I think, therefore I am!

The only thing that I cannot doubt while doubting, is that I am doubting

The dude who said this was called Descartes, RENÉ Descartes.

Descartes is coined as the father of “Modern Philosophy”. He was a French philosopher, physicist and a mathematician (Woah!! ALL at the same time!!) and his ways of thinking and approaching to things were quite different from his predecessors.

He differed in two major aspects:

1) First, he did not focus on the classification of Corporeal substances (substances that occupy space and can be perceived by one or more senses) into matter and form and

2) Second, he does not believe in any appeal to ends – divine or natural – in explaining the natural phenomena.

His claim to fame was cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. His ideology rests upon the assumption that any entity that can think, exists and any entity can think only and only if it exists.

During the 16^th & 17^th centuries, basics of science were being formed with Renaissance, the human beliefs held as concrete so far – were being compelled to be changed and thwarted. Galileo had discovered moon and it was established that “man”, after all is not the centre of the universe and rather, just a very small part of it.

Descartes, a man of science himself, was an ardent follower and believer in Logical, clear and distinct ideas. With all the changes happening in the world, he himself was in a theological thought process on what truth to accept and what to reject. What reality to embrace and what to let go off.

He figured that the only way to solve this is to deconstruct everything he believes so far. Thus begins his methodical process of doubt. He starts to systematically doubt everything around him – the reliability of the five senses, the existence of physical objects, the foundations of science and even, the existence of God himself. He pulls everything apart and tries to understand the whole process of doubting. He even compares his impressions of physical objects as perceived by him to be the impressions created by the “demon” with the sole purpose of distorting those impressions and preventing him (the mankind) from knowing the real stuff.

He compares his beliefs to apples in a basket and in order to separate the rotten ones from the good ones, the only way is to empty the basket and examine each apple individually and rejecting the bad ones thereafter. In other words, the motive was to keep only those beliefs that were free from being dubitable.

To begin with, our friend doubted his OWN existence! Geez!

He meant to imply that he exists as a set of limbs and body parts by the virtue of his five senses which thus perceive his existence. But is this true? What if his senses were also misleading in their perception? He cast a doubt on the mere reliability of his senses. By doubting his own existence, he wanted to find a reason to establish his existence as an entity. While doubting he realized that there was only one thing that he could not doubt and that was… wait, hang on – the DOUBT itself!!

That was it! His eureka moment! And it was true… well almost true. The guy could not doubt the fact that while doing this whole doubting ‘thing’, he could not doubt the fact that he was doubting!

Since, “doubting” was a thinking process, and whilst doubting it was obvious that he was “thinking”. Now, let’s believe it, you cannot really think unless you exist in the first place! By establishing that he can “think”, Descartes concluded that he exists!

And came the famous Oscar winning line “I think, therefore, I am!”

The problem with the above inference is that somewhere down the line, this gentleman has forgot to “prove” his “taken for granted” presupposition that anything that thinks, exists! He gives no proof that why his premise is true. The inference is indeed syllogistic.

Next, he went on to explain the concept of “Dualism”. He emphasized that mind and body are two different entities. While mind exists in its non-physical form, it is the body which exists in its corporeal form. He identified mind as self aware and conscious and the brain as the seat of this intelligence. In his illustrations, he tried to depict that our perception of the world was nothing but a result of inputs that were passed on by our sensory organs to the pineal gland in the brain, which then passes it to the immaterial spirit. He believed that the connection between the mind and body takes place in the pineal gland and that the two share a causal relationship.

Hey! But last I checked, dualism = being distinct or separate and causal = some connection! Wtf? How can dualism then deal with causality? There are several controversies to this one!

Establishing God’s existence

This one’s easy!

A) If god exists – he is “perfect”

B) But, we are imperfect and finite beings

C) Yet we have impressions of “perfection” and “infinity”

D) But how can “imperfect” and “finite” beings have an impression of a “perfection” or “infinity”?

Hence, it must be God himself who created an impression of the “perfection”. Therefore he exists.

Next, he refutes his idea of “evil deceiver”

A) Evil Demon deceives us from true impressions

B) Deceit and fraud arise from defects

C) But since God exists (from above) and he is “Perfect”, he is a “good” God and no deceiver.

He said:

“…because I cannot conceive God unless as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from him, and therefore that he really exists: not that this is brought about by my thought, or that it imposes any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, the necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me to think in this way: for it is not in my power to conceive a God without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings."

Descartes, Meditation 10

The above implies a “Circular Reference”. On one hand he says that his perfect impressions are a result of existence of the God, while at the same time he accepts that God exists because of the existence of our impression of the perfection. The premise of former is the conclusion of latter and the conclusion of the latter forms the premise of former. We cannot believe in something that “does not” exist. Thus if we believe God exists, he exists! (funny, eh??? I know!)

Establishing World’s existence

Having established his own as well as God’s existence, he proceeds.

A) I think, therefore I am (or I exist)

B) We form impressions of the outside world through our senses and say that world exists

C) And, these senses could be deceived by evil demon

D) But we just established that God exists and he is a “good” God who does not deceive

E) Therefore, our impressions that world exists are true and hence, the world exists

His ENITRE thing is ONE BIG CIRCLE!

Come on, you cannot base everything on that, now can you???