"You Are What You Think"

Originally posted by googlefudge
What tirades?
Helping what?

This is quite an interesting discussion.
You should try joining in.

Thanks for the invitation.

Originally posted by googlefudge
"I think therefore I am."

Pretty much the only thing Descartes got right.

The fact that there are thoughts means that there must be something having those thoughts.

This is compatible with both dualist and non-dualist views of the world as the something doesn't have to be the bodies we perceive ourselves as inhabiting.

It works whether we are y (albeit with a very high degree of certainty), whereas I can know that I exist absolutely.

I think Hume said something to the effect that, when he looks inside for what I will call this "haver" of thoughts, all he finds are the thoughts. In this sense, GB's OP has a similar point. But I think identifying ourselves with our thoughts is not what Descartes meant, and would not satisfy Hume. Or GB.

Nonetheless, we are drawn to identify ourselves as existent havers of thoughts. I don't know of a human language that has not naturally come to have a word for the first person singular and words for what is "other" to self. From an evolutionary perspective this sense of self is not universal among living beings (I think) and/or seems to be possessed to varying degrees among living beings. For example some animals seem unable to recognize "themselves" in a mirror.

This fact (depending on our opinion of evolution) makes me think that "I think, therefore I am" should be considered carefully. Is an animal that recognizes prey, notices its own hunger, calculates and follows a trajectory to capture prey, but does not recognize itself in a mirror, existent in the sense that I consider myself to be existent?

Descartes resolved this by concluding that non-human animals do not think. That doesn't work for me. But what are the mental capabilities and activities that lead me to feel justified to say "I am?"

I was once told by a psychologist friend that cats are known to think in pictorial images. It seems to me that any animal that can see, is forming a mental image of the object it sees. Is that a thought? I think it is.

Maybe Descartes should have said, "I think I am, therefore I am." This would limit existence (as we mean it here) to animals that think they exist. Is there something wrong with this?

Time to review theory of mind.

Originally posted by JS357
I think Hume said something to the effect that, when he looks inside for what I will call this "haver" of thoughts, all he finds are the thoughts. In this sense, GB's OP has a similar point. But I think identifying ourselves with our thoughts is not what Descartes meant, and would not satisfy Hume. Or GB.

Nonetheless, we are drawn to identify ourselves as e ...[text shortened]... they exist. Is there something wrong with this?

Time to review theory of mind.

http://faculty.washington.edu/annbaker/322/hume1.html

Originally posted by JS357
I think Hume said something to the effect that, when he looks inside for what I will call this "haver" of thoughts, all he finds are the thoughts. In this sense, GB's OP has a similar point. But I think identifying ourselves with our thoughts is not what Descartes meant, and would not satisfy Hume. Or GB.

Nonetheless, we are drawn to identify ourselves as e ...[text shortened]... they exist. Is there something wrong with this?

Time to review theory of mind.

All of the creatures on God's Green Earth have the genetic/structural intelligence and capacity for the varying levels of rational thought necessary to their appointed survival and procreation functions. And, with human beings, an imputed soul at the moment of physical birth which Is the very essence of [their] our identity in absolute terms. JS357's Soul is who and what he is and may become. He thinks because he is a living human being, functioning as designed by his Creator.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
All of the creatures on God's Green Earth have the genetic/structural intelligence and capacity for the varying levels of rational thought necessary to their appointed survival and procreation functions. And, with human beings, an imputed soul at the moment of physical birth which Is the very essence of [their] our identity in absolute terms. JS357's So ...[text shortened]... become. He thinks because he is a living human being, functioning as designed by his Creator.

"According to the standard interpretation of Hume on personal identity, he was a bundle theorist, who held that the self is nothing but a bundle of experiences ("perceptions"😉 linked by the relations of causation and resemblance; or, more accurately, that the empirically warranted idea of the self is just the idea of such a bundle."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

Originally posted by JS357
"According to the standard interpretation of Hume on personal identity, he was a bundle theorist, who held that the self is nothing but a bundle of experiences ("perceptions"😉 linked by the relations of causation and resemblance; or, more accurately, that the empirically warranted idea of the self is just the idea of such a bundle."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

Hume's not the first nor last to belief self is merely an accumulation of experiential debris. All failed to focus on the vacuum cleaner's source identity; too intellectually superior to accept the reality of anything beyond their own intricate creations.

Originally posted by JS357
I think Hume said something to the effect that, when he looks inside for what I will call this "haver" of thoughts, all he finds are the thoughts. In this sense, GB's OP has a similar point. But I think identifying ourselves with our thoughts is not what Descartes meant, and would not satisfy Hume. Or GB.

Nonetheless, we are drawn to identify ourselves as e they exist. Is there something wrong with this?

Time to review theory of mind.

I think we are missing the point of "I think therefore I am".

It's not that thinking things exist, it's that I am thinking and this I must exist.

He was trying to get out of the problem of hard solipsism.

Everything could be an illusion created by evil demons (or in modern terms we could be in the matrix) so is there anything you can tell is actually real and existent.

The answer is that the one thinking the question, the one having thoughts, can know that in some form or another THEY must exist.

However you can only ever do this for your self. It doesn't work for anyone else.

It's "I think therefore I am" not "You think therefore you are".


An animal that doesn't have a sense of self and couldn't introspect couldn't come to that conclusion. But that doesn't matter because it doesn't care.
Only intelligent creatures with self awareness are ever going to ponder the problem of hard solipsism.


In as much as we can rely on the rest of reality as we perceive it to be real and existent.
Then everything [in] it is as real and existent as everything else.

An ant as existent as a human.

Their minds differing in scale and quality but not of realness.


It feels different to be an ant as opposed to a human, but both are equally real and existent.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I think we are missing the point of "I think therefore I am".

It's not that thinking things exist, it's that [b]I am thinking and this I must exist.

He was trying to get out of the problem of hard solipsism.

Everything could be an illusion created by evil demons (or in modern terms we could be in the matrix) so is there anything you c ...[text shortened]... erent to be an ant as opposed to a human, but both are equally real and existent.[/b]

... at this moment googlefudge is thinking about an exceptional array of things that exist,

therefore he must exist.

... baby googlefudge in the crib wasn't yet able to think about an exceptional array of things that exit,

therefore his family members suffered from strong delusion in thinking baby googlefudge did exist...

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
... at this moment googlefudge is thinking about an exceptional array of things that exist,

therefore he must exist.

... baby googlefudge in the crib wasn't yet able to think about an exceptional array of things that exit,

therefore his family members suffered from strong delusion in thinking baby googlefudge did exist...

Depends what you mean by exist.

The entity I think of as me, the important bits, my mind and personality with its associated
memories didn't exist when I was a baby. Even while the structures that would later become
my mind and body did exist.

However I don't believe that that is the meaning of exist we were using in this conversation.

The mistake you are making is in thinking that "I think therefore I am" is about existence...

It's not.

It's about knowledge OF existence.

I KNOW that I exist because of "I think Therefore I am".

However I don't exist BECAUSE of "I think therefore I am"... There is no causal link there.


The baby or the animal exists without KNOWING that it exists.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Depends what you mean by exist.

The entity I think of as me, the important bits, my mind and personality with its associated
memories didn't exist when I was a baby. Even while the structures that would later become
my mind and body did exist.

However I don't believe that that is the meaning of exist we were using in this conversation.

The m causal link there.


The baby or the animal exists without KNOWING that it exists.

... if you didn't exist, you couldn't think.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I think we are missing the point of "I think therefore I am".

It's not that thinking things exist, it's that [b]I am thinking and this I must exist.

He was trying to get out of the problem of hard solipsism.

Everything could be an illusion created by evil demons (or in modern terms we could be in the matrix) so is there anything you c ...[text shortened]... erent to be an ant as opposed to a human, but both are equally real and existent.[/b]

Here's an alternate view of what Rene was up to:

"According to many of Descartes' specialists, including Étienne Gilson, the goal of Descartes in establishing this first truth is to demonstrate the capacity of his criterion — the immediate clarity and distinctiveness of self-evident propositions — to establish true and justified propositions despite having adopted a method of generalized doubt. As a consequence of this demonstration, Descartes considers science and mathematics to be justified to the extent that their proposals are established on a similarly immediate clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence that presents itself to the mind. The originality of Descartes' thinking, therefore, is not so much in expressing the cogito — a feat accomplished by other predecessors, as we shall see — but on using the cogito as demonstrating the most fundamental epistemological principle, that science and mathematics are justified by relying on clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

As you know, Decartes went on to accept the existence of God on the basis of a version of the ontological argument, and further, posited the pineal gland to be the seat of the soul.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
... if you didn't exist, you couldn't think.

YES.

Exactly.

And thus, because I am thinking I know I exist.

Originally posted by JS357
Here's an alternate view of what Rene was up to:

"According to many of Descartes' specialists, including Étienne Gilson, the goal of Descartes in establishing this first truth is to demonstrate the capacity of his criterion — the immediate clarity and distinctiveness of self-evident propositions — to establish true and justified propositions despite having ...[text shortened]... the ontological argument, and further, posited the pineal gland to be the seat of the soul.

Yeah, he kinda went off the rails a bit.

More thoughts tomorrow when I'm actually awake.

Originally posted by googlefudge
YES.

Exactly.

And thus, because I am thinking I know I exist.

We agree. Thinking provides confirmation of existence (as opposed to being the means).

Originally posted by JS357
I think Hume said something to the effect that, when he looks inside for what I will call this "haver" of thoughts, all he finds are the thoughts. In this sense, GB's OP has a similar point. But I think identifying ourselves with our thoughts is not what Descartes meant, and would not satisfy Hume. Or GB.

Nonetheless, we are drawn to identify ourselves as e ...[text shortened]... they exist. Is there something wrong with this?

Time to review theory of mind.

Regarding animals, dogs display dreaming behavior including vocalizations, leg and foot movement and sometimes drooling and a smile. Seems they must be "thinking" about prey they chased earlier in the day but perhaps failed to catch. Is this not thought on some level?