Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

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Ginkgo
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Ginkgo »

Just to clear up what Descartes meant by, "I think therefore I am." Descartes realized we experience the world though our senses. He also realized our sensory experiences are unreliable. In other words, when it comes to experience it is impossible to know anything about the world with certainty. The one thing Descartes knew with certainty was that he existed. The reason being that if we ask questions about the nature of experience there must exist something or someone that actually asks these questions, hence the cogito.

That's the cogito in a nutshell.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Dontaskme »

Ginkgo wrote:Just to clear up what Descartes meant by, "I think therefore I am." Descartes realized we experience the world though our senses. He also realized our sensory experiences are unreliable. In other words, when it comes to experience it is impossible to know anything about the world with certainty. The one thing Descartes knew with certainty was that he existed. The reason being that if we ask questions about the nature of experience there must exist something or someone that actually asks these questions, hence the cogito.

That's the cogito in a nutshell.
The cognito is the thought. But nobody thinks this.

The world does not exist apart from the body; the body does not exist apart from the mind; the mind does not exist apart from consciousness and consciousness does not exist apart from Self, which is Existence; Awareness. (there is no room in AWARENESS for a thinker)

Awareness cannot be known by a someone/something. Awareness is known only in that not knowing. By not knowing NO thing, EVERY thing is known. ONE WITH THE KNOWING.
Ginkgo
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Ginkgo »

Dontaskme wrote:
The cognito is the thought. But nobody thinks this.
Descartes thinks this.
Dontaskme wrote: The world does not exist apart from the body; the body does not exist apart from the mind; the mind does not exist apart from consciousness and consciousness does not exist apart from Self, which is Existence; Awareness. (there is no room in AWARENESS for a thinker)

Awareness cannot be known by a someone/something. Awareness is known only in that not knowing. By not knowing NO thing, EVERY thing is known. ONE WITH THE KNOWING.
I don't wish to be rude but this is just incomprehensible.
Ginkgo
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Ginkgo »

Again, it might be useful to go back to the OP.
Dontaskme wrote:''Who'' is the I who is thinking? ... in or to whom does a thought arise?
When it comes to Descartes it is the person who is questioning the nature of existence.
Donaskme wrote: ''Who'' is the I in I am receiving a thought so I am.?
We don't receive thoughts, the mind generates thoughts.
Dontaskme wrote: What / who am I ?
Descartes would probably say you are a thinking being.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Dontaskme »

Ginkgo wrote:
Descartes thinks this.
That's impossible.

Descartes is a name, it's a thing, it's a concept, a thought. There is no thinker of thought. And even a thought itself cannot think. Thoughts are arising in and to no thing from nowhere. There is an awareness of each thought, but that awareness in and of itself is not a thing and neither is it the thought thing that it's aware of.

Awareness is only ever one with itself... what that means is that there is just everything aware...which is no THING. For if every thing is already here, where is there room for a THINKER to exist? Everything is the same as Nothing. No thing is APPEARING as Everything... I don't know if the mind can grasp that idea? some people do though.

Everything aka awareness is already aware, it is without concept of itself, awareness has no idea what it is...but then this no thing wanted to be some thing ... an energetic phenomena called ''thought'' appears in that which cannot be conceived to form a conception of itself as the thought.

From this realisation.. it is seen by no one....that no thing is appearing to be some thing...albeit illusory.


There is no thinker in a thought. Just as there is no I in a thought having the thought. The thinker is born of the thought itself in the exact same moment known in the no thing it arises, any thinker is an illusory add-on. The thinking is the thinker itself.

There is no thinker and thought, they are the same no/thing... if we were the thinker of our own thoughts, we would be able to choose our own thoughts.

Thoughts come and go in ''NO THING'' aka ONENESS/ AWARENESS.

Descartes cannot be the thinker, Descartes is the awareness in which thought of him appears. No THING is making thoughts appear.
....awareness is thought, thought is awareness. Simply because there is awareness of every thought, which is inseparable from the thought.

It's all no thing appearing to itself as every thing.
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Throng
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Throng »

Dontaskme wrote:
Throng wrote: The thread is at least presented as being about Descartes, but I came to suspect that was just a front after reading a few posts. Problem is everyone knows "Cogito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.
Yes, there is the belief I am my name, my body, my conditioning, my mind.

This is Not so on a more subtle level.

