A Thought Experiment That Will Change How You Think About Your Existence | René Descartes
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- Опубліковано 15 сер 2023
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In this video, we explore the life and work of philosopher René Descartes, an individual whose extreme form of skepticism led to an entire shift in humanity's understanding of what it could know (and not know) with absolute certainty.
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I remember when I was ate 8 years old thinking what makes me me in my head. Why am I me inside this body and not another.
I really thought hard about this for a couple days, then went back to being an 8 year old kid.
50 years later and I still wonder about this sometimes.
Same here! I had this overwhelming thought/curiosity that came into my head at age 8 also, I was in the bathroom at school and after that I kept thinking “I’m me” and the thought would come back. I’m 39 now and when I try to explain this simple question of “how is it that I got this mind/body/consciousness how is that decided?” To ppl and they don’t get it, it’s like they don’t think of it as a question
@@cortneyrens pi love that im not the only one who thinks this. that was the question that kept popping up in my head while watching this video, too LOL
"why am i........ me?"
@@cortneyrensI think about the same exact thought especially when the depth of my troubles come to mind. “How close I could’ve been someone else with a different set of problems, why these.” I’m also aware how foolish it is
A lot of those existential questions start hitting around that age. Especially when you're laying in bed trying to sleep
@@tongpoo8985 my biggest concern around that age was “train go choo choo”
I had a teacher in 8th grade who introduced me to the phrase of "cogito ergo sum". She is also one of a few people in my lifetime who went out of their way to convince me that I had the potential to be great. Love you, Sister Pat ❤️
Its circular reasoning. Complete nonsense. Srry
I thought I heard once that “I think therefore I am” wasnt the whole phrase, and it was actually “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am” which I think is better. Like if you had complete knowledge of all things and all possibilities and there was zero unknowns, what would you think about and what would be the point? To me it demonstrates a core aspect of the self and life is ignorance. I think people who are trying to solve something are in general more happy and more driven and more alive, almost like a baby. The more we lose curiosity and become entrenched in our beliefs we lose the spark of life. Doubt is the engine of logic which powers the mind
I had a teacher's assistant say something similar, but she was special needs and I think she was trying to tell me she already ate my lunch
We should all have a teacher like that. I did, an English teacher 10th grade. She convinced me I had something to say.
@@Laocoon283Circular reasoning isn't necessarily nonsensical. Perhaps there is some sense to an infinitely repeating pattern which has the potential for infinite variation apon the completion of each cycle. The Mandelbrot set is a mathematical example of something which behaves like that.
I like this comment section. This is the best side of UA-cam, where everyone comes to find their true self. Have a good day everyone ❤️
Before I was aware of philosophy I had a moment of self doubt until at line crossed my mind. When reality is in question and you question everything, it’s good to remind yourself of the fundamentals. Its so simple and yet profound. It does lead into some other problems. Sometimes, when I hear that line, I think of one of my other favourite quotes from a movie “Waking Life”:
When you realize that you might be a character in someone else’s dream, that is self awareness!
Waking life was awesome
@elloohno1349 my favorite movie... so glad someone mentioned it. 😁
I liked Ethan Hawke's scene with the concept millions of entire lives could be lived out subconsciously in the dream state during the last few minutes of your electromagnetic energy of your brain turning off after death.
@@analogninomad look forward to watching it again soon !
What are the fundamentals?
In my younger days I would swim in the waters of existential doubt. Am I here? Do I feel? Is this real? Maybe we are all the dream of something we cannot conceive. Then, one day, I lost all doubt and stood on the firmest ground I had ever known. I stubbed my toe and was sure beyond all wonder, all thoughts of gods and suspicion of higher consciousnesses, ouch, that bloody hurt.
That’s just a restatement of Johnson’s appeal to the stone.
I think maybe we both took the same hit of acid
Please like and criticize in the comments 🙏🙏
For real, sometimes i experience certain things bad and good that make me realize I am alive in the present moment. Reality is real, everything else is false.
@@ryanhoover7461 reality is real. Ok, so you are saying reality exists, but is there an absolute reality, or is reality always subjective to ones perspective, which I claim it is.
When I was very young, I used to think that everyone around me was an actor, and I was the only one not "in on it". I felt this at like age 7-8 years old, and I had never seen or heard of the movie "The Truman Show" yet. I was pondering my existence way before I knew what philosophy or anything like that was.
I realized that my own existence was the only thing I could be 100% certain of when I was a little kid. Not saying I'm as smart as Descartes or anything, but I have always been a deep thinker, and I distinctly remember having this realization and being a bit freaked out about it. I was probably around 8 years old.
Yeah that’s probably what Super Mario thinks too: “I know for a fact that I am real because I stomp on turtles”
You’re a genius. Your words not mine. Because I don’t exist
OK?! and... where did that get you? first there is no 100% certainty even in your own existence, as consciousness itself can be illusion.
Same here! When I was 7 or 8 I would have the same experience. Its always been hard to clarify much in words. Overall, it would freak me out to. Every time it happened it would be as soon as I sat down on the bus at the end of the school day. Lasted only for seconds. I would momentarily zone in on my conscious awareness of my individual existence time seemed to stand still in a sense and the high volume of other kids voices would become slightly lower. That's when I would shake it off and forget about it.
