The 'Cogito' (again)

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Yazata, Apr 17, 2012.

  1. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    In the 'objective/subjective thread Rav and Literphor got into discussing the idea of 'I think, therefore I am' certainties. That's a subject that deserves a thread of its own. (And doubtless has already enjoyed many.) So here's an attack on Descartes...

    No, I don't think so.

    And when you get tired of writing stuff like that, what do you do? You go to the fridge and look for something to eat. You take a shit. You go to work. Your whole life is embedded in the larger world, your whole personality is shaped by it, and has been ever since you were born.

    On the other hand, what is this pristine and transcendentally-ideal "my mind" that Descartes thought was so indubitably certain? It isn't the physical body, because that's an inhabitant of the problematic "external" world. It doesn't seem to be a person's subjective experience either, if we decide to imagine experience as if it was another kind of ontological being that's somehow interposed itself between consciousness and the intersubjective world.

    The conscious mind, the agent of awareness, seems to be something else entirely, something that originally seemed so obvious that it seemed indubitable, but turns out to be frustratingly intangible whenever we try to see it clearly and grab hold of it. It never seems to enter into our direct awareness at all. It's never out there alongside everything else, in front of us, so to speak. It always seems to be hiding back there in the... void that lies behind each of our physical faces.

    This transcendental self might arguably be kind of a philosophical/ontological posit, serving as the grammatical subject in sentences about the many objects that we perceive and for all of the actions that we perform in our lives.

    The existence of the transcendental self, a substantial non-physical principle of subjective awareness and will, the soul in other words, looks to me as if it might be little more than a philosophical artifact arising from our tendency to use our language's grammar as a guide to imagining ontology. The seeming indubitability of this elusive mind substance may well arise from the grammar of how we express our ideas in subject-object form.

    Hence Descartes' idea that even if whatever we think about an object turns out to be false, the subject remains.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2012
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Rav Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,422
    You're absolutely right. The apparent reality of an actually existing external world is so wholly and completely convincing that I don't actually seriously doubt that there is one. Not at all. In fact the idea that it could merely be illusion only occurred to me when I became old enough to think in that sort of way, and it wasn't long before I decided to leave it (the idea that the external world does in fact exist) in place as a cornerstone of a greater metaphysical structure.

    Fair enough. I'm not inclined to object to any of that.

    Hmmm. I probably did a terrible job of articulating my thoughts in the discussion you referenced. If I am to be honest, I was being a bit lazy. Rather than putting a lot of effort into trying to more clearly identify the points of contention, I employed a strategy that consisted of expressing different iterations of the same basic argument in the hopes that some of the subtleties would become clear. I tend to do that sometimes, and it's probably somewhat prone to failure.

    Anyway, if this last statement is intended to represent a conclusion that you also think that I have reached, then it's not accurate. I don't agree that the subject remains (an entity in it's own right), but I would declare that no matter how subjective or inaccurate a mental representation is, it must be true that such a mental representation does in fact exist (as a representation only), otherwise we wouldn't be able to reflect upon it.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Whenever I feel pressured by the Cartesianists, I like to remember that old Renatus 1. formulated his philosophy after he was already sure he "got things right," IOW, he did not arrive at his certainty by following the reasoning he worked out in his philosophy, so whatever he and his followers say needs to be taken with a grain of salt; and 2. he formulated at least some parts of his philosophy specifically for the purpose of providing ready arguments for the Catholic Church to use against atheists, pagans and other heretics in an effort to convert them, so clearly, there is an ulterior motive and a vested interest in his philosophy, and we should be careful about it because of that.


    Descartes seemed to have equated the mind and selfhood.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    And this from the other thread:


    Not at all.


    But who is it that does the questioning?

    You? The mind? If you and the mind are two separate things, then how do you two interact, and how exactly does the questioning come to be?


    No.


    One of the most hotly disputed topics of Western philosophy is precisely the existence of the self.


    The Easterners also have a lot to offer on this.


    In Buddhism, for example, there is a bit of internal dispute between the schools:
    There are those who believe that our notions of "self" are only illusory, provisional, and that ultimately, there is no self.
    There are others who maintain that the Buddha never said there is no self, just that the things we usually identify with (thoughts, feelings, body) are not actually the self. These Buddhists also maintain that there is a process called selfing - the process in which we identify with thoughts, emotions, body, possessions.
    Then there are those who hold that "Buddha nature" is our true self.
    Then there are those who believe that "Buddha nature" is our true self, but that this is a compensatory belief because in reality, there is only void.
    There are a few more.