'' The operation of consciousness
has created the ‘apparition’ called ‘me’. ''




What you are has no form ...like this >

''Water has no shape, its nature is to flow. If you put it into a vase it will take the shape of the vase. In this cup, it has assumed the shape of the cup. If poured into my cupped hands it will take the shape of the hands. But water has no shape. It is the same with the consciousness, which is subtler than water. It similarly has no form, but it assumes the form of whatever concept it is poured into or identifies with, but it will never be the form.
It remains ever its formless nature.''
That's what I think most people refer to as 'I' or 'myself'. Something that has no shape of itself, but is somehow shaped by self expression, self reflection or something like that. Descartes referred to it as 'each time it is expressed by me or conceived of in my mind.' He didn't describe what 'it' was, but he implied it was not of the senses, which makes it difficult to describe.
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Throng
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Throng »

Harbal wrote:
Throng wrote: . Problem is everyone knows "Cognito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.
.
Or even how to spell it.
I even used an apostrophe incorrectly in the same post! That's far, far worse.
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by waechter418 »

Dontaskme wrote:
waechter418 wrote:As most of you - except Dontaskme (!) - use this thread to fill your mirrors with denials, excuses & abuses, let me quote a basic rule of Taoism (that old Chinese philosophy which thinks about nothing:-) - KEEP YOUR MIRROR CLEAN

''We need the mirror
to see that the personal is not.
Self-enquiry is the mirror.''
The question is not if mirrors are needed, but what to do with them.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dontaskme wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
I have identity therefore I am.
No thing / nothing made that up.
''That, within which even silence is heard;
before perception arose. Which, itself,
perceives perceiving. That concept-less
and Immutable Being-ness. That alone Is.
-That we are.''
Keep answering your own posts.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

"there is the belief I am my name, my body, my conditioning, my mind"

What 'I' (me, Henry Quirk) am: a particular and peculiar brain/body embedded in the world.

Absolutely no need for me to resort to zen horse manure or (not so clever) semantic tricks or (as RG1 might say) 'magic'.

Now what Don or RG1 or any one else might be, I can't say.

Don may be nuthin' more than a cell in some spiritual or psychic superorganism, RG1 may be nuthin' more than a conduit for Azathoth as It gibbers mindlessly at the core of Reality.

Don't know...don't care.

But me? Just a guy who thinks and self-directs.

Prove me wrong (or, just pony up a single stitch of evidence supporting your view...sumthin' above and beyond the nuthin' both of you have offered so far...you'll have to...I'm thinkin' most sensible folks are dog-tired goin' back and forth with nimrods who deny themselves, deny the evidence of themselves, so as to offer up convoluted nihilism).

As soon as either of you (or, any one) offers up sumthin' (an evidence) that can make me doubt my own efficacy and reality, I'll be back in this thread to get your addresses (I'll need 'em so I come over and kiss your asses [which is what I'll do, in public, when any of you can offer up anything other than word games and 'logic' {I can 'logically' prove the existence of Santa...I'll still be wrong, but I could}]).

Till that day: 'nuff said.
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Dontaskme »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:
No thing / nothing made that up.
''That, within which even silence is heard;
before perception arose. Which, itself,
perceives perceiving. That concept-less
and Immutable Being-ness. That alone Is.
-That we are.''
Keep answering your own posts.
Who / What Am I? ..is the ONE question to all our answers.

All answers point back to that one question.
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Dontaskme
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Re:

Post by Dontaskme »

henry quirk wrote: But me? Just a guy who thinks and self-directs.
So Henry is a guy who thinks?

If you are a thinker...please answer each question...Can Henry control his thinking? Can Henry choose which thought to have? Can he get rid of unpleasant thoughts? Does Henry predict what thought he is going to have next? Can Henry stop having thoughts? Where are Henry's thoughts when he is in deep dreamless sleep? In deep dreamless sleep Henry is obviously present, so where are his thoughts. Why the absence of thought during sleep? Does Henry have control over the exact time he decides to wake up from deep sleep? Does he use his thoughts to wake himself up?
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Dontaskme »

Throng wrote:
That's what I think most people refer to as 'I' or 'myself'. Something that has no shape of itself, but is somehow shaped by self expression, self reflection or something like that. Descartes referred to it as 'each time it is expressed by me or conceived of in my mind.' He didn't describe what 'it' was, but he implied it was not of the senses, which makes it difficult to describe.
Yes I get this, and what I think he was describing was the ''flavour'' of being, that only he could taste as and through a direct experience. He could not pinpoint the actual source or location of this 'flavour of being' because all that was known to him ..was the flavour. To pinpoint the actual source of that flavour of being couldn't be possible, no more than one could describe the precise flavour of an orange, the flavour of an orange could only be known in the actual tasting/experience. One can't know the taste prior to the tasting. The Knowing only becomes available upon the experience, it comes in the exact same moment of the actual experience. An experience doesn't need an experiencer, an experience is the experiencing always in the moment, the known then can't look back to see who the experiencer/knower is...because there is only ever the known experience appearing in the moment known one with the knowing.

The problem Rene Descartes caused in using the prefix ''I'' ...which is synonymous with a 'separate me' is that he unwittingly created the artificial belief that because there was the awareness of thought, there had to be a thinker separate from the thought....as in ''I think''

To utter the word I is to artificially create it...but it's just a word, and a word whether it appears as written which is an empty image, or as a vocalised noise, which is sound appearing from nothingness/silence.

To conclude then...

There is no thinker causing a thought to appear, just as there is no thinker causing a tree to appear, or a cat or any other biological organism to appear. ....the ''I'' only appeared because of language which is illusory.

PS... if we take the projector analogy...we can see that the light behind the projector, does not / cannot look back at itself to see the source of it's own light. It doesn't need to do that...it sees itself only upon the screen on which it is projecting as images of itself.