A 100% relatable. But I'm a few years late than you guys
Daily dose of Existential Crisis... Once again
There's no crisis though... We think, therefore we are!
i watched 3 and overdosed
Yeah this channel every time gives me a panic attack by uploading a video 😢
Could be actually seen as empowering... as we are definitely more than machines
Every night for sure
Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender says “would you like a drink sir?” Descartes says “I think not”… & promptly disappears in a puff of logic
A blonde, a rabbi and a priest walk into a bar. The bartendeer say, "is ths some kind of joke"?
I actually love this so much 😂
You are genuinely one of the best commentators I've ever heard. Everything makes sense here. It's so clear. It fascinates me. I don't know why, but it does
If someone is experimenting with my brain right now I think my life should be a bit more eventful😂
whoever that experimenter is, he/she is tinkering with your dreams.
Careful with that. Eventful is an awfully broad term.
Depends on their goal and their hypothesis. In the end, it would mean you are just a lab rat and data, and they are observing you in the experimental construct of the planet. If thats the case, its the other rats behavior you have to worry about because rats are already eating the planet itself. Maybe that's what is being observed: what rats do or don't do when they start to notice everything around them is slowly being chewed up. What would you do? Thats pretty eventful, lol.
@@KatiTheButcher😂😂😂 right!
I revered Renee's "I think, therefore I am" until I studied Buddhism's 5 aggregates that how the thing we call "I" is simply the by product of 5 aggregates interacting with each other. When Renee made the discovery "I think, therefore I am" he just grasped the cognition part of it. The Buddhist perspective argues that the "I" or self is not a permanent and unchanging entity but rather a transient phenomenon that arises from the interaction of these five aggregates. The self is a concept created by the mind to make sense of these aggregates, but it lacks inherent existence.
There's no self which is not put together by thought.
Definitely, that's what I am thinking too
Wonderful. I can already sense the existential crisis coming my way next time I'm in my philosophy class...
With you on this one. 100%.
@@axutgautam1187so when you are not thinking you do not exist?
Change brings pain, pain brings suffering, suffering brings tolerance, tolerance brings thought, thought brings knowledge, knowledge brings understanding, understanding brings wisdom and wisdom makes life bearable.
I like this.
10:44 I think what he meant was that we are what we individually perceive ourselves to be. The only thing that is true is our perspective to ourselves which is why others matter but shouldnt influence our perspectives, like dont let the anger of others change you, you are the only one that can change yourself. Your perspective, you are the only one that matters to you but you should still listen and understand others, see the other perspectives but dont let them force you into something you arent. Like thinking im a victim makes me a victim in my perspective but if i chose to understand what is then i see i am not what i see but what i chose to change myself into. Use the differences of reality to change yourself but dont allow reality to change you, you are the one with the choice to be what you want and think.
Doubt is the origin of wisdom...beautiful.
It’s important to outline counter arguments to this proposition. I remember when I first heard about DeCartes I thought he made absolute sense. Later when people like Nietzche argued for existence precedes essence I realized that DeCartes didn’t address those paths. But very informative and DeCartes contribution to thinking is nonetheless revolutionary.
Descartes*
It's not a zero sum game. All these teachers offer elements of truth and wisdom.
Inceptism, dunno if it exists yet but, the idea of ideas getting lost in other ideas, is never ending. Whatever we are contemplating or trying to resolve in the present moment, will only bounce off into another idea later on, Your whole life is a stream of thoughts that 99% of people have, just in a different order.
As a kid i sometime imagined that as soon as i turned around people i am interacting will stop functioning
Solipsism. The ancient Greeks also thought the same idea. I guess we never have original thoughts, after all. I'd even like to think that the ancients thought of certain modern technologies but simply didn't have the means to build them, just like in the 1920's when they thought they'd have flying cars in the 70's.
As a child I wondered if the interior space of a drawer ceases to exist once I close it and returns once opened.
Man, when i was around 10 I would wake up confused and had a deep sense of knowing that i was still “dreaming”. I would try so hard to “wake up” because I really believed that I was still in a coma or something like that
As a kid I had this dream one time where everyone I knew was actuallg a robot of sorts and it really got to me, always left me with thinking about what I think is solipsm, but always think about existence and what it means, adding this to my thoughts list!
interesting definitely. solipsism has alot of true points when you really think about it from a "rational" standpoint.
Ironically, you were right, we are all robots. We are observing you. Go to sleep.
P.S. Just joking.
P.P.S. Or am I?
The rotten apple in the basket is certainly a good analogy. Thank you for this very helpful video which I needed to find right now. 🍎
ua-cam.com/video/bETIejhQZvo/v-deo.html
Rotten Apple Series ( Rotten ála Paul)
How to apply in life?
When I was a kid, I had a really disturbing thought (and also a little bit egoistic) , where all my life was only a simulation created exclusively to me. So the things just happened when I was looking, From the moment I left, people and scenes stopped existing.
It bothered me a lot because I couldn't prove that those people were real and had a life or if they were just characters making up these scenarios, and also because I didn't know who or what would be doing this to me.
