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Author | Topic: "I think therefore I am" - Decartes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mission for Truth Inactive Member |
What does this mean for humans who obviously think?
What does this mean for other forms of life that do not think? Right now - staring at my dog - I can't be sure he doesn't think, because it looks like at least something is ticking around in there. Life is way too confusing for me.
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I don't know, therefore Am I?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5840 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
I don't mean to take the air out of the tires of this thread, but DesCartes's famous line is meant for people that are thinking.
He was simply trying to get to the very foundation of knowledge. The one true fact which cannot be removed is that since you are thinking, you must exist. I imagine many other living beings think. There is a question of how deeply and about what, but the clearly have brains and make decisions and so have some form of thought. They just don't seem to think so deep that we would call it abstract reasoning, or logical deduction/induction. As far as we can tell they just don't care what they really know, or what can be truly known. Or maybe they figured it out already and are spending the rest of their lives enjoying themselves? holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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Amlodhi Inactive Member |
quote: Indeed. When I had a dog, I used to object to people calling him a dumb animal. Afterall, he had me working to support him.
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NeilUnreal Inactive Member |
quote: Dogs are Zen masters. -Neil
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tkster Inactive Member |
What you think makes who you are as a person.
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tkster Inactive Member |
Eh, double post
This message has been edited by tkster, 08-08-2004 09:27 PM http://www.skeptictimes.com/ April 1rst - National Evolutionist Day!!! |
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: We have no way of confirming that dogs think in the same way we do. That is, we lack communication of abstract thoughts. Therefore, nothing concrete can be concluded one way or another. However, owning a dog myself, I know what you mean. They can often respond to a simple gesture or your overall demeanor and react accordingly. My dog, for example, knows when I am going for the leash, even if I am walking away from the leash at the time. There is communication between humans and dogs, and it does appear that there is a "hamster running in the wheel", but we will probably never be able to communicate at the same level as we do with other humans. We will never be able to confirm the structure of our inner thoughts with any other species besides our own (barring extraterrestrial intelligent aliens, and maybe not even then).
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: But . . . does being a person MAKE you think a certain way?
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coffee_addict Member (Idle past 498 days) Posts: 3645 From: Indianapolis, IN Joined: |
Isn't it possible that Descartes got it backward? Isn't it more reasonable to say that I am therefore I think?
It's like saying tornados don't usually form inside the cities because the cities are there. In reality, the fact that tornados almost never form in those areas made it possible for cities to grow. The Laminator For goodness's sake, please vote Democrat this November!
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: No. A rock "is" but it doesn't think. Also, Rene postulated that "thinking" was not necessarily tied to the physical being. Instead, thought could be all there is while the physical is a "dream within a dream". However, you could rephrase Rene's argument (by not unfairly switching around the premises) to make his claim read "I am, therefore I am". Within the rules of logic Rene's argument is really poor, but I think it does portray some truth. To know that you are thinking, you have to BE. He inserts the conclusion into the premise, which is an obvious no-no. At best, we can conclude the being and thinking coexist, but one is not the cause of the other.
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5840 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
Isn't it possible that Descartes got it backward? Isn't it more reasonable to say that I am therefore I think? No. He was simply trying to find absolute truths, things which could not be removed by any evidence, nor any logic. I must disagree with Loudmouth in that I don't see the logical error he commited in this statement. He certainly makes quite a few when moving on from that statement, but I think that one is pretty solid. Perhaps he made a semantical error, which leads to much confusion. It might be better if he had stated it as: Since I think, and it takes the existence of a thinker to have a thought, I must necessarily exist. Therefore I know for a fact... since I am thinking... that I exist. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5840 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
However, you could rephrase Rene's argument (by not unfairly switching around the premises) to make his claim read "I am, therefore I am". Within the rules of logic Rene's argument is really poor, but I think it does portray some truth. To know that you are thinking, you have to BE. He inserts the conclusion into the premise, which is an obvious no-no. Uhmmmmm... I think one of us has got DesCartes wrong. From how I read it, and it was taught to me, the passage in which he write that phrase, had nothing really to do with establishing cause and effect of thinking and being. What it had to do with was grinding all knowledge down till he found what he could positively know, without any doubt. So it was a more question of epistemology, not necessarily existence. What could he KNOW? And it turned out that he could be made to doubt everything experience had given him... but one thing. He experienced thought, and that meant he (as the thinker, or perceiver of a thought) must exist. THAT he could not be fooled about. From there he tried to build up a body of knowledge using logic. Oh boy, not so hot writing after that. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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Morte Member (Idle past 6124 days) Posts: 140 From: Texas Joined: |
Reminds me of another few...
"I doubt, therefore I might be." ...and... "I think I think, therefore I think I am." *** I believe, if I remember correctly, that holmes is right in the regard that he didn't mean the original statement so much as a logical, cause-and-effect statement. Not that the fact that he thinks determines his existence, but the fact that he knows he exists because he thinks.
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: Yeah, you are right. It is more of an axiom within metaphysics than an actual argument that depends on logic. Good point.
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