Cogito ergo sum. Descartes famous words. What do they actually mean to us?

Discussion in 'Serious Discussion' started by SOCRATE_MMXII, Aug 30, 2012.

  1. moon510

    moon510 MDL Junior Member

    May 10, 2007
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    Thought makes the thinker a separate being. It doesn't matter if it is actuality or impression of the thinker. Human makes himself through thoughts. Thinking, related to environment, brings identity and meaning. If there is no relation to the environment, identity and meaning are lost, and the thinker asks himself: What is the meaning of life? Of my existence? "I" is a complex set of thought and feelings, but "I" has no identity and meaning without YOU, the other person, society or whatever.
     
  2. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

    Feb 13, 2011
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    If you go by what Yen is saying then you have to wonder if the "I" will be referring to the apparent physical self or the consciousness within, which apparently exists elsewhere.
     
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  3. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    Yen-San is discovering hot water for the umpteenth time :D - "egotistical ego" :D also known as "alienated Man" etc. etc. :D

    Otherwise, he has no clue about the many differentiations inside the notion... :D

    But he is trying! :D Which is much more than can be said for most!!! ;)
     
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  4. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    I am trying to understand an error, regardless of the achievements of Philosophy, the imperfectness found outside is also reflected in Philosophy itself.

    The hypothesis: cogito ergo sum is insufficient (outdated) to experience real self-awareness, being, because it grants too much value for the thinker (whose existence is confused with being) and is responsible for self-alienating of humans and the associated environmental destruction and 'destruction' of other individuals = wars.
    Science where the thinker is celebrated also even accelerates this process.

    I never agreed with cogito ergo sum. I never could neither at school or later, or now.

    I don't know what is special with 'to think' that it concludes being. And why not any other action...for instance. To think is a cognitive act which requires an actor.
    And why a coditio sine qua non? There are different causes which can have the same effect.

    Descartes also uses the term "ideae innatae"...but he did not get that that itself is the absolute, self-evident per se, no idea of 'something absolute' and has NO cause and is not different to 'his' god, being itself.

    The only thing he concludes is the existence of the thinker....am I the thinker? Or can I ever be it? Anything that I perceive in a way cannot be my Self! Nobody needs a Philosopher to get this...and the thinker dies when thoughts stop, but I survive.


    Cogitor, ergo sum sounds also well to me...

    "si enim fallor, sum. nam qui non est, utique nec falli potest"... :biggrin:

    P.S.: ‘I’ is commonly used to refer to an idea of myself. This idea is a bunch of thoughts which separates 'me' and 'my' from 'the rest'. This separation is thought up, though.
     
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  5. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    I can't talk to you :rolleyes: - you're way too clever for me, you know it all, my profession, as well as yours... :D :D :D
     
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  6. moon510

    moon510 MDL Junior Member

    May 10, 2007
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    If Decartes were alive, I would ask him: Why cannot be said: I breathe, therefore I am? Aren't our existences so self-evident whatever we do? Self-conscious life doesn't need logical proof of it's obvious existence. Folks in the East argue that thinking process overshadows the whole existence. I mean, while thinking the thinker is unaware of himself, of a larger part of himself. The harder he thinks the more absent-minded he is. It's funny how a philosopher or mathematician forgetful can be. With his glasses on his nose, he asks: Where are my glasses?:D
     
  7. nodnar

    nodnar MDL Expert

    Oct 15, 2011
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    to tell you the truth, i would not ask him anything.. i know that i exist, and that i like it.
    i like it so i am... no thought needed.. ;)and he does not, any more.. we are like a pebble
    thrown into a quiet pond.. just some few rimples, and then gone..

     
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  8. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

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    To "know you exist" and to "like it" are thoughts.
     
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  9. nodnar

    nodnar MDL Expert

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    but pleasant ones, lol
    excuse me if i am a bit shallow...

     
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  10. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

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    Walrus are never shallow, but tasty with bbq sauce.
    I wonder what happened to subconscious thoughts ?
     
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  11. rEApEAt

    rEApEAt MDL Senior Member

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    #411 rEApEAt, Sep 11, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2014
    First of all, you need to understand which problem the philosopher is trying to solve.

    You may not solve the same problem the same way; you also may pose the problem in a different way, and you may even reject the problem arguing it's a fake problem. But you can't do anything until you understand the problem itself.

    I'm not denying what you said. And I'm not even a big fan of Descartes. But, to be fair, we must give each one his own. So to be fair with Descartes we need to know which problem he was trying to solve with the "cogito ergo sum". It was not the problem of existence, but the problem of certitude. From which ground we can establish the certitude?

    Note that I'm not endorsing Descartes' answer or even Descartes' problem. I'm just saying which way we can be fair with any philosopher (giving him his own): to find and understand the problem (or the problems) which guided him in his quest. Without that, we would gain nothing from his effort.
     