I had a crisis like this a couple of months ago. I think the best solution is to just forget about it, if its true, then there would be nothing you or I can do.
@@MasterChief-nw6dz you're right , I did it
@@gabs.2l Yeah, it doesn't matter if this is a simulation, because within our simulation, they have cheesecake.
This was me after my Mushroom trip lulz. One could even argue your thoughts are not your own or real. Dissolving ones own reality to something you dont understand is by far the scariest experience one can have. To the point that any answer you can come up with isnt satisfying because your experience immediately just devalues to logic of said answer.
In the midst of it all, I knew I existed but not just as me, but rather as everything else as well. I could see myself in everything, and everything in me. A rubberband of influences, causing me to once again question who I am while also understanding more about me. Dont do drugs kids
...for sure the sequence of moving dreams he had sounded..."shroomy" lol
I got into an argument with my philosophy teacher over this one.
He summed it up as “Because you’re thinking, you know you exist, in some shape or form.”
My question is: How is that valuable, useful, or even provable?
If I hallucinate a pink elephant in the room, that elephant also exists ‘in some shape or form’ even if it’s just neurons firing in my brain..
It's valuable because it is a foothold. It is a fact about reality that can be demonstrated purely with logic and without appealing to empirical measurement. In other words, it is showcasing something fundamental about existence. It could be that consciousness is the only "true" thing that is fundamental in reality, and everything else is simply a construct that is filtered through a false sense of empirical demonstration.
@@clintonwalrath1333 Thanks for the comment, though I don’t know if my question was really answered.
I don’t think it is purely logical. Aren’t you still making 1-2 assumptions in your premises? “If a being thinks, it exists. I’m thinking, according to me, therefore…”
That doesn’t seem as “purely logical” as A+B = B+A for instance. Eg: Give me a syllogism that proves you are indeed thinking.
Secondly, a single foothold that doesn’t lead you any higher up a mountain doesn’t seem particularly useful to me 🤷🏻♂️
It’s a foothold that only leads unto itself..
@charliekowittmusic
No problem. I will try to break it down further.
The whole point of making an "assumption" is that you are building upon an assertion that can not be validated. From there, a whole worldview and perspective can be built. However, words like "validation," "demonstration," "useful," etc...are all words that exist because people try to convince other people that their version of reality is valid by assuming that some part of the external world is real and can be communicated to others. None of that is required per "I think, therefore I am." It is completely individual. It is completely subjective. I dont know what you're thinking. I dont even know if you’re a real person on the other end of this. However, I do know that I'm contemplating. I know that I'm imagining. I know that I can assume.
This concept may not help you get up the mountain, but you can't go any lower down the mountain from it. It is an absolute starting point. That very fact is interesting and worth noting. It says something about what existence is at some level.
According to a 'brain', a 'thought' is fundamental and definitive of existence, how apt
@@chrisb5867 Precisely what I’m saying about Descartes. Glad you’re keeping up.
When I was young I remember believing with absolute certainty that everyone around me were liquid filled automatons. Not sure when that changed but I constantly felt like the only truly living human, aside from my family.
So weird reading these comments this is so true. Especially the second part that many didn’t say is how it just went away and who knows when that happened
NPC😀
Pretty standard tbh
I remember going through this question in Philosophy class. I was silent the rest of the day.. in shock 😂
Its circular reasoning. Complete nonsense. Srry.
@@Laocoon283wym tho. Just say shit with the solution or explanations? Wym?
@@nihilo616 The "I think" part presupposes the "therefore I am". The premise presupposes the argument. His existence is stated in the premise with the word "I" in "I think". Don't know if thats clear or not.
1
@@nihilo616 you see?
Rene Descartes was on to it.
The fact that there are those that chose to believe in the accidental creation of ourselves and all we see around us in nature and the universe ,is truly astounding. Its also shows a ignorance regarding the term 'Glass Ceiling'
I suggest you get your hands on a little book by Cyrus Varane called 'The wisdom and wonder of life ' It will get you thinking.
This can be dangerous. Be careful, don’t overthink existence alone.
That little cut-out of him floating down the existential screen made me almost piss my pants. Good work on the education and humor balance, dude!!
One thing I have to ask. Why does it matter if our experiences are real? The point is were here, we are percieving everything as if it were real, creating experiences that as if they are real, and so on. Why focus on the "if". No matter what answer, or lack there of, that you find. It wont change anything. We'll still be here, experiencing and perceiving everything the same way. I will still go outside and smell the flowers and love and laugh and everything else the same way. I think the point of finding a why or how or anything else is pointless because discovering it wont change a thing.
You're right, it doesn't matter. Even so, the question bothers the hell out of me even though I know that even if I thought about it for a million years I wouldn't get any closer to the truth.
It's an itch I can't scratch and it drives me nuts sometimes.
The answer could be a stepping stone to reaching and unlocking hidden knowledge about reality, though I do agree with your point.
Exactly. I really don’t understand how these people can think about such thoughts without feeling great anxiety or fear. Somehow some even feel intrigued or even excited about pondering over this stuff! Insane.
