like these. I don't browse /lit/ that often, but every time I visit the intelligent guy has gotten a little more ridiculous.

>>8859061

This guy gets it.

>>8858435
"cogito ergo sum" is from the latin discourse on method. it is repeated in his meditations and probably his principles of philosophy as well.

>>8860315
>>8860318
samefag.

>>8860315
You fought tooth and nail to be a gigantic hypocrite that dodged questions when it was convenient for him in order to "win" the argument that he doesn't exist. Well fucking done!

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>>8861726

>>8857880
If your thoughts are not your own, do you even exist anymore? If you have a brain, thinking the thoughts of someone or something else, then it could be argued that you, as an entity, do not exist. But how can you deny your own consciousness? If something else is doing the thinking for you, why would it doubt its own existence?

>>8861772
>implying that isn't a photoshop

I am skeptic that you are not samefagging :-)

>>8861781
>asking "why?" of an infinitely complex being capable of generating all of finitude

>>8861786
I shitpost therefore I am

>>8861952
>On How to Give a Non-answer
> By: Pseudy McPseuderson

>>8862043
I think this works, yeah.

>>8861761

show me where that happened? because the only question i "dodged" was the absurd question of "where thoughts come from," which i already explained is irrelevant to the positions i am defending. the burden of proof is on the Cartesians to explain why the existence of a thought guarantees the existence of some other thinking entity, not on the skeptic asserting that this is not necessarily so. you're one of those two illiterates from the other night, i can tell by your prose. do yourself a favor and quit reading philosophy; its possibilities are too large for you.

>>8862095
Nah, you can go fuck yourself - I know better than to engage with your autistic, pseudo-intellectual stupidity.

>>8862099

clearly not; you already did it for three hours the other night, and you're continuing to do so now. continue to make a fool of yourself by saying that the assertion that thought and being are not necessarily mutual guarantees of each other pseudo-intellectual, and keep on keeping the cogito on faith.

Nietzsche quote
Let the people suppose that knowledge means knowing things entirely; the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, ‘I think,’ I find a whole series of daring assertions that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove; for example, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on
the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an ‘ego,’ and, finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking – that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps ‘willing’ or ‘feeling’? In short, the assertion ‘I think’ assumes that I compare my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it
is; on account of this retrospective connection with further ‘knowledge,’ it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me.

>>8856289
How can you objectively determine if something is more real than anything else?

Only the one Nietzsche plagiarized

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>>8862102
If you have a problem with "I think", you are in effect stating that "X is doing the thinking", for which you have no evidence, proof, or anything. "I think", being you, yourself, makes sense on logical, reasonable, intuitive grounds. If you want to convince yourself that you're a pod controlled by an AI, be my guest, but really this argument - and you, by extension,, since you care so much about it, is utterly fucking useless. Take the redpill, ya edgy cunt.

>>8862229

>logical, reasonable,
>>intuitive

lol

>for which you have no evidence

I don't need "evidence." I am not the one making metaphysical claims. You are. And since your only "evidence" is "intuitive," I'm afraid you're still not proving your case! Try harder, my man.

>>8862252
You are making a metaphysical claim. If it is not "I" doing the thinking, then it something else. That is a claim, of which you have literally nothing to go on. Peace out, fuckboy.

>>8858796
nietzsche can't really be analyzed along with other metaphysical philosophy, his whole shtick was that german idealism had taken metaphysics to its end and it couldn't go anywhere, Kant and Hegel and the gang dropped the mic on critique of reason. that's what he means by "God is dead", metaphysics is dead in the abstract. that's why he's all about political philosophy and deconstructing morality

>>8862229
"I think therefore I am" is also useless. If "I think" is so intuitive, surely "I am" is equally so. What's the point of putting it in the form of an argument then? It's just using an obvious truth to support another obvious truth, without exploring or questioning what makes them so obvious or true.

>>8862319
This is a reasonable point.

>>8862319
I think what Decartes really wanted to do was just tell hardline skeptics that they were idiots, but couldn't so he made an argument on admittedly shaky ground.

>>8862319
Now how do you proof that you (whatever the nature of your 'I') exist (in any form whatsoever)? Exactly: by reflecting on the fact that you have conscious experience (i.e. 'think'). Hence the very useful proof: I think, therefore I am.

>>8855428
that lady is giant

>>8862055
Not a non-answer at all, it's just the Third Man question in a slightly different form.

