if there needs to be a thinker in order to have a thought, we can just as easily say there is no thought. but that’s mucking with the definition of “thought”.
so let’s say the fact that there is a thought implies that there is a thinker. i can deal with that, based on a certain definition of thought. so we have:
thought -> thinker.
so then, if we do not assume that there is a thinker, how do we determine that there is in fact a thought? to me, the argument looks like this:
that only instructs us on the use of the verb “to contemplate”, to wit, it must have at least an implicit subject; and,
we are using the recollection of our contemplation to drive a conlcusion that we are contemplating, when just such a recollection can be questioned.
I wouldn’t argue with Descartes should he say, “I think.” I would like to know what he is thinking of when he observes that he is thinking, and if it is appropriate to call that “thinking” given the word’s normal use.
I’m curious to hear what more this says that isn’t already contained in the phrase in question.
Correct (if we accept the Buddhist distinction between awareness and thought) but this doesn’t contradict Descartes. You still can’t be aware without existing.
I’m not convinced that the best way of approaching the ‘Cogito’ is on the level of ‘logical analysis,’ which essentially boils down to the analysis of our ‘signed representations’ of reality (however one may want to define that!). In this situation, ‘reality’ consists of the act of ‘Cogito.’
It seems to me mistaken to translate this ‘Cogito’ simply as ‘I think’ and then subject that statement to ‘logical analysis’. (I am here taking a very specific definition of logical analysis. By logical analysis I mean analysis of the ways in which our signed representations may/should be combined and manipulated. I propose instead a non-logical analysis, by which I mean an analysis focusing at a level other than that of the sign.)
Rather the ‘Cogito’ could be considered as being the ‘spiritual act’ in general, (by ‘spiritual act’ I simply mean thought, doubt, desire, fear, etc… One could perhaps use the term ‘mental act’ if one wanted to avoid religious connotations, but to my mind ‘spiritual act’ in the proper sense expresses what is meant less ambiguously) and in particular consideration of and doubt of the existance of self. But having initiated this particular ‘cogito,’ the exercise of the act provides resistance to the act itself! The harder one doubts one’s existance, the more evidence one provides of one’s existance. The reality of ‘self’ bubbles up and confutes the doubt.
Whilst the ‘logical analysis’ of ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ may or may not provide a solid basis for one’s existance is not the point. ‘Cogito’ is but a sign! The ACT of ‘Cogito’ is something else, it is at this level of ACT that the reality and existance of self is exposed.
(I’m not 100% sure, but I think that Descartes introduced the ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ in his Discourses on Method, but that in a later work, perhaps the Meditations, he rephrased it ‘Cogito, Sum’ which is very obviously NOT a syllogism, and this may indicate that it should not be analysed as a syllogism - Perhaps someone with access to the works in French could confirm!)
Ramanujan, the thought in question is you thinking about wether there is a thought. I can’t vouch for there being thoughts in your head; it’s a personal thing. It is difficult for onesself to deny that onesself has thoughts, because that denial is in itself a thought.
So, you have a thought. (Or, more correctly, I only know ‘I’ do; this is kind of a ‘bring your own thought’ party.) Given that thought:
thought
thought -> thinker
:. thinker erislover,
I used the term ‘comtemplating’ because I’ve been getting darned tired of the writing word ‘thinking’. And the distinction I was trying to make was, in response to the valid point that memories can be flawed or unreal, that that fact does not mean you’re not able to think about them.
The long (doubtable) notion I was trying to state succintly with the ‘me’ addition is: “I think, therefore I am myself as I understand it given my collective cache of memories”. The addition is the incorporation of one’s self-image into one’s self-awareness, which is not a defensible axiom. You could be a cognitive thought in the mind of god, or a venusian sludgeworm having a bad dream, or whatever. Whatever we are, though, we’re self-aware enough to consider wether or not we’re self-aware, and self-awareness counts as a thought, by my understanding of the term.
Iamthat
Suppose we grant that, if you don’t think, then you aren’t (necessarily). This is a sustainable position; but the problem is, for you to understand that, to even entertain that notion for one instant, then you are thinking, and therefore are. Personally I doubt that you can pas even an instant without thinking, if at least white noise, but even if you did, when you started to gloat in your non-thinkingness, you’d be existing again. Oh, and don’t think about a purple elephant! Now we have you.
No materialistic manifestation is required. consciousness, itself, is enough. If I am a non-materialistic stream of thought, then 'I" exist as a non-materialistic stream of thought. The axiom does not necessitate a physical manifestation for “I.”
That’s nice; I don’t think they do. But even if they did, Descartes wasn’t, and persons who are considering Descartes’s argument are definitely thinking for the duration.
I think therefore i am…
do you the people of the board think this is an accurate to define existance?
Its the only concept I can take absolutely , so yes it works for me…but its kind of limiting and a little egotistic to consider that the visible universe around me could be a figment of my omnipresent imagination…and not being very imaganitve, and barely present it further fuels my impression that “They are because I can’t”
I quite agree this is what he might have hoped could be said, but (two points again)
That is not what he said; and,
My own inclination is to consider this as a remark of the grammar of “to think” rather than any epistemological or ontological statement.
No worries. I hope my reply didn’t make you think otherwise.
Of course not. But my point is that it is their content which is appealed to in the statement we are considering.
I agree with this completely. But I need to know that I am aware of myself to make the statement that “I think”—that this is me thinking.
Pick a verb that requires a subject, any verb that requires a subject in common speech, and restate it. Think of the oh-so-funny “I shop, therefore, I am.” Sure, I can doubt that there was anything to “really” buy, or that I bought the right thing when I could have actually bought the wrong one, (that is, by analogy, whether the memories are mine, or whether they are true, or etc) but how can any of this demonstrate that I am?
Any good philosophy gives advice. If it doesn’t, it is a fact or theory. “I think, therefore I am” is just a theory if that. I think it was just some guy trying to be profound. Monkeys can think, are they aware that they exist? Chairs can’t think, does that mean that they don’t exist?