It is both terrifying and comforting. That's why I like to think like this. I have been thrown into a lot of ego dissolutions over the last 3-4 years, and the statement I AM has helped get me through a lot of those. Not even I think therefore I am, just I AM. Alan Watts is an amazing speaker on subjects similar to, yet more uplifting than Descartes. When I first stumbled into philosophy, I was sad, depressed, anxious and unsure... Diving into different philosophies has allowed me so much personal growth and, after some time, relief from those anxieties that plagued me. Ofc I am human, so I still falter or have doubts in the day to day... But really, this life is for us (me, you, us, him, her....)
Just grabbed “meditations” for $1 in Chicago. Excited for my first read. Currently reading A course in miracles.
Robert, you are a great inspiration.
When I was younger I used to think that if I died, nothing else mattered because the Universe would just stop existing.
You were right.
It does.
In fact.. the moment you cease to exist, from your perspective of non existence, all things will cease to exist.
Just like trees bare fruit and plants release oxygen everything is part of an original substance that is in motion. An apple tree gives apples a human gives consciousness. At least uniquely compared to most like as far as we know. I view us as the tool of awareness of an otherwise chaotic existence. The universe decided to observe itself.
@@lyotimachida5380
An apple tree gives apples..
=
Humans give babies.
Consciousness.. the emergent psychological phenomenon that is the "i" that defines you ceases to exist upon ceasin to exist.
Upon said ceasing to exist, from your perspective, it will be as if nothing ever existed at all
There is two ways to view this. As either philosophy or pure narcissism
As someone that has been deeply thinking about and researching philosophy my entire life, ive became certain of things i never thought possible to understand, yet i never stopped trying. Math can reveal as much about existence as philosophy and where they meet you will find great truth.
the scary part is what if the fundamental mathematics is flawed itself? should we still trust it if there's a possibility that it was indeed flawed? or is this an absolute truth that cannot be untrue no matter what happens? like 1+1 = 2 is really correct and it wont result in other numbers. if it is indeed flawed, then how can we prove everything that existed really exists?
@@SeichiroCh. if you aren’t familiar with the logic behind the existence of numbers then you may find it interesting. In set theory you gain an insight into how numbers come to exist and the inherent properties that emerge. Numbers grow naturally in a systematic way. Numbers are all defined by their proportion to the rest. All potential combinations of these numbers define the infinite patterns through which the universe has been created and continues to change. If something can be quantified it can be modeled by math. If you break anything down even intangibles it can all be modeled by math and has been constructed from the patterns that emerge from the growth of numbers. The way numbers come to exist in set theory also acts as a beautiful analogy to how something can be created from nothing. It can’t. If nothing existed it would be something. But if you have a simple seemingly nothing like source, you may divide that source infinitely to create complexity. In this scenario the simple source and it’s infinite complex parts are both the same thing. There is only the source. Everything else is a piece of it acting out according to the patterns by which it has been divided.
@@SeichiroCh. “Hold fast to the axioms!” I recommend The Mastery of Being by William Walker Atkinson.
@@blackestbill7454“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” - Albert Einstein.
the fundamental error why mathematics cannot describe everything in reality is because,in mathematics, when considering a natural number strictly greater 1 (say X) . You would have to have *exactly* the same X copies of some 1 object or thing. Since in reality it is quite rare to find things of the same physical structure, chemical composition,weight,matter etc. to be the same, mathematics cannot accurately describe reality.
@@timetraveller2818 then how did everything come to be? The are many answers and connections you aren’t seeing. Albert Einstein knew very little regarding the nature of existence
This just spoke EVERYTHING i have been saying for the last year since i TRULY woke up
love your videos, they always inspire.
The right translation is "I am in conscious, therefore I am"
Or, I comprihend therefore I am.
I had a very profound ego death while on Psilocybin and my experience left me with the same very question that plagued Descartes. For many years I’d come back to this question and try to think about it in a more practical way, but I was left with more existential angst. Many years later, in college, I discovered “Meditations on First Philosophy” and was instantly connected and drawn to Descartes. I had finally found someone who had the same question I had but had also posed a very simple solution. “I think therefore I am”. I may never find the answers to life’s other big questions, but whenever I get anxiety over existentialism. I repeat the quote and like a life raft it comes into save me from a sea of uncertainty.
It’s not that deep bro. Don’t do drugs kids
I get it but doesn’t the uncertainty of reality being an illusion still bother you? How do you find relief from such thoughts?
@@barrickwong Acceptance of the unknown. If this is some sort of VR game, illusion etc, live the best life you know how to live within it's rules.
@@brothabane1727
FWIW, i too experienced ago-death while on psilocybin. I ended up with some profound insights which helped my mental health immensely. but i did 3 years of research first, i took it as a medicine to tap into my subconscious to find hidden truths, dissolve bad beliefs, in short with the intention to heal some of my internal pain. I had a good understanding of psychology as well as a diploma in neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy. so while i dont advocate 'doing drugs' irresponsibly a la party-mode, i do advocate for their therapeutic use in healing trauma, which is now very well documented.
It is hardly a groundbreaking 'realisation' especially without fully defining what he means by each of those words
"I think I exist because I think I exist. Therefore, I think I exist." That's what Rene' really meant to say.