Logic tells us that light is empty along with it's projections....the illusion appears real, but it's not what thought thinks it is. Nothing is what it seems, nor is it otherwise.
Ginkgo
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Ginkgo »

Ginkgo wrote:
Descartes thinks this.
Dontaskme wrote: That's impossible.

Descartes is a name, it's a thing, it's a concept, a thought. There is no thinker of thought. And even a thought itself cannot think
If it is a thought then it must have a thinker attached regardless of where you say it comes from.
Dontaskme wrote: Thoughts are arising in and to no thing from nowhere. There is an awareness of each thought, but that awareness in and of itself is not a thing and neither is it the thought thing that it's aware of.
"Thoughts are arising in and to no thing from no where." This is especially nonsensical.
Dontaskme wrote: Awareness is only ever one with itself... what that means is that there is just everything aware...which is no THING. For if every thing is already here, where is there room for a THINKER to exist? Everything is the same as Nothing. No thing is APPEARING as Everything... I don't know if the mind can grasp that idea? some people do though.
"Everything is the same as nothing." Nothing is appearing as everything." This is also nonsensical. You cannot have nothing and everything being one and the same.
Dontaskme wrote: Everything aka awareness is already aware, it is without concept of itself, awareness has no idea what it is...but then this no thing wanted to be some thing ... an energetic phenomena called ''thought'' appears in that which cannot be conceived to form a conception of itself as the thought.

From this realisation.. it is seen by no one....that no thing is appearing to be some thing...albeit illusory.
It stands to reason that if it is a no thing then it cannot be something. You claim is nonsensical.
Dontaskme wrote: There is no thinker in a thought. Just as there is no I in a thought having the thought. The thinker is born of the thought itself in the exact same moment known in the no thing it arises, any thinker is an illusory add-on. The thinking is the thinker itself.

There is no thinker and thought, they are the same no/thing... if we were the thinker of our own thoughts, we would be able to choose our own thoughts.
We do choose our thoughts. Right now I am choosing to go and have a cup of coffee.

Dontaskme wrote: Descartes cannot be the thinker, Descartes is the awareness in which thought of him appears. No THING is making thoughts appear.
....awareness is thought, thought is awareness. Simply because there is awareness of every thought, which is inseparable from the thought.

It's all no thing appearing to itself as every thing.

If thought appears in Descartes then he is the thinker, regardless of where it comes from.
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Throng
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Re: Questions about Descartes ''I think therefore I am''

Post by Throng »

Dontaskme wrote:
Throng wrote:
That's what I think most people refer to as 'I' or 'myself'. Something that has no shape of itself, but is somehow shaped by self expression, self reflection or something like that. Descartes referred to it as 'each time it is expressed by me or conceived of in my mind.' He didn't describe what 'it' was, but he implied it was not of the senses, which makes it difficult to describe.
Yes I get this, and what I think he was describing was the ''flavour'' of being, that only he could taste as and through a direct experience. He could not pinpoint the actual source or location of this 'flavour of being' because all that was known to him ..was the flavour. To pinpoint the actual source of that flavour of being couldn't be possible, no more than one could describe the precise flavour of an orange, the flavour of an orange could only be known in the actual tasting/experience. One can't know the taste prior to the tasting. The Knowing only becomes available upon the experience, it comes in the exact same moment of the actual experience. An experience doesn't need an experiencer, an experience is the experiencing always in the moment, the known then can't look back to see who the experiencer/knower is...because there is only ever the known experience appearing in the moment known one with the knowing.

The problem Rene Descartes caused in using the prefix ''I'' ...which is synonymous with a 'separate me' is that he unwittingly created the artificial belief that because there was the awareness of thought, there had to be a thinker separate from the thought....as in ''I think''

To utter the word I is to artificially create it...but it's just a word, and a word whether it appears as written which is an empty image, or as a vocalised noise, which is sound appearing from nothingness/silence.

To conclude then...

There is no thinker causing a thought to appear, just as there is no thinker causing a tree to appear, or a cat or any other biological organism to appear. ....the ''I'' only appeared because of language which is illusory.

PS... if we take the projector analogy...we can see that the light behind the projector, does not / cannot look back at itself to see the source of it's own light. It doesn't need to do that...it sees itself only upon the screen on which it is projecting as images of itself.

Logic tells us that light is empty along with it's projections....the illusion appears real, but it's not what thought thinks it is. Nothing is what it seems, nor is it otherwise.

It's just that you assert 'I' = 'separate me'. 'I' might refer to that which remains constant while experience continues to change. For example, people use 'I' to refer to themselves at age 10, and still use it at age 60, so it follows that 'I' refers to something is continuous as opposed to anything of the senses. The issue with thought is, the thinking of a thought and its appearance in consciousness is simultaneous, so there is no causal principle in the usual chronological sense. In the projection analogy, what people refer to as 'I' is like the movie screen rather than the changing light display upon it, but people can think the kinds of thoughts they want to, have the sort of movie that they want to, and basically, what people notice most in life is precisely what most interests them.
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