>>8862229
Step outside the Western canon once in a while. Try reading some Eastern philosophy.

>>8862260

you're wrong. i'm just pointing out that when you posit an action you don't necessarily posit, at the same, time, a particular entity responsible for it. this is not a claim, this is a simple consequence of logic.

Mike Sterner

>>8862807
>i'm just pointing out that when you posit an action you don't necessarily posit, at the same, time, a particular entity responsible for it

So your argument is that there can be thought without a thinker, and you have made a similar statement to this earlier in the thread. Can you provide any evidence of this claim that you have put forth? How can there be thought without a thinker, or in this case a predicate without a subject?

>>8862841

No—but this does not change the fact that the burden of proof is on your "intuition," and not on my objection to using intuition as the yardstick of philosophy (intuition, which, by the way, is rather curiously defensive of the centrality of the thinking subject; this alone makes it suspect).

>inb4Ha! As I thought! You cannot come up with an elaborate metaphysics of pure process on the spot!

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It seems like this thread is full of people who have never read this guy. He already answered like half of the arguments in this thread.
>tfw you will never be this intelligent

>>8862863
No, I am pointing out that you are arguing something that you can even't substantiate, namely that there can be thoughts without a thinker. You made this claim, and you can't back it up.

>>8862882
I actually plan on reading the Critique of Pure Reason soon. From what I've been exposed of Kant, I find his take on things fascinating.

>>8862863
You're very skilled at dodging problems people have with your arguments and points, and you constantly shift and refuse to answer legitimate questions to the point of view you are espousing. You have shifted the goal posts so many times in this thread that it is unreal.

>>8862914

but anon, he is asking for a metaphysical explanation of where thoughts come from that does not rely on a "thinking" entity. objecting to the cogito on the grounds that the two are not automatically linked by causation does not require this.

in any case if i had to guess i would ascribe to a purely materialistic account, but then such an "explanation" would fall within the the realm of science, not ontological metaphysics.

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>>8858943
You deserve a reply for posting a genuine response.
This thread is cancer, worse than first year philosophy students at the pub.

>>8855046
>implying "I"

>>8862924
I can tell you get a hard-on from circular arguments, because you're basically forcing me to repeat myself and your own words that you won't even own up to or defend in any substantial way.
>i'm just pointing out that when you posit an action you don't necessarily posit, at the same, time, a particular entity responsible for it
This is a metaphysical claim. This is a metaphysical claim. This is a metaphysical claim.

Do you think about three times will do the trick? One more time.

This is a metaphysical claim. You cannot substantiate it in any meaningful sense.

Lacking an adequate justification, I am not convinced by your argument, which is that there can be thoughts without a thinker.

You have not made your case at all, and that case entirely rests upon the idea that you don't know who is doing the thinking.

Okay. So there are thoughts, but we don't know whose thoughts they are. Even still, this does not address the points I made earlier, namely, you have a consciousness, but apparently this consciousness might not be yours. If it's not yours, it must be someone/something else. Why should you believe that it is something else that is responsible for your thoughts? Where is your evidence? Where is your proof? You have nothing, absolutely nothing to back this argument up.

You're the hardline skeptic here. I'm asking you to justify your position that you may not exist based on evidence, not insane, fanciful thinking.

There is a possibility that we are all dreams or simulations from an AI. There is also a possibility of there being a tiny teacup floating around the world. Should we entertain that idea, despite no evidence of there being such an entity?

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>>8862972
Facts don't care about feelings

>>8862965

but anon, you're the one ascribing me absurd positions that I would never be able to defend, like

>If it's not yours, it must be someone/something else.

If this were my position, this would oblige me to metaphysically defend a notion of property. I would have to argue (transcendentally) that reality cannot function as such without certain things always "belonging" to or with other things. I don't see any reason for that to be the case, so I reject this out of hand. There is, for instance, no reason why the red of the coffee cup on my desk is the "property" of the coffee cup—the red exists in and for itself, without requiring some dependence on the object it colors.

The rest of the questions you are demanding quickly fall apart once this confusion is cleared up. I have no interest in answering "Why should you believe that it is something else that is responsible for your thoughts," precisely because I do not believe that to be the case. It might be the case, it might not—it might be the case that these thoughts simply appear out of thin air with such a degree of coordination that they attain sentience and experience their own coherence, of which "I" am the result. That could be the case. It could also be the case that I am some floating point observing that whole process taking place, with no point of reference from which to "experience" myself as other than that sum total of thinking. I could be a highly articulate simulation of a personality, or I could be the central egoic monad that produces the whole universe of my understanding. I just don't know, and I don't claim any of these. But what I feel fairly confident in saying is that the cogito is not the only possibility, nor is it a particularly likely one.