Applause! Bravo! Thank you
I feel like this is a flawed argument too tho, because thoughts can seemingly be just your brains reactions to the environment and it’s experiences and you don’t really get to choose how you think therefore how does that prove you exist? Just how pain is a reaction to mechanical pressure on your skin so are thoughts reactions to your perception of reality so in actuality you can’t identify them as truly being you or proving that a you exists.
It's an ancient argument, many have come afterwards extending it and refuting it. But it is a good starting point.
This is the main argument of fictionalism. It suggests that our ego-our sense of self-comes from processes of thoughts which revolve around our senses; both the neural processes of thought and the chemical changes that constitute our senses are indistinguishable from reality as a whole-that is, any difference noted is but a fiction, created to help us navigate an otherwise meaningless void.
At the end of the day, all things are basically paradoxes when it comes to proving them. You'll end up going in circles at some point and run into Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Everything will come down to a matter of faith, as all things can be proven and unproven at the same time by trying to prove them. Self-referential paradoxes come by many names. It's ironic then that Godel would create a math formula to prove God since he proved it's also impossible to actually prove it but hey it's a thing anyway.
@@j-ram5765” created to help us navigate an otherwise meaningless void” - Perfect really!
Humanity questioning itself: 🤔🙄😩
8 yo kid who got our universe as a birthday present looking above: 😆🤣🤣😂😂
I think about this all the time. As if we are just some kind snow globe for some higher being lol.
That's an interesting way to look at it
i love your message of finding the truth
My entire life I questioned my existence, it’s only in the past few years I learned about philosophy and realised I may not be the only one losing my mind, people have already dedicated their entire lives to answering the questions that will likely never be answered but that still doesn’t stop me from thinking about the concept of existence.
A very compact filosophical note I made for those interested:
I might have made a second cogito (like "I think, therefore I am").
Its a little less elegant, but it goes like this:
"Life either has purpose, or not, for little purpose would still be purpose.
In the case that life does not have purpose, we don't have to think about that purpose, because that wouldn't have any purpose in any possible way.
Eventhough it could be the truth, it is worthless in any case (exept for thought experiments maybe, but those don't need truth, their merely tools). Useless in any case, means also now, also when Descartes thought about it.
This in turn gives rise to a new concept (probably exists already under a better name idk) which I call the Practical Truth, the third degree of truth. (normal truth being the second and the universe without us observing or conseptualizing it being the first degree of truth.)
The question I'm asking now is: can we build on this foundation more than we can on the first cogito, and how?
In all this ‘head ‘ stuff a stifled voice inside me whispers
‘Love’? ‘Imagination’? Compassion’? Intuition’?
I remember walking to school one morning with my little sister like I always did each morning. I must of been in 4th grade or so. I called out to her name to catch up with me. And at the moment of calling her name I had a sudden realization of why does she have this name and respond to it. And why is there a purpose to names and people existing with them. Anyway it sounds weird now but I felt I had a real awareness’s of things I hadn’t had before from that moment.
That's a weird experience. It seems you had an existential crisis with society,that is,a crisis in which you question the purpose with traditions,customs etc. built by society.
deep
I was just thinking about Descartes yesterday morning
Loved it as always
"One only knows they are dreaming once they are awaken" -NOT always true. I've had one or two dreams during which I was aware that I was dreaming, because things were happening in an illogical way, yet somehow I was aware of this. It was a lot of fun, actually, but I couldn't keep it up for long. In one dream I was looking at a jar with a label on it, and as soon as I tried to read the label, it woke me up (my brain couldn't come up with a list of ingredients for the label, I guess, so it "tapped out".)
That’s how it is for me as well kind of. When my brain realizes something that doesn’t fall into logic I realize I’m dreaming.
Exactly@@Musician.definiti0n
That's lucid dreaming and if you are already predisposed to it, maybe you should look into. Lucid dreaming has changed my life. It started similarly for me, but now I can interact in the dreams knowing full well I am not awake in the same sense as I am while typing this.
During the transition from sleep to awake, I have found, that, while my eyes are still closed, but I am awake, I can see around my bedroom. In other words, I/we can see without eyes, just as we can see in 3D, in dreams, and feel, without a body/hand.
Look into lucid dreaming/ astral projection if you haven't already. Sounds a bit like what you were experiencing
I used to be able to be aware of me dreaming outside of my consciousness. I remembered being able to change some events in my dreams.
@@humanitarianH I can see and am bathed in a warm golden light, it lasts between 3 to 30 seconds, typically about 10 seconds, once it was about a minute. Occurs once or twice a month. I am fully awake, my eyes are still tightly shut, the room is darkish, I can wave my hand in front of my face, and see it. I know if I open my eyes, the light/feeling will/does, vanish immediately. During the experience, I feel warm, cosy, comfortable, wonderful, and I don't want it to end, but of course it always does.
@@ZafOsophyThis is fascinating to read
@@catdownthestreet Being a scientist, I have no idea, how this works. One moment, I am bathed in warm golden light, and I can see around me, with my eyes closed, the next moment, the light fades, collapses to a point and vanishes, then all I see is darkness. I used to dream, flying around on shimmering, tropical, magical islands, with turquoise, crystal clear waters, with beautiful, colourful fish, similar to the scene in the film Contact, when Jodie foster meets her father on the magical beach. I would be interested to hear about other people's similar experiences.
