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"“I think therefore I am”, the famous phrase uttered by renowned Philosopher Rene Descartes was perhaps one, if not the most, fundamentally flawed philosophical
by basicplus2 10y ago
"“I think therefore I am”, the famous phrase uttered by renowned Philosopher Rene Descartes was perhaps one, if not the most, fundamentally flawed philosophical statements of all time (sorry Rene). To assume that I exist and I know that I exist because I think thoughts, sends us off on a dangerous trajectory where we believe that we are our thoughts"
1. This is a wrong assumption, just because Descartes concludes thinking proves he exits does not mean Descartes believes he is his thoughts.
2. There is nothing in what Descartes says that is "fundamentally flawed" let alone "perhaps one, if not the most, fundamentally flawed philosophical statements of all time"
- CuriouslyC 10y agoThe problem here is the conflation of consciousness and thought. The existence of an observer is proven by cognizance of thought, but conflating the observer with the thinker is erroneous. A computer provides a useful analogy here. When I use a computer, I am aware of the output it produces via elements of the interface like the monitor. I also indirectly control what that computer produces as output. That does not mean that _I_ am the computer. This is basically just what buddhists and hindus have been saying about the nature of consciousness for thousands of years.