Eli5 the term “I think, therefore I am” I know it’s some what of a term about self awareness
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It is a philosophical question created by Philosopher René Descartes.
TL;DR: As the body can be deceived and the mind can create dreams that are as vivid as “reality”, the only certain existence is the mind which interprets and doubts.
It is a philosophical question created by Philosopher René Descartes.
TL;DR: As the body can be deceived and the mind can create dreams that are as vivid as “reality”, the only certain existence is the mind which interprets and doubts.
You know that thing people talk about with virtual reality – how do we know we aren’t really in a simulation? How can you prove there even is such a thing as “the real world” in the first place? Hypothetically your mind could be experiencing fake inputs, and in fact there might not even be a universe in the first place?
Well Rene Descartes was a philosopher looking at that problem, long before VR was a thing (he was thinking of it more as this: How do I know anything exists at all, given that dreams happen and they paint non-existent worlds that felt real at the time when you dreamed them, so who says there even IS a real world? The fact that I feel like there is doesn’t prove anything.)
“I think therefore I am” was his way of getting out of that problem. It’s the notion that you can prove that some type of real world has to exist even if you start merely from the premise that at least you know you have a mind because at least you are able to think consciously about this problem. If you have a mind that thinks, then that proves, at the very least, that you exist. By itself that doesn’t prove to you that everything else exists, but it does prove to you that at least *you* exist. A modern way to put it would be “even if you’re just a brain in a jar, then that jar, and that brain, have to exist in a real universe. You can maybe entertain the idea that you are wrong about what the universe is like because everything you’ve experienced has been a hallucination so far, but what you cannot do is entertain the idea that there is no existing universe whatsoever anywhere. There has to be *some* kind of real universe or you wouldn’t exist to be having thoughts.
You know that thing people talk about with virtual reality – how do we know we aren’t really in a simulation? How can you prove there even is such a thing as “the real world” in the first place? Hypothetically your mind could be experiencing fake inputs, and in fact there might not even be a universe in the first place?
Well Rene Descartes was a philosopher looking at that problem, long before VR was a thing (he was thinking of it more as this: How do I know anything exists at all, given that dreams happen and they paint non-existent worlds that felt real at the time when you dreamed them, so who says there even IS a real world? The fact that I feel like there is doesn’t prove anything.)
“I think therefore I am” was his way of getting out of that problem. It’s the notion that you can prove that some type of real world has to exist even if you start merely from the premise that at least you know you have a mind because at least you are able to think consciously about this problem. If you have a mind that thinks, then that proves, at the very least, that you exist. By itself that doesn’t prove to you that everything else exists, but it does prove to you that at least *you* exist. A modern way to put it would be “even if you’re just a brain in a jar, then that jar, and that brain, have to exist in a real universe. You can maybe entertain the idea that you are wrong about what the universe is like because everything you’ve experienced has been a hallucination so far, but what you cannot do is entertain the idea that there is no existing universe whatsoever anywhere. There has to be *some* kind of real universe or you wouldn’t exist to be having thoughts.
You know that thing people talk about with virtual reality – how do we know we aren’t really in a simulation? How can you prove there even is such a thing as “the real world” in the first place? Hypothetically your mind could be experiencing fake inputs, and in fact there might not even be a universe in the first place?
Well Rene Descartes was a philosopher looking at that problem, long before VR was a thing (he was thinking of it more as this: How do I know anything exists at all, given that dreams happen and they paint non-existent worlds that felt real at the time when you dreamed them, so who says there even IS a real world? The fact that I feel like there is doesn’t prove anything.)
“I think therefore I am” was his way of getting out of that problem. It’s the notion that you can prove that some type of real world has to exist even if you start merely from the premise that at least you know you have a mind because at least you are able to think consciously about this problem. If you have a mind that thinks, then that proves, at the very least, that you exist. By itself that doesn’t prove to you that everything else exists, but it does prove to you that at least *you* exist. A modern way to put it would be “even if you’re just a brain in a jar, then that jar, and that brain, have to exist in a real universe. You can maybe entertain the idea that you are wrong about what the universe is like because everything you’ve experienced has been a hallucination so far, but what you cannot do is entertain the idea that there is no existing universe whatsoever anywhere. There has to be *some* kind of real universe or you wouldn’t exist to be having thoughts.
Many good detailed answers here, but simplified: Descartes wanted the foundation of his philosophy to be impossible to doubt. So he starts by doubting everything. He concludes that everything can be doubted, EXCEPT the existence of the doubter.
Many good detailed answers here, but simplified: Descartes wanted the foundation of his philosophy to be impossible to doubt. So he starts by doubting everything. He concludes that everything can be doubted, EXCEPT the existence of the doubter.
Many good detailed answers here, but simplified: Descartes wanted the foundation of his philosophy to be impossible to doubt. So he starts by doubting everything. He concludes that everything can be doubted, EXCEPT the existence of the doubter.
It’s a sophism from someone who didn’t have access to modern concepts of causality that quantum mechanics taught us.
It’s a sophism from someone who didn’t have access to modern concepts of causality that quantum mechanics taught us.
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