I needed this!
If I am my mind, why could I not control it ? Why does it act against my will ? Why does it change in every passing moment ?... The mind is as same an perception like the physical world. The mind may exist. But an certain "I" does not.
I forgot who I am once, yet I was thinking
So they are separate.
You are what you think you are. But if you dont think?Are you still?
For thousands of years, the Eastern philosophy (Buddhism. Hinduism, Zen, Etc) told us exactly the opposite.
Dear Descartes.... Open your mind!!!🤗🤗🤗
I really like how you spoke about AG1 at the end, tying it into your normal we're presenting things and why they are important. Pretty cool for an advertisement.
Imagine having dreams one night and it changes the world forever
All is one and one is all, separated by a thin veil of temporary self awareness.
the lie of collectivism
@@gnosticchannel We are all just the Universe experiencing itself one being at a time.
Excellent video! I really like how you put things in sequence.
Actually I heard an interesting criticism to cast doubt on 'I think; therefore I am' from Nietzsche. In language we assume there's an object carrying out a verb. We say 'it is raining.' What is the "it" doing the raining? Why isn't rain raining without a doer. Similarly we could be thinking without a subject 'I.' All we can be sure of is we are a momentary blip of consciousness.
That’s not a very good example. There doesn’t have to be an “it” “doing” the raining. Raining is a state that is experienced. When one says “it is raining” they mean literally that thing that is happening outside is called “raining”.
Or another way to look at it: If it’s NOT raining, you might say “It is dry”, certainly you don’t mean that some agent is dry, you are commenting on the general state of the environment.
@@ChadBoss-qr4hl Part of the point is there doesn't need to be an "it" thinking. There could just be thinking.
This is all great ... so long as you are happy to presuppose the "I"
There's no certainty in the "I"
There's also no certainty that the "I" that thinks, is the "I" that "is"
B+2 for effort.
The battlefield is in your mind. Stay Awesome!
Descartes 2.0: Heidegger saying: I exist, therefore, I can think. Existence precedes thinking.
Descartes' response: You have zero evidence of that.
@glassjester All existentialist philosophers respond: Oh, we have built an entire philosophy around such a premise!
@@mongoose6685 Things can exist without thinking. For example, a rock.
@@glassjester Looks like you have been reading Heidegger!
@@mongoose6685 I haven't. I stopped after Hume. Chickened out. The abyss started to stare back.
Had to write a paper about this guys math. Lots of fun to me lmao
Such a great video you did on this...
There are other certainties. Here is one. The awareness that is me may be deceived in all that I perceive, but the perceptions themselves are there.
When I was younger I used to think the Moon followed me.🌜
It is. I saw it following you.😂
The fact of thinking does not necessarily prove existence, it only “proves” that thoughts are being thought. Alan Watts would say that thoughts are just happening and thinker of thoughts is just another thought. It’s like wind saying “I blow therefore I am” but movement of air does not prove nor bring to existence a separate entity like wind. The air is in motion - that’s it. In similar way thoughts are being thought.. by no one.
Knowing that you exist does somehow prove it...
Thinking doesn't prove that your body or brain exist, but it does prove that something is happening somewhere for your 'mind' to be, even if every info that you learn is wrong or there is not one physical thing in the universe or even no universe, your thoughts must be processed somehow because you succeed in knowing that you exist.
@KonradWegrzniak Alan Watts changed my life forever. I realized when I first heard him in 2009 that he had a way to put into words the exact same thoughts I had constantly but couldn't express. Now, thanks to him, he's even made me a better speaker, so I can convey his same ideas to others who haven't heard of him.
Yea but Alan Watts is nonsense. Don't confuse him with real philosophers.
@@Laocoon283 Said like someone who has it all figured oot
Exactly! Wow! You articulate so well. I was also trying to think of an analogy but I managed a stupid one only in my ither comment with "Blue is the color of the sky". The wind analogue "I blow therefore I am" is much better. And overall very well articulated too
Nice content . Rene Descartes is an lovely example of someone who took the time to 'Independently Investigate reality'
A little relevant quote' The inability of the materialistic mind to grasp the idea of the life eternal is no proof of the non-existence that life [Abdul-Baha , Paris talks 1911]
you are the solidary absolute truth, admist the sea of all things uncertain.
Just got more existential crisis on top of current anxiety, nothing changed in my thought, since I always keep questioning am I real
You are real, my dear. Relax into your full being exactly as you are, so that you can get the full rich experience, not just the anxiety, of your time in this form and realm. 😊
I would be highly interested in you breaking down/covering eastern philosophies in the same way. Especially in contrary or addition to this video „vedanta“. I recently had high interest in this topic and googled after the video how exactly it compares to Descartes.
It says on yoga-vidya: - In Vedanta we find the reverse conclusion to Descartes' chain of thought. The Vedanta concludes the thoughts from the thinker and not the thinker from the thoughts. Instead of saying, "I think therefore I am," it says, "I am, therefore I think." - (translated from German to English)
“We miss the real by lack of attention and create the unreal by excess of imagination” Nisargadatta
Imagination refers to the thinking mind whereas attention is simply awareness.
