Why did René Descartes suddenly disappear while he was arguing with someone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes

curious_guy (imported) wrote: Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:25 pm Why did René Descartes suddenly disappear while he was arguing with someone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes

He wasn't thinking, and therefore he wasn't (I think, therefore I am).

Hehe. That is horrible...

Rene Descarte walked into a McDonald's and ordered a quarter pounder and a coke. The cashier asked if he would like fries with his sandwich? He said he thought not and disappeared.

I hate to tell y'all and be a killjoy,

But I read Descartes' "Discourse on the Method" for Philosophy 101 in COllege. Where Descartes says "cogito ergo sum" -- it really doesn't mean "I think therefore I am" in the way you are citing it. Literally it means "I think therefore I am" but not in context.

However, that revelation does kill the joke.

So I will leave y'all in a philosophically deprived state...

but still giggling.

I'm in a good mood tonight.

Of course, we are simplifying this. What he was saying was, because I can think, because I'm capable of thought, I must exist. Something has to exist to think, therefore, because I