    Then the Hindus:
    Some believe that there is you (the real you), your false ego (the you that you usually identify yourself with), intelligence, mind, and the body.


    One thing that is typical for Easterners is that they tend to view the mind as separate from self, as not the self. Technically, from their perspective, one probably couldn't say "my mind." It's hard to describe what they exactly mean by "mind," but it seems that to them, it is something as external to a person as "air" or "earth" is to us. "Mind" is sort of something one resides in, moves through, like through air or water, and over which one has some control, but ordinarily, not full control.

    In order to utter a statement, you need the mind. But the mind is not you or yours. So when you say "I know I exist" you are uttering a misstatement. You can't come to certainty (about yourself) by using your mind, because the mind is not you or yours.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2012
  8. Rav Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,422
    Like many people, I work with probabilities to some extent. That is to say that I formulate a sense of how likely it is that certain propositions are true based on my own experiences and the knowledge that I gain. So to unpack the comment that you've quoted a little, I am effectively 100% certain that whatever sort of entity I am, I possess a measure of the quality of actual existence. Now, I am also quite certain that there is indeed an actually existing external world that exists independently of my perception of it. But if I had to put a number on exactly how certain I am of that, it wouldn't quite be 100%. Rather it would be something like 99.9%, and it's because no matter self-evident the existence of an external world seems to be, I can't conclusively demonstrate that the idea that it might be illusory is absolutely false. So this is what I mean when I say that one can be more certain that they exist than they can be about the truth of the proposition that there is in fact an actually existing external reality, even though they may indeed also effectively accept the latter as fact as well.

    Can you present an argument that demonstrates that the apparent reality of an independently existing external world is just as likely to be actual as the fact that you (whatever you are) are here to think about it?

    I don't think that the mind and the self are two separate things, but I do think that they are distinct in some way. I think the self is more primary. Sometimes I describe it as that which is having my particular experiences rather than someone else's. I tend to think that the self (in and of itself (heh)) is void of what we think of as "identity" or "personality" or "intellect", that such things sort of form around the self as we move forward and grow. To put it another way, and contrary to what some others believe, if I was to suffer some sort of neurobiological trauma and wake up tomorrow with complete amnesia, I believe that it is the self that is at the core of my being now that would remain at the core of my being afterwards, even though many other aspects of being have changed.

    As for how questioning comes about, I believe that that is also something that happens in the mind that forms around the self.

    But if the mind is an extension of the self (which is what I think makes the most sense, especially in light of what we can learn from neuroscience), then the self is still at the core of any statements we might utter. In other words, in the case of the statement "I think, therefore I am", what we have is an interplay between the self and the mind. It actually seems to be a recognition of that which brings thoughts to life, that which makes us more than just philosophical zombies.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2012
  9. gmilam Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,522
    Not an argument exactly, but a statement of the obvious (my problem with philosophy - the constant debating of the obvious). "Before enlightenment, chop wood & carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood & carry water." The external reality keeps infringing itself upon our personal reality - there's no getting around it.
     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    And then there was pseudo-Zen.
     
  11. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    But why was this issue of proving one's own existence brought up to begin with?

    Why do Cartesians set out with focusing on it? What do they try to demonstrate by discussing - and presumably solving - it?

    Was it ever really a serious problem whether one exists or not?
     
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    You know what the Buddha answered to such questions? He remained silent. The usual big philosophical questions (is the world eternal, is it not, is it neither; after death, does the person exist, not exist, neither; is the world fully determined by the workings of a higher being, is it not; ...) he mostly didn't address at all, or reformulated them and answered only to the reformulation.
    On another occasion, he noted that there are issues (such as the origin of the world) about which if one were to speculate, one would just go crazy - so it's better not to speculate about them (if speculating is all we can do).


    But unless there is something substantial, inherent to the self, then how can things form around it?

    Perhaps we could say that the self has an inherent capacity to form a sense of identity; as such, this being an inherent capacity, it is its identity, its nature.


    Where do you believe that the self originates, how does it come into being?


    But accepting this requires an additional belief, and one which cannot be derived from the mind, and that is that there is something else, something bigger that precedes the self, and the mind.

    You need some kind of space, some context, in which you can conclude that since you think, you are.
    Otherwise, you're in the solipsistic "I think, therefore, I have brought myself into existence from nothing."

    The Cogito implicitly takes for granted the existence of an external, primary world and one about which there is that doubt that leads one to conclude that one thinks.
     