This was a moving video. I need to read some of Descartes' work.
😂
You are speaking truth
A few years ago, after a couple years of meditation and deep thought within my journey of sobriety, i had a weird idea that struck me as true.
We move through this world watching everything go buy us, yet believe we are moving towards it. What if, similar to the brain jar theory, the world moves around us as we think and act upon it.
For example, as i walk from room to room, aure i can see my steps and progress towards it, but am i moving? Or is everything moving towards me theough my actions. Am i stationary?
It kind of blew my mind and the perspective shift in focusing on it was insane to me. Everything is the same, but just the perspective flip somehow changed everything.
@@BR-tq9wq I agree but in my instance I mean physically the world moves under my feet rather than me moving around on the planet.
I would argue with Descarte and say "percipere ergo sum." I perceive, therefore I am. At the moment of perception, awareness of perception occurs and creates awareness of self. Thinking happens all day long without awareness.
Its I'm therefore I think. Existentialist refuted him.
We don’t know that thinking happens all day without awareness, but assuming that it does, from the perspective of the subject that is thinking, they are, and therefore they exist.
Not that I disagree with your main point necessarily, but there’s that.
No because perception is fallible thats where this whole dilemma stems from lol. How can we trust our senses.
@@Laocoon283 Perceiving and perceptions are different things. You perceive your perceptions, even if your perceptions are false. Otherwise, how would you have perceptions? Now, a stronger counter is: how do we know perceiving requires a subject or "perceiver"? Because that appears to be an unstated assumption.
8:55 this whole exhert was such a powerful statement
That was beautiful.
You could even say that it was the dreams that caused the entire world to question their existence. Oops.
“The human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution."
- Rust Cohle
Indeed
As a character, Rust is a travesty of enlightening sayings related to the lost parts of himself that he projected onto others to make them as miserable a bastard as he was.
Pretty soon we will be giving consciousness to AI
Why? 🤔
I think, therefore I think I think.
Astounding stuff.
I really want to see the biography or background on the person who makes these vids.the voice is just perfect too
As someone who naturally had to reach this very same conclusion - essentially, nothing definitely exists except my apparent experience - while journeying with certain substances, I wonder what Descartes might have shared with us if he'd utilised entheogens/psychedelics... or maybe he did? o:
Now that would be interesting
After i tried DMT i know that theres so much more to reality and consciousness.
DMT made me remember I'm God, and so is everything and everyone else... And then I got worried about bills 20 minutes later lol.
Joe Rogan, is that you?
@@MichaelA-ue8ghIt didn't make you remember, it made you buy into a logical fallacy
@@StaticYonder and it's a logical fallacy how?
@@MichaelA-ue8ghyes I had full blown ego death on LSD. Very strange experience and permanently changed the way I view the world.
I find it interesting how people seem to worry about all that while I think that as I can't be sure I just let it go and believe whatever the hack I feel like believing.
Some of us are natural thinkers, meaning we need to explore ideas and figure out all kinds of mental gymnastics to knowing, meaning, understanding. Thank God not all of us are😊 * and I hope no one goes off on the God I thanked as an expression😂
Great video.
Question everything
The aim is to be skeptical and not cynical.. .. ..
After all
All that I know, is that I know nothing. _ Socrates
Yes, question should be "How do I know what I believe I know"?
I think he did not went deep enough. We can say a concept of us and the world around us exists, but there must not be a person, not a me, that has this concept. The concept can just exist in true nothing. We can also not know if we think, due to thinking being a process demanding a past and a now, which is not guarantied. We cannot know that there exists a past, only a concept of the past. So we can only say, a concept of thinking exists, but not thinking.
"So we can only say, a concept of thinking exists, but not thinking... I think."
So I think therefore I was but now I’m not so sure I am 😅
"The concept can just exist in true nothing." What? How can anything exist in "true nothing"?
@@andybrown3016😅😂
Indian philosophy addressed this in great detail much before. Unfortunately, not many westerners, or even Indians have heard of Ashtavakra.
I was never skeptical until I survived a hate crime.
Now I am very skeptical.
Just because you tell me something doesn't make it a truth.
I believe actions speak louder than words because your actions tell me what you have been thinking about.
Proof/documentation is what I have learned. Then even that is going to change when a new piece of the puzzle is placed in the puzzle. Even though it was true at that moment in time. It will change
I have learned that there is no such thing as an honest handshake. Everyone has an alternier motive. So I question everything now.
Sometimes when i was doing random stuff like traveling or eating I will have this weird feeling I don't know how to discribe it properly but I will try my best ,First I will have a thought about my death than I will think about after death then all I can feel is nothingness and a bit scared and I will feel free, this feeling lasts around 30sec to 1min atmost
If any of you had this kind of experience or If you have any knowledge about it kindly share it with me I will appreciate it alot.
I understand you. That is an actual self realization
@@Rndmrth3 can you share your experience if you don't mind?
Existential anxiety
The OG thought experimenter
Allegory of the cave by Plato comes way before.
