Does "Cogito, ergo sum" imply that we know nothing for certain besides our own existence?

[Achilles]

"I think, therefore I am"

Is that a the foundation of all knowledge, knowledge of one's own existence?

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, Achilles said:

"I think, therefore I am"

It should be “There are thoughts, therefore there is thinking”. The “I” is an additional assumption, that may or may not follow - that’s up to the philosophers to debate.

[Carrock]

5 hours ago, Achilles said:

"I think, therefore I am"

i.e. If you assume there is an 'I' which thinks, that is proof I exist.

Wut?

 

3 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

It should be “There are thoughts, therefore there is thinking”. The “I” is an additional assumption, that may or may not follow - that’s up to the philosophers to debate.

Problem here too. How can there be thoughts without an awareness of thinking - i.e. 'I' as an additional assumption?

You could hear from me or my computer “There are thoughts, therefore there is thinking” or "I think, therefore I am". Like any other natural phenomenon e.g. a waterfall, neither can be proved to require thoughts or consciousness without assumptions.

The original could be put as an axiom.

There is something called 'I' which is conscious of thinking.

Doing philosophy on the basis of that axiom requires many more implicit assumptions/axioms.

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

Moved from Politics to General Philosophy.

 

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, Carrock said:

Doing philosophy on the basis of that axiom requires many more implicit assumptions/axioms.

What would they be?

[Strange]

12 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

What would they be?

Well, some obvious ones

That there is an “I”

That there are things called “thoughts”

That “I” is aware of thoughts

That “I” is also the source of the thoughts

And so on

[Carrock]

4 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

What would they be?

That depends on what philosophy you want to do.

Even discussing this with you requires the assumption there is "something called 'I' which is conscious of thinking"  associated with you (e.g. you're not an unthinking AI program), and myriad other assumptions.

Do some philosophy using only "There is something called 'I' which is conscious of thinking."

X composed with Strange.

[dimreepr]

49 minutes ago, Strange said:

Well, some obvious ones

That there is an “I”

That there are things called “thoughts”

That “I” is aware of thoughts

That “I” is also the source of the thoughts

And so on

40 minutes ago, Carrock said:

That depends on what philosophy you want to do.

Even discussing this with you requires the assumption there is "something called 'I' which is conscious of thinking"  associated with you (e.g. you're not an unthinking AI program), and myriad other assumptions.

Do some philosophy using only "There is something called 'I' which is conscious of thinking."

X composed with Strange.

Just asking guys, but does I include a heron that thinks "oh look, lunch"?

 

[Strange]

6 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Just asking guys, but does I include a heron that thinks "oh look, lunch"?

 

It could do, if you had any evidence that such a thing existed. But more relevant would be a heron that thought, "cogito ergo sum".

[StringJunky]

9 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Just asking guys, but does I include a heron that thinks "oh look, lunch"?

 

'I' means that you can see yourself as a second person i.e detached. You can see yourself, in your mind, in place and time.

Edited September 4, 2018 by StringJunky

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

'I' means that you can see yourself as a second person i.e detached.

Just playing devil's advocate, String; I'm a paid-up member, as my history here would suggest.

[Eise]

On 9/4/2018 at 6:34 AM, Achilles said:

"I think, therefore I am"

Is that a the foundation of all knowledge, knowledge of one's own existence?

Descartes thought that. But I would say, nobody else really does.

On 9/4/2018 at 8:36 AM, Markus Hanke said:

It should be “There are thoughts, therefore there is thinking”. The “I” is an additional assumption, that may or may not follow - that’s up to the philosophers to debate.

I like that, at least as a good start... I think however I would reduce even more: 'Awareness of something, so something'.

A few other viewpoints:

• Buddhism: the independent existence of 'I' is an illusion
• Hume: 'I' is just  shorthand of the bundle of observations, thoughts, feelings (yes it is called 'bundle theory' of the ego) running in my head
• Dennett: The 'I' is a center of 'narrative gravity'. (He compares with the center of mass: on the surface of the earth it seems as if gravity comes from the center of the earth. But in fact it comes from the complete earth, not just from the center. So it seems there is an 'I' in here; but there is none really.)