  13. Rav Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,422
    What do you mean by 'substantial'? All I can say is that I definitely believe that the self is something that has quality and therefore is actual, and if its actual, why can't things form around it, or become an extension of it?

    The human brain is different to that of all the other creatures on earth. Some would call it more highly evolved. Some would say that we are capable of more complex thought. But does any of that have anything to do with the 'self'? I don't really think so. It actually appears that our sense of self (as distinct from our sense of identity) is more fundamental than that, more primitive perhaps. I certainly do not believe that other creatures are without a self just because they don't possess brains like ours. From this I conclude that the self is extended in whatever manner that the brain allows it to be, and this is certainly a process that happens gradually over time. We start off with a self, and a brain that is in some sense a blank slate of sorts, and then we grow.

    I can only speculate, and it would be wild speculation at that. But I am reasonably certain of two things: 1) the self is an emergent property of it's physical substrate and 2) that physical substrate is more than just the sum of the properties that we are currently able to assign to it. Those two things obviously go hand in hand.

    I don't think so. All you need to do in order to conclude that you are, is to be. How and why you are, are separate questions.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2012
  14. Literphor I is for ignorance Registered Member

    Messages:
    55
    Presumably, to show existence is self-evident.

    No, it was never a serious problem, but maybe it should be. Especially if we concede that some aspects of our universe maybe inconceivable. As good philosophers I thought we'd have a problem with that. I guess not.
     
  15. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Surely if one wanted to solve the problem of one's existence one would automatically have to acknowledge an external source of that which one considers to be "one('s )self." And then knowing about oneself would depend on what that external source is. And without the explicit input of that external source, one can't really say anything about one's own existence either.

    A real solipsist wouldn't have a problem. But humans ordinarily aren't real solipsists, so they have to get around the problem somehow.

    It does seem to me that the Cartesians are actually arguing for solipsism: to prove one's own existence out of oneself; to posit oneself as the ground of being, as an independent, objectively existing entity.
     
  16. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,323
    Just to explore this:

    Even the blind and deaf shouldn't have a problem with there being a world external to their body -- they can still feel, smell, and taste it. And the objectivity of it is that it resists personal will and desires; and people can confer with each other and inter-personally verify things about it. But the skepticism seems to traditionally start when this world of immediate perception and deeper, extended reflective thought is posited as being a mere copy or representation of yet another order of external world, existing independently of such manifested or empirical be-ing.

    Apart from maybe those who entertain panphenomenalism-related fare, this metaphysical version of the world is also usually taken to be as "invisible" to itself as the supernatural is to us in the natural world, yet it gets treated as more "real" than the "visible" environment we encounter every waking moment (even a faux version of the latter is substituted during dreaming). This is not say that there is no transcendent circumstance, but it is speculation that a transcendent circumstance is trying to represent itself at all, much less in the guise of the original external world that we actually perceive and experiment upon further, that has positive evidence.

    What one sees on computer monitors isn't even a bad copy of what's transpiring in the computer or the interconnected relations of all computers; the computer is part of what brings about that "cyber-world" exhibited on the monitors -- that "world" exists as such for the first time there rather than being an imitation. The inferior latter status of which, when switching from this analogy back to what it aids in realizing, is often what spurred the radical doubting of everything afterwards that has plagued philosophy at times. Cosmic nihilist: "If this is just a representation rather the real world, and I'm trapped in the former (reality of any kind disappears if I eradicate perception and intellection to try to escape), then to heck with with all externally-presented or theorized environments."
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Okay.


    Okay.


    And with some pixie dust ...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!




    That sounds rather esoteric!


    But for humans, they are the pertinent ones, esp. the one about the Why of existence.
     
  18. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    I think the problem isn't actually about whether the world exists or not or how, but rather - What should we do with it? How should we relate to it?

    And then further, the problem isn't whether I exist, but rather What I should do with my life? What goals should I set for myself? How should I pick them? What should I seek?

    Kant once formulated these questions as central for a human:

    What must I do?
    What may I hope for?


    The Cartesian "I am" doesn't really bring us any further. Humans are beings of action, not merely of statical recognition.
     
  19. Rav Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,422
    Of course. I've been asking how and why questions for as long as I can remember, just like most people. At times I've become wholly obsessed with such things. But all I was saying is that the act of recognizing that you are, indeed, conscious, requires nothing more than a simple reflection upon the fact that you're thinking about it. You don't have to account for how or why you exist before you can do that.
     

Share This Page