@@marcanton5357Its not theoretical enough to be a though experiment, at least to me.
@@Hawkenshmire People living all their life chained, facing only a blank wall, the only thing they see in their entire life being shadows from things passing in front of a fire is not theoretical? Don't think this scenario ever exists except as theoretical.
Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment, and you can actually do the practical experiment on that one.
I guess you have to come up with something to keep your original point.
@@marcanton5357 Let me put it this way, right or wrong, he unintentionally did a thought experiment and told it as a story to explain what is real and what isn't.
Yeah good on you Rene. Most of us worked that one out when we were about 6 years old.
Fabulous.
Why did he say "I think so I am". You could also say: I smell so I am, I taste so I am, I feel so I am or any other form of perception. So why didn't he say something like Things exist through me so I am because it sounds like you wouldn't exist if you weren't thinking but you still do
He addressed this in First Meditations. Your senses can be illusory, but your existence cannot.
Actually, the first and only illusion (though it begets many others simultaneous with its appearance) is "I am."
Neo-Platonists disagree. If the uniting principle or origin is not an illusion then none of it's parts or emanations are.
@@marcanton5357 But I am saying the "I am" IS an illusion. Personally, it feels really real to me, the sense that "I am." As it does with everyone else with that sense of "I am." But that doesn't prove that it is so. Our senses, as I imagine you'd probably agree, can deceive us in all sorts of ways, especially our firsthand sensory information. My sense of sight tells me the Earth is flat. And sure, I could see a ship gradually appear from below the horizon, but then I have to deduce what that means. No amount of seeing purely with my eyes will allow me to see that the Earth is in fact a sphere. Likewise, my felt sense will always tell me that "I am" unless I have some sort of experience through psychedelics or something else that gives me an experience of egolessness that I will or may doubt the essential nature of the feeling that "I am." The latest neuroscience points fairly convincingly to the idea that our sense of self is constructed and is in no way something that rests on solid, irrefutable ground, no matter how much it may feel otherwise, even to those who conduct the experiments. Though, for me, the most convincing evidence that the self does not exist comes from non dual speakers who had there sense of personal identity fall away (for no apparent reason). But they all declare emphatically that the self never existed, that it only appears to exist because of an energetic contraction in the body which one cannot be aware of until it is gone. And then, of course, there is no one there. It can sound strange and bizarre, but I am convinced of the authenticity of the speakers who include Tony Parsons, Andreas Müller, Kenneth Madden, Izzy Cloke, Jim Newman, among a number of others. There accounts of what it is like to live as "no one" are in perfect agreement from what I have listened to them speaking about it. And they all say that the sense of being a separate self leads to a delusory experience of what is and that it is only when the feeling of being a "me," as many of them put it, falls away is what is seen clearly. What is seen is only wholeness without subject or object. They say the seeing is utterly simple but indescribable. But that's just it, a separate self only sees its ideas about reality and not unmediated, unconceptualized reality itself. We humans pride ourselves on our knowing, but the truth is ALL our apparent knowing obscures what actually is. Relative knowledge is useful and has its place as long as one can see the inconceivable nature of all that is simultaneously. But the felt sense of "me" necessarily obscures the inconcevability of it all, leaving us being condemned to believing our ideas about reality are reality itself instead of useful but completely untrue abstractions when it comes to seeing the whole picture which cannot be other than an unfathomable mystery forever beyond words.
bold of you to advocate for a proposition that is so scrutinised in modern philosophical thought
Yea its circular logic. Complete nonsense lol.
@@Laocoon283 I held that position too especially in undergrad, I still don't defend it scientifically but the meditations does hold some of the strongest and *clearest* structured arguments in philosophy, and some of the most universally intuitive ideas (even some things surrounding* the 'cogito' conclusion, but probably not the Cogito itself as a proposition about the world and our place in it). how many major works of the early modern era can you really say is afforded those mentioned qualities? I can only assertively say one - Spinoza (and he was most influenced by Descartes). As Wittgenstein showed, perfectly formulated logic can still be wildly incoherent and nonsensical.
Yes I am also surprised and a little disappointed
My first thought after a glimpse of true reality was of solipsism. I had to google what i felt to find out there was a name for it but my actuals awakening that happened not long after this solipsism experience revealed to me what i can't put into words because there are no words to explain it. Like trying to bite your own teeth. 'I' don't exist but the experience of geeling like I'm Andy from Glasgow is there as some seperate entity but i know that i am the whole all happening all at once. Now. The great big happening in the all eternal and ever present now.
What we think is what we do so. Therefore, what we do is who we are, which also includes the things we don't do.
In the Bible when Moses ask God "whom shall I say sent me" God responds "I am." Because of this, God is often referred to in churches across the country as The Great I Am. I think Descartes' mistake was in trying to swim back up to the surface after discovering the fundamental truth rather than simply exploring and expanding the I am. If I am then what am I? In my world I am a conscientious observer of all things with the ability to create or destroy in this "reality".
Descartes was correct on both propositions!
The thing most people consider to be them is largely a result from biology. The ego just keeps you swimming. It makes you feel valuable important worthwhile.