I even think there is not a real foundation of all knowledge. Depending on the area of knowledge, i.e. the kind of object of research, the foundations are different. Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum' is a philosopher's wet dream.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Eise

[Strange]

36 minutes ago, Eise said:

Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum' is a philosopher's wet dream.

I think its very simplicity is what makes it appealing to many people (rather like popular science representations of complex scientific ideas).

37 minutes ago, Eise said:

A few other viewpoints:

• Buddhism: the independent existence of 'I' is an illusion
• Hume: 'I' is just  shorthand of the bundle of observations, thoughts, feelings (yes it is called 'bundle theory' of the ego) running in my head
• Dennett: The 'I' is a center of 'narrative gravity'. (He compares with the center of mass: on the surface of the earth it seems as if gravity comes from the center of the earth. But in fact it comes from the complete earth, not just from the center. So it seems there is an 'I' in here; but there is none really.)

I guess the devil may be in the detail, but those descriptions sound very similar, or at least, compatible. And they seem to fit with the fact that we know that so much of what appears "real" to us is just a series of illusions created by the brain. I suspect our sense of self is a similar illusion.

[Markus Hanke]

On 4/9/2018 at 11:44 AM, Carrock said:

There is something called 'I' which is conscious of thinking.

That’s assuming that “I” is identical to consciousness or awareness...which is another assumption  
I’d be extremely sceptical of this particular assumption, actually...when I was a kid, my concept of “I” was very much different than it is today, yet I was aware of things in the same way that I am today. So equating “I” with the agent of awareness is something I’d put a huge question mark over. Also, when one actually stops the philosophising, trains the mind into a more phenomenological mode, and then starts to investigate where that agent/observer/knower really is, one very quickly realises that it is in fact nowhere to be found. There is nothing permanent and independent that you can point your “inner finger” at and say: “That there, that’s me.” There is only a whole bunch of memories, views, habit patterns, processes, and tendencies, none of which is separate from the context in which they originated, and all of which are just impersonal natural processes. The “I” is really nothing more than a view the mind takes on in order to make sense of these objects and their interrelationships. It’s not so much an illusion, as it is a case of mistaken identity - the “I” is just a vast and very complicated network of cause-and-effect relationships in space and time. These are completely impersonal, natural phenomena.

It’s a bit like putting a candle in front of a rock, so that a shadow is cast. We can search for the “owner of the shadow” until the cows come home, but at the end of the day there is no one and nothing who “owns” it - it’s just light, and the absence of it. The same with “I” - there’s just a body interacting with the environment in various ways, and the mind pulling all of this together into a more or less coherent view of my body, my thoughts, my perceptions etc etc. But in reality these are all just impersonal process, and the “I” is nowhere to be found. That view is real, but it is also empty, since the object it refers to does not exist. It’s just a mental fabrication.

3 hours ago, Eise said:

Awareness of something, so something

Yes, but what question does this statement answer, really? We can only ever be aware of the contents of our own minds, i.e. mental objects of various kinds, including the end products of the processes of perception. Hence, the above is only to say that when there is awareness of something, there is mind - which is a rather trivial statement from a human perspective, albeit perhaps more interesting from a more general point of view.

Then of course, there is also the question of whether or not the inherent subject-object duality in the notion of ordinary “awareness” is fundamental and irreducible, or in itself an empty illusion of some kind. Just because we sense our experience as being dualistic, does not mean that this duality is actually a fundamental feature of awareness itself.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Markus Hanke

[mistermack]

Bacteria don't think. But they still turn the milk sour. So it doesn't work in reverse. And of course, I have no firm evidence that Descartes existed. The evidence I do have could have been planted in my brain at birth, designed to gradually unfold. 

And that goes for you lot too. The odds are heavily against it, but someone always wins the lottery, so unlikely things can happen.