>>8862990
wew lad, you suck.
>but anon, you're ascribing to me a position that I must defend if my argument is to hold any ground!
This reinforces my point that you can't argue to save your life, and that you are, in fact, a pseudo-intellectual. Thank you for proving that, once and for all.

>>8862990
>But what I feel fairly confident in saying is that the cogito is not the only possibility, nor is it a particularly likely one.
There you go again, acting like you know stuff that isn't so. Why are you confident? Where is your proof of your claim that the cogito is not a "particularly likely" scenario? You are believing things

w i t h o u t e v i d e n c e.

>>8863005

I'm just feeling confident in making the assertion. i wouldn't say i "believe" it. you're the one sycophantically believing in the cogito lol.

>>8863014
Your confidence comes without evidence. You are a gullible fool who can be easily misled by any fucktard with a slightly plausible story.

>>8863000

but anon, if you would read the rest of the post, you would see a sketch of a metaphysics for which that question is absurd.

>>8863021
It isn't absurd. Your argument is nonsense, and you're a pseudo-intellectual.

I can safely say that I'm done with this retard. Good luck next time with the next dude you argue, maybe you'll win if they're stupid enough!

>>8855436

>>8863024

you're asserting that property exists prior to social relations... without. any. evidence. how absurd and pseudo-intellectual of you.

as to the other anon who accused me of "changing goalposts:" it is one thing to reject a claim, it is quite another to claim that its negation is true. The following are all very different claims

I think therefore I am.

The cogito does not hold water because thought does not guarantee a thinker.

Thoughts come from somewhere other than a thinker.

The second two claims, you'll notice, do not necessarily require each other: one cannot make the third claim without having made the second, but the second can be made without advancing to the third; nonetheless both require the rejection of the first implied between the first and the second. By rejecting the positive claims and ascribing only to the negative ones, i remain free of the burden of proof.

>>8863050

besides, if one did have to defend doubt, then the cogito as such would be impossible to formulate, for you could not in the first place reduce reality to the act of thought because of all the positive experiences right in front of you—one would be left without the philosophical apparatus for doubting upon which the cogito is founded! thus in effect the cogito is its own undermining, the exception that proves the rule while still conforming, on further dialectical reflection, to the rule itself.

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Someone needs to make an edit of this with Wittgenstein and the Tractatus.

>>8863050
>i remain free of the burden of proof
>translation: I don't have to provide any justification for my fucking crazy nonsense!

>>8863050
>you're asserting that property exists prior to social relations
Why do you speak in riddles, pseud? It's because you know you're talking shit, isn't it?

>>8863138

no, all I'm saying is that you're asserting property exists prior to social relations.

>>8863137

that thought automatically presupposes being is nonsense that has to be taken on faith; doubting that assertion is just the extension of descartes' own operating assumption.

get literate, plebes.

>>8855046
I think therefore I think. Just because your thoughts exist doesn't mean you as a person/mind/soul/perception do.

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>>8863186
>mindlessly repeats himself

>get literate, plebes

>>8863201

sorry but are you the one asking me to rebuild a whole metaphysics without the cogito, asserting that the cogito is the end all be all of the metaphysics of subjectivity, AND cannot decipher what i mean when i say that "you're asserting property exists prior to social relations?"

you're illiterate man

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>>8863222
>he can't explain his own bullshit

>>8863222
DIAF

You could be a random collision of sense data xd

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>>8855046
I am I and my circumstances

>>8855065
t. Solipsist
>as Russell points out; assuming that he is an "I" negates the breaking down of everything. It should be "it thinks therefore it is"
>that being said part 5 and 6 suck ruined it.

>>8864108
>that being said part 5 and 6 suck ruined it
Is that a...jojo reference?

>>8864108
>Solipsist
I wonder how you'd go about pronouncing this IRL. Seems a bit tricky.

