From: parker@meibm4.cen.uiuc.edu (Robert S. Parker)
Subject: Re: The constancy of the universe
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 17:19:47 GMT

mart4678@mach1.wlu.ca (Phil Martin u) writes:

>Ray Fischer (ray@netcom.com) wrote:
>: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes ...
>: > ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
>: >>I know I exist.
>: >What do you mean by 'know', and what do you mean by 'I' ?
>: 
>: I, the entity/conciousness/person that is having this thought that I
>: (as before) know/am certain/have established that I exist.
>: 
>: Actually, the concept is not originally mine.  Decartes wrote about
>: the notion several hundred years ago in his "meditations on First
>: Philosophy".  The sentence "I know I exist" is more commonly known (if
>: no better understood) as the sentence "I think, therefore I am."
>:

>As an aside, I find it interesting the number of people who buy into the
>"I think, therefore I am" mentality.  I am not saying that one can not be
>certain of one's existance, but rather that that certainty comes from acts
>other than thinking.  Thinking is probably the one action that most 
>*isolates* us from reality, or our *absolute existance*.  Wouldn't it be
>more realistic to say "I'm hungry, therefore I am" or "I scraped my knee, and
>it hurts, therefore I am" or "The smell of my wife's prefume gives me a boner,
>therefore I am"?

>My point is just that I think that Decartes went looking for an answer that he
>already had, if he had only known where to look for it.  I find it easier to
>imagine my thoughts (original or not) as some unreal abstraction than to 
>rationalize away the very real "existance" of the physical world around me,
>and my place in it.

>Just some thoughts, not taking shots at anyone...
>Would like to hear some responses, though...

I think you are missing the point of what Descartes was talking about.  It was
not about *physical* existance.  Obviously many things exist physically that
do not think.  The "existance" being refered to is the more philosophical
concept which could perhaps be called sentience.

To the best of our scientific understanding, thought occurs *within* the
physical system of our brains, but the concept of "existance" or sentience is
not specific to human brains.  (We are about the only examples that we are
aware of at this time, however.)  Thus thought is more abstract than the
processes of the physical system in which it occurs.  It is that abstraction
that I refer to as the philosophical "soul" (not to be confused with the
supernatural concept of "soul" which is a little bit different in a few
aspects).  A system that exhibits that abstraction is called a "person"--to
distinguish from the properties of "human" which describes a different set.

The alternate "proofs" of existance you propose are inadequate because hunger,
pain, and sex drive can occur without "thought".  Virtually all animals can
"feel" them.  It is the *thoughts* about such "feelings" that gives evidence
of a "person".  Animals get hungry, but they don't ponder what hunger has to
do with "the meaning of life".  Only sentient beings can ponder such things,
so to think about such abstractions shows that you are sentient.

Of course, there are philosophers who think about such rediculous things as:
"Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man?"
I don't care much for philosophies that claim that the "real world" isn't real.
Being sentient means we have the ability to investigate and understand the
physical world, and to ponder about abstractions...not the other way around.
Your "proofs" of existance *do* apply to physical existance, which is probably
what you were thinking of.  It also means we can be pretty sure we are not
butterflies dreaming we are human.  ;)

>Phil Martin.

-Rob
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,soc.men,alt.dads-rights,alt.abortion.inequity