Eli5 the term “I think, therefore I am” I know it’s some what of a term about self awareness
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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.
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.
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.
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.
“I think, therefore I am” is the first premise of an argument made by Rene Descartes, and it’s a translation to English from French by way of the Latin “cogito ergo sum.” Although “ergo” is included in that phrase, it’s generally simpler to consider it a single positive statement that “I exist as a thinking thing.” Descartes used variants of that phrase in both French and Latin, so you shouldn’t bother thinking you have an exact quote. The phrase is often referred to simply as “the cogito.”
When Descartes was making the argument that uses this as a first premise, his goal was to prove *anything at all* without external evidence. There are two terms that make this faster to talk about, those being *a priori* knowledge and *a posteriori* knowledge. A posteriori means that you experienced something, and you obtained knowledge from that experience. Any knowledge you have of the world outside of your own mind is a posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge is knowledge that could be obtained by thought and reason alone, without ever experiencing the world. To reduce the possibility that he would clumsily guess at a priori things while actually coming up with stuff that required experience to understand, he went as simple as he possibly could: thought alone.
There is a term for this level of skepticism regarding reality for the sake of a thought experiment- Cartesian doubt. He wanted to doubt everything, to the point of “brain-in-a-vat” Matrix-style stuff, to ensure he did not believe something in error. Keep in mind here that in this case, there is a difference between casual belief and “capital B” Belief. Casual belief is all the little things we accept without thinking about them, whereas Belief is for things we *know for certain.* At the time (and for most people still), “capital K” Knowledge is a belief you have that is both true and justified.
How can a philosopher like Descartes prove to himself that he exists, as a first premise, without any evidence from experiencing a world that he knows to be true? He thinks. By being a source of thought, he must exist. As a first premise, he exists, because he thinks. If he didn’t exist, he couldn’t possibly produce thoughts, but there he is, thinking away!
He went go on to talk about how even if he was in a permanent illusion, the fact of his existence would always be a logical necessity resulting from the fact that he is thinking. ~~Centuries later, George Gershwin would pen his legendary showtune, “I Got Existence”,~~
“I think, therefore I am” is the first premise of an argument made by Rene Descartes, and it’s a translation to English from French by way of the Latin “cogito ergo sum.” Although “ergo” is included in that phrase, it’s generally simpler to consider it a single positive statement that “I exist as a thinking thing.” Descartes used variants of that phrase in both French and Latin, so you shouldn’t bother thinking you have an exact quote. The phrase is often referred to simply as “the cogito.”
When Descartes was making the argument that uses this as a first premise, his goal was to prove *anything at all* without external evidence. There are two terms that make this faster to talk about, those being *a priori* knowledge and *a posteriori* knowledge. A posteriori means that you experienced something, and you obtained knowledge from that experience. Any knowledge you have of the world outside of your own mind is a posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge is knowledge that could be obtained by thought and reason alone, without ever experiencing the world. To reduce the possibility that he would clumsily guess at a priori things while actually coming up with stuff that required experience to understand, he went as simple as he possibly could: thought alone.
There is a term for this level of skepticism regarding reality for the sake of a thought experiment- Cartesian doubt. He wanted to doubt everything, to the point of “brain-in-a-vat” Matrix-style stuff, to ensure he did not believe something in error. Keep in mind here that in this case, there is a difference between casual belief and “capital B” Belief. Casual belief is all the little things we accept without thinking about them, whereas Belief is for things we *know for certain.* At the time (and for most people still), “capital K” Knowledge is a belief you have that is both true and justified.
How can a philosopher like Descartes prove to himself that he exists, as a first premise, without any evidence from experiencing a world that he knows to be true? He thinks. By being a source of thought, he must exist. As a first premise, he exists, because he thinks. If he didn’t exist, he couldn’t possibly produce thoughts, but there he is, thinking away!
He went go on to talk about how even if he was in a permanent illusion, the fact of his existence would always be a logical necessity resulting from the fact that he is thinking. ~~Centuries later, George Gershwin would pen his legendary showtune, “I Got Existence”,~~
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