>>8864120
Have you not read "Discourse on Method"?
Parts 1-4 are a fantastic overview of Descartes' philosophy
Part 5 is about dissecting a tiger
Part 6 is a self congratulating beg for money
>>8864124
Almost as tricky as pronouncing "IRL" IRL

>>8864139
I haven't read the full text, no. That sounds hilarious. As far as IRL goes, I just say "I - R - L"

>>8864168
Solipsism is the belief that you are the only person that exists and everyone else is a figment of your imagination.

>>8864175
No it isn't. It's the belief that you are only sure of your own existence. That's a different thing from postulating that everyone else is a figment of your imagination. They could be real, they could not be. The Solipsist says all that is known is the self via the conscious mind.

>>8864183
Well, I guess it depends on whether the subject is metaphysical or epistemological solipsism.

>>8864183
"My dear fellow, remember Emerson's advice" Basil Valentine said, and paused... "We are advised to treat other people as though they were real, because perhaps they are."

>>8864192
That's a good idea, yeah.

>>8864195
Thank Gaddis for that.

>>8855436
Kierkegaard please shut the fuck up.

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>>8855046
Americans are a living refutation. They are, yet they do not think.

>>8855441
Assuming using the term a priori means you're influenced by Kant, then this is a misunderstanding of Kant. Categorical truths such as cause, substance, mathematics, etc. are derived out of reason on the occasion of experience. Remember the whole maxim, "without content thoughts are empty...," yada yada? The understanding requires sense intuition to develop a priori synthetic truths on the occasion of experience; and, for Kant, math is synthetic.

>>8856438
>>8865867
This might clear things up. Logic is synthetic a priori in Kantian terms. That is, it requires sense intuition which is empirical.

>>8855155
>Thinks cogito hasn't already been disproved
Why are you on /lit/ if you don't read

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Can we at least agree on the statement "I perceive therefore I am" ? Or did I just miss the point ?

>>8859061


>Does thinking prove being
yes
>Must I think to be
No
>Is thought necessarily a feature of being?
No
>Do unconscious forms of life, incapable of thought, therefore not exist?
They exist.

"If A then B" (I think therefore I am) does not mean "If B then A" (I am therefore I think) nor does it mean "If [Not A] then [Not B]" (I do not think therefore I am not)

>>8866172
You can't prove unconscious things exist.

>>8866172
Actually you can't prove any of those but the first one.

>>8866195
>>8866212
Thats ok

>>8866096
You can think without perceiving. Dreams, for example.

>>8855046
yeah it's sound m8

completely sounding like some retard shit

>>8866096
You don't miss the point but you do make it painfully obvious that you haven't read any Descartes. Like 9/10 of the dunces contributing to this now very, very silly thread.

>>8855046

I am aware, therefore I am, would make more sense.
You can not think, but merely choose to become aware of the thoughts that the subconscious produces.
And the subconscious only produces those kind of thoughts that the environment supplies.
Free will and control is only possible in whether you pay attention to a thought or not, but you cannot conjure any thought.
That is the job of the subconscious and the environment.

Is there any need for this "proof"?

If you can say "I think" with certainty (without needing to prove first that you actually do think), can't you just directly say "I am"?

Can the statement "I am" ever be a lie?

>>8866328

Depends on who you think you are.

>>8865867

surely it's time to leave idealism behind and realize that math exists out there as structure of the real. it's time, in other words, for realism.

>>8866245
That's not true. We can build things that think but not perceive. Thinking is just processing information.

>>8866391

And what is processing information?

>>8866398
Coming up with new information by crossing it with other information.

>>8866411

>We can build things that think but not perceive.
>Coming up with new information by crossing it with other information.

How do these things we can build cross information if they have no way of putting it in and storing it/perceiving it?

>>8855046
Just because there is thought doesn't mean there is a thinker.

"It rains therefore it is" is a retarded sentence, for example.

>>8866461
>just because there is thought doesn't mean there is a thinker

give literally a single example where this is true

>>8866472
Every single one, the self is a meme.

>>8866450
Ok, we're using "perceiving" in a different way. I'm sorry, I must have used "being aware".

>>8866482
You gave an example but you haven't shown it to be true

>>8866357
I was noting that even under Kant's view math is something dependent on sense-intuition and therefore empirical, not that I necessarily agree with his views. However, mathematicians like L. E. J. Brouwer still would have held Kant's view is, in principle, justifiable. I won't pretend to have the mathematical acumen to determine that, but it is still certainly up for debate.

>>8866528
I thought empiricism meant that nothing could be known a priori except for math or time.

