Come up with a different definition of existence than "I think; therefore, I am."
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Argh
Descartes' "I think; therefore, I am." is flawed, by my opinion. The rock has no thought, but it exists... any inanimate object has no thought, yet it exists. I am having trouble, however, finding a reasonable solution to this problem. Please post any suggestions for a more refined definition here. Thanks.
Voted for by Crusader318.
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existance is only what we think exists
matrix remember. reality is rellative to what our brain says. if your brain tells you that there is a wall where there clearly isnt one ther is a wall for you. in the end the only thing we can really say is that my brain has said this to be real, everything else we are not sure of. period nothing else. thats the ultamate result of i think therefor i am.
Voted for by pnktrky.
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Existence...
- Thinking is proof we have brains.
- Knowing our brains exist, we know our brain is in our skull which is on our body meaning we exist.
- Being able to touch and feel other physical objects with our body which exists means these objects also exist.
- Anything outside of the physical realm is created in our brains.
- These non physical "things" in the brain exist because our brains exist.
Voted for by dollar.
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Awareness
After all is said and done, what all of us have in common is Awareness-- the peak of conciousness that we know of. That awareness that knows you-- that is what you are. That is the pinnacle of existence. YOU ARE THAT. By any other name, you are God-- that Consciousness that has been here since day 1. It has taken 13.7 billion years for God to know himself. YOU ARE GOD. The rock has consciousness. It is conscious of hardness, of severe contraction which is why it is what it is: it knows how to be a rock.
A more refined Descarte: " I am aware; therefore I AM".
That awareness supercedes the mind, your thoughts and ANY thinking. You can even be aware of your awareness, but to get to that point you have to be enlightened like me. For now, you are confused, like Descarte was, that you are your thoughts.
Voted for by Brew Kline.
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Relitive Reality
What I think when Descartes said "I think; therefore, I am." He was talking about the Human awareness, or maybe even awareness in general... So far we haven't really found anything that is "aware" enough to define as such. "I think; therefore, I am" The question we must ask is; "Am" what, what does he believe he is? Human or is he just... But people thought differently back in his time, maybe he thought that the human race -because of it's self awareness, and able to discern logic- was far superior, even maybe godlike than any other living organizm out there.
There are many, many organism's in this world that are self aware. Take schools of fish for example, they swim as a group often looking like much larger fish to frighten off any that might attack them...
Voted for by ThePhantomTragedy.
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How big is a hole?
Everything exists unless you can prove otherwise - but you cannot prove otherwise because if it ceased to exist, it wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't be able to prove that it isn't there.
It's a meaningless question, in much the same way as, "Why is blue the way it is?" or, "How long is a piece of string?"
Voted for by nanoinfinity.
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January 28, 2007
Descartes intention in the cogito
In Descartes' cogito (the quote in question) I do not believe that he intended to prove that everything that exists must think, but rather that everything that thinks must exist. His cogito, as you noted, says "I think, therefore I am", NOT "I am, therefore I think". We "know" that a rock exists but cannot really prove that it is impossible that "this rock here" is more than an illusion, even if we agree that this probably is the case. Descartes' whole project was to determine what could be posited absolutely, beyond doubt. The reason that "I"'s existence is so certain is because one cannot doubt the existence of one's own doubting, as this would in itself be a doubt, and so on. For this reason each person is sure that he/she exists. No such validation can be gained when evaluating other objects. Hope this helps.TeChNoWC
May 31, 2007
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grant
January 29, 2007
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Yeah, it IS flawed.
"I think therefore I am" suggests that we are merely our brains. I am not my brain. My brain is an organ. It is a tool. The rock, like any phenomenal object, is a thought form. It is made of atoms. Atoms are made of nothing. It is the same with organs like the brain. The brain is phenomena, the rock is phenomena. Descartes, within western philosophy, is a dead old fart and much has changed since with western thought. Quantum physics for example. Eastern philosophy was far more advanced than western and Descartes. The east, along with quantum physics, has left Descartes in the dust.keyman7
January 29, 2007
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As for another definition of existence, all that I know of is George Berkeley's definition which states "To be is to be percieved [or to percieve]."
grant
January 29, 2007
TeChNoWC
January 30, 2007
grant
January 30, 2007
Everything isn't of the mental. The mental belives it is, but without the mental there is no belief. It is more like (words are practically impossible to describe such stuff) you are everything experiencing no (defined and seperate) things, meaning no-thi
ng.TeChNoWC
February 2, 2007
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January 29, 2007
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Interesting arguments
But to my mind the only reason you and your above comments exist is because i witnessed them... Thus for those who use lateral thinking, Descartes was right in his time and will always be.grant
January 29, 2007
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grant
January 31, 2007
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If you see what i mean
does this mean you may answer my question in my previous comment? What is real?October 12, 2007
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Rivers: "I am the thinking."
I can't really put my finger on what we are but I'll try. We are spirits, impulses, born in the brain of our developing fetus... Eventually, backed by knowledge similar to ROM (read only memory), that is unlearned bootstrap (like in... pull ourselves up) essentials necessary for survival such as hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling, rooting and suckling, we emerge from the womb wrapped in a human blanket that we carry with us our whole life. The body is inseparable and heavy in our development. If it is not whole, not normal, it can make us suffer through our entire existence.Slowly, the spirit that is us grows by learning through the senses that we are endowed with. As the physical brain grows, it is able to keep pace with the need for more room for our expanding consciousness. Everything that enters our brain via our senses is recorded, recalled and reckoned with. Slowly we grow and acquire speech, mobility and reasoning. As we enter our teens, twenties and thirties we acquire a completeness, a personality, a personhood. Still, I think that we are merely a collection of impulses recollections and reasoning, merely electrical energy contained within our brain. We live our lives using all that we've acquired. Eventually, our body breaks down, vital organs cease to function and our brain dies. When that happens, like when a calculator is shut off and the numbers held in the circuitry JUST DISAPPEAR, that is exactly what happens to us, WE JUST DISAPPEAR! We were born in the developing fetus and we die in the person. The body was not us, it was merely our house. Essentially, we were the dissapated contents of the brain. The body will lay around for a long time but the second we die, we disappear.
I remember when the "White Boy," our Boxer was very sick and we took him, suffering, to the SPCA to put him down. I was very disdraught, crying, but I believed as I've written above, that he was the contents of his brain. I kissed him and hugged him and as the lethal fluid was pumped into his body and he stopped moving, I had no connection with his lifeless form, when his eyes closed, he was gone, he disappeared, he was no more. The big white body was where he lived, it was not him, I didn't care what they did with it... That's what we are, we are the transient contents of our brains and that's all we are.
April 17
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If rock cannot think 'i exist' does he, to himself, exist at all?
i am, therefore i think and i think the rock is a rock and i think he exists but what if i weren't here to think 'this is a rock'? what proof without our thought have we, that anything exists?Please register or login to comment! It's totally free