  12. nodnar

    nodnar MDL Expert

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    yours or mine, antipode, i am a bit off topic, mb.. ;)

     
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  13. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    What the...??? This thread is about being... OTT... or just sideways... at all times... :D :D :D
     
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  14. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    Not bad, you've tried it anyway, like sarcasm. I should not miss to go on this way...:D


    You are thinking similar than I do. A thinker creates its own food that keeps its sorry life. Thinking itself is not the problem it is the obsession to think. (A relic of modernity)


    AFAIK he wanted to find a way to be absolute certain. No wonder that the Church said that is blasphemy because only the absolute can be absolute (certain) and the Church had the sole claim for god (actually to own god which makes 'him' relative again)....so both were clever the same amount…:D

    The hypothesis I had posted just claims for further development of cogito ergo sum...



    To claim for evidence / way to / idea of the absolute (certain) makes it relative. The thinker is the cause.

    I cannot shine with philosophical knowledge (food and limit for the thinker), hence I posted 'I don’t need Philosophy' to conclude the following:

    ......adresses the thinker.....

    Take a glass of red wine sit down on you couch and relax, don’t expect any sense your thinker claims for.. :D
    I am Yen. I am = being, yen=an idea with which ‘I am’ identified. Your idea of yen is not my idea, though and is changing during time.

    What is ‘I’? When trying to find an answer ‘I’ becomes the observer ‘who’ is looking for ‘I’.
    So what is the result? Anything what I observe is not me!
    Can I observe thinking, the thinker? Yes I can. Conclusion I am not the thinker, I observe it!.
    The thinker cannot conclude I am = being.

    Take another gulp of red wine, thinker, you’ll need it.
    So anything I observe is not me = the observer. So ‘where’ am I? What is ‘left’?

    That what I really am is 'being' and has no relation, it becomes self-evident IF the disturbing thinker who always determines the undeterminable, vanishes.

    Finally the statement that anything that I observe can’t be me becomes obsolete, since me and not me becomes one. From this ‘one’ anything comes and goes.

    And no 'I am' not stuck or in a loop, the loop or to be stuck is the wanted condition of the thinker, defending its existence, hiding its illusions.

    Why am I posing that, because it is fun..the happiness of being...
     
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  15. rEApEAt

    rEApEAt MDL Senior Member

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    Yep. In another words, he was a paranoid. Compare his knowledge theory with Spinoza' knowledge theory and you'll have a whole world of pleasure and enlightenment. Due to Spinoza, of course.

    By the way...

    The same way some people just give their backs to philosophy, some philosophers (or people who have a background in philosophy, which is different from being a philosopher) give their backs to biology and, specifically, to ethology. They think that man is some kind of ethereal being instead of an animal.

    Of course man creates himself. I'm not discussing that. But he (1) creates himself upon a biological basis.

    I'm sorry if I'm getting a bit off-topic, but I'm not discussing nothing that wasn't in this thread in the first place. I know what will happen (it's geometrical, Spinoza would say), so I will waste my time (and yours) only once more.


    (1) "He", "she" and anything in between, of course. I'm talking about mankind.
     
  16. moon510

    moon510 MDL Junior Member

    May 10, 2007
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    Doubt was the problem. And he overcame the doubt by deduction like this: "If I doubt, there must be something or someonne who doubts." It was his certain proof of his own existence even when he doubts in his own existence. Paradox. Thought: " I am not certain that I exist. There is a doubt about it." That line of thinking is a certain proof that I exist! Smart solution. :Lighten:
     
  17. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    I repeat :D Philosophy is not for everybody...:rolleyes: deffo not for plumbers... :D
     
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  18. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    Isn't it the Philosopher (thinker) itself who creates its own need (lack of wisdom)?:D

    Being is for 'everybody'. I 'know' being by being.

    When somebody says: "I know that I exist." Or I think therefore I am.

    Then the one has an idea (thoughts) of existence and agrees with this idea of existence or when unsatisfied with it one studies for instance Philosophy or Theology or even science to find an answer. But that has nothing to do with being.

    PS: I address the thinker, not 'somebody'...:hug2:
     
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  19. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    Oh, dear! Here we go again... :D

    Every Human does this, for as long as they are Human and it has nothing to do with Philosophy as such. It's our innermost need! (Sit down, Yen, you failed! :D )

    Lack of wisdom, in this case, is in the eye of the beholder... :rolleyes:


    Simple being - obviously - is simply "there"...:rolleyes: But "Being" is not for everybody - obviously! :rolleyes:


    Didn't I tell you to sit down and in other words shut up? :D See, you got yourself another negative mark! It will take lots of studying to get this one right! :D


    Whatever...:D

    Repeat after me: "Yen is Da Master of Philosophy and Universe, Yen is Da Master of Philosophy and Universe, Yen is..." :worthy:

    :clap:
     
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  20. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    Every Human does this, for as long as they are Human and it has nothing to do with Philosophy as such. It's our innermost need! (Sit down, Yen, you failed! )

    Lack of wisdom, in this case, is in the eye of the beholder...


    I know that! I picked Philosophy because Descartes was a Philosopher!!! His uncertainty was his own thought (eye of the beholder) and he wanted to have something that is absolute certain and he took the fact that he is thinking to reason being that is absolute certain?!?
    Hasn't he created his own issue by thinking itself? I mean he created uncertainty and certainty both by thinking.

    From this I came to the thinker. So I spoke generally that the thinker creates the own need to think about something.
    Science creates its own need and claims, Philosophy also and keeps it with them alive.
     
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