>>8866670
Time can't be known a priori either. As it's relative to speed and gravity due distortions.

>>8866505
Burden of proof is on someone asserting there is such a thing as a self.

>>8866709
>except for math or time.
obviously you know everything except how to read.

>>8866726
The self is not a thing to be proved, it just is. To doubt one exists, and yet is doubting, is nonsense. The burden of proof is the claim in which there is someone or something else doing the doubting.

>>8866910

stop asserting that that is the claim. the claim is simply that it might not be "the self," and that if it isn't the cogito falls apart. you're literally retarded.

>>8866913
Hey, Pseud King. Good to see you still lurk.

>>8866913
>the claim is that it might not be
>might not
Gee. Sounds like the claim isn't on any kind of solid ground at all, hmm?

A claim X might be true, and if X is true then Y is false. But until X can be proven to be true, then we shouldn't jump to the conclusion right away that Y is false, now should we? Both X and Y are possibilities with no clear cut answer. But if Y makes sense on intuitive grounds, and there is no compelling evidence for X which does not rest on similar grounds, then it makes sense to believe Y rather than X.

>>8866910
>To doubt one exists, and yet is doubting, is nonsense.
You're caught up in language. That something that happens needs a happener is a grammatical convention, not an ontological one.

Take 'it rains'. It seems like there is an 'it' needed for raining to happen, but raining just happens, no 'it' required. When raining is happening there is no 'it' you can point out in the middle of it.

The same goes for the self. There is motion, there are things going on, thoughts, lights, sounds, but at the centre of it is no identifiable it, no self. There is just happening, no happener.

There is no self that can be pointed out or defined. There is no observable self. It's merely conceptual.

>The burden of proof is the claim in which there is someone or something else doing the doubting.
There is no need for someone doing what is happening.

>>8866928
>intuitive grounds

faith is not "grounds" for anything lol

>>8867023
I don't think you are correct. To say that "It rains" means that it is raining without any cause is nonsense. It's not a matter of being caught up in language - if you doubt that you exist, how can you doubt that something is there doubting your existence? Furthermore, this is detracting from the central point of those geniuses out there who really want to "prove" we aren't in existence. You can't have thought without a thinker to think the thought. Actions require a subject, there is no action that arises from the aether that has no cause. To say that "It rains" is an example of this is, in fact, being stuck in language, not the other way around.

>>8867043
You are so boring.

>>8867023
As far as your points re:the self, I have to disagree. Your self is reflected in your actions, words, thoughts. This is all sense data. Though you can't retrieve the self and put it under a microscope, you can still have observations about your self through your senses and the senses of others. If your self is not your mind, or what makes up your thought processes, what is it? And are you then saying that your own thought processes are not observable by yourself? It is recursive, sure, but there are plenty of instances on my own experience in which I recognize and correct my thoughts.

>>8867245
>I don't think you are correct. To say that "It rains" means that it is raining without any cause is nonsense.
Not without any cause, but without an actor.

> It's not a matter of being caught up in language - if you doubt that you exist, how can you doubt that something is there doubting your existence?
I'm not doubting existence, I'm doubting the subdivision of it in self and non-self that has no basis in experienced reality other than for conceptual convention.


>You can't have thought without a thinker to think the thought.
So you can't have wind without some entity who 'winds'? This division between what happens and a happener, like a puppet master to phenomena, is unwarranted and unnecessary. Can't existence exist without someone who exists existence? Is the whole universe being 'done' by a universer?

I think all this dualism between deeds and doers is uncalled for and not justifiable.

>>8867276
There is experience, just no person at the centre of it. An idea of self is constructed out of experience and memory, but when you try to look at it it's not really there. It's an illusion.

When you sit quietly and observe there is no self there. It is only created by thinking 'self self self self'.

When you really get into an experience you stop doing this and the self drops away. This can be noticed in a flow state that most people are familiar with, but also in meditation.

>>8867288
>not without any cause, but without any actor
You're playing with words, now. By actor, it almost sounds like you're exclusively referring to a person, not a thing. But we're not talking about a person. We are talking about a thing that thinks. This is of what we can be sure of. My point earlier about the self is that, while we don't have definitive proof that "I" is "I", without any contradicting evidence it is nonsensical to assume that "I" is something else.

>>8855074

The definition of an illusion is a false or deceptive version of something real. You cannot have an illusion without the real thing for it to be an illusion of.

If there is no real thing for it to be an illusion of, the illusion itself is not an illusion. Its the real thing.

>>8867303
But where do you think your consciousness comes from? Do you really believe that it comes from another place besides your brain and its many neurons firing? I guess, to a certain extent, I see your point. We have a consciousness, but not necessarily a "self". However, that doesn't mean that our consciousness doesn't construct a self. Why is it that our minds construct this idea, if in your view, it is meaningless?

>>8867313
>We are talking about a thing that thinks. This is of what we can be sure of.
All we can be sure of in direct observation is that thought occurs. Adding a 'thing' that is thinking isn't required and is over-assuming.

We're conditioned to assume the rule that verbs need subjects but there is no reason to assume this blindly merely because this is how we conventionally construct it.

>>8867303
Locke argued that your self is your experience and memory, is that not a valid definition of the self?

>>8867339
I don't really buy into what you're stating as truth. If you want to believe that there can be predicates without subjects, no one is stopping you, but it's not convincing.

>>8867327
>But where do you think your consciousness comes from? Do you really believe that it comes from another place besides your brain and its many neurons firing? I guess, to a certain extent, I see your point. We have a consciousness, but not necessarily a "self"
I would say that 'consciousness occurs' rather than 'we have a consciousness'. I do assume consciousness occurs as a feature of brains.

>However, that doesn't mean that our consciousness doesn't construct a self. Why is it that our minds construct this idea, if in your view, it is meaningless?
I would guess the notion of self could have some evolutionary benefit or something like that. I wouldn't say it's meaningless or useless, but an illusion nonetheless.

My idea is that illusions can be very useful for human functioning and that untruth plays a big role in keeping the species going.

>>8867342
I think the self requires some sort of actively being constructed, because there are moments where both experience and memory are present without a notion of self.

>>8867352
Maybe I should formulate it as subject and verbs being identical, rather than subjects not existing. Although saying that subjects do not exists does a better job of dismissing the idea of constants. There is not some stable unchangeable self that does things, but the doer is the deed at all times. When you walk the walker and the walking is one.

Just like 'raining' and 'the rain' refer to the same phenomenon, and lightning is nothing but 'lightening'. When you take away the raining and the lightening, there remains no rain or lightning that did it.

I'm a bit of a tired mess and I'm going to sleep right about now so I may come back to this and try to phrase it better, but the idea is that there is no doer separate form the doing and no self separate from the other. Without 'conceptual discrimination', a thought occurs just like a sound does in conciousness, one no more done by the self than the other, and that self itself exists only by virtue of an arbitrary inside/outside discrimination, but there is really no place where self stops and other begins.

Good night lads.

>>8855046
>>8855065
>>8855067
>>8855089
>>8855091
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>>8855095

Everyone here is an idiot. Descartes wasn't attempting to prove that one who thinks must exist. He was trying to establish a first principle of knowledge, some idea that one is literally incapable of disbelieving. In other words, the point wasn't "if you think then you must exist," the point was "if you think then you must think you exist," or "you cannot not think that you exist."

If you're going to try to argue against a great thinker (notice I didn't say correct, simply great) then maybe you should try and first understand what he is saying you fucking groundlings.

>>8866670
Kant isn't an empiricist, he's a transcendentalist, because we derive a priori synthetic truths that provide us empirical information about things we haven't or aren't experiencing now.

He would say things like substance, cause, effect, etc. (other categories) are a priori truths that develop out of reason on the occasion of experience. But they're still truths that give us information about the world, they're synthetic; and mathematics and geometry require sense intuition, they are, therefore, empirical.

His argument for mathematics requiring empirical intuition is so: consider a proposition such as, "make a figure out of three straight lines." Kant would say you cannot derive the concept of triangle out of the concept of straight line or three, and that it necessarily appeals to another faculty, in this came the empirical/sensuous intuition of triangle.

A priori truths are, effectively, truths about reality that don't necessitate experience. So there can be some a priori truths that require empirical intuition. It may help to understand Kant's purpose, which was to justify Newtonian science by placing notions of free will, God, etc. outside of the methodology of metaphysics. If any more questions feel free to respond and I'll try to answer. >>8866817
and the other guy wasn't me.

>>8855413
No, because there is nothing to apply logic to and therefore nothing to apply the logic itself.

>>8855099
this post hit me in the feels. Im sorry sadbro :(