Descartes Demolished

[Unidian]

Cogito, ergo sum - "I think, therefore I am." Descartes' famous statement, considered by some to be the foundation of modern Western philosophy.

And, of course, it is full of fail. Why?

Descartes assumes way too much. The errors begin with the first word, "I." This is the individual self-concept, which spiritual adepts know to be illusionary. So, already, Descartes is predicating everything on a fiction. That's hardly a rip-roaring start.

Secondly, there is "think." Does thought really establish the existence of individual selfhood? Hardly. Thought is ephemeral and of no ultimate metaphysical relevance, although it can be useful as a tool to arrive at the conclusion that it is of no such relevance.

Thirdly, we have the problem of begging the question. "I" think, therefore "I" am. The conclusion is presumed in the premise. Faulty logic.

A better formulation of the axiom would be "there is awareness, therefore there is mind." But what is "mind?" That which is nothing and everything. Mind is not a thing, it is that within which things are imagined through the drawing of essentially arbitrary distinctions.

But since "awareness" and "mind" are basically synonymous in this context, an even simpler formulation would be "A=A."

That is all that can be said with any philosophical certainty, and all that needs to be said, for all else flows from it.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I like another version better : dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum, which starts with doubting. Not anything in particular but the basic question is a reflection and the basic reflection produces I and Other. Didn't Nietzsche had the same objection to this statement? But even when we would replace it with "thinking happens" or "it thinks" does it really change the essential identification? Is there any identification without "i" when that "eye" means also perspective?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

There is thinking therefore thinking is :P the sentence doesn't state what "I" is, just that there is something thinking.