> Did Descartes really think? For the purposes of his proof, yes: Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum. The witness of a doubt is the witness of a thought is the witn

> Did Descartes really think? For the purposes of his proof, yes: Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum. The witness of a doubt is the witness of a thought is the witness of a thing, hence a thing must exist. Descartes at that point in his argument doesn’t make any assertion to the nature of reality, merely that each of us can be sure that something exists, even if our interpretation is completely wrong: the very act of doubting existence is witness to existence. People project their own model of self into those terms, but it’s merely trying to make a broadening categorical argument and not a particular interpretation of what the objects normally represented by those terms are or how they behave (eg, times exists). A static Descartes with the experience of currently doubting is sufficient witness for the proof, which Descartes would have himself experienced directly — the cogito is a witness to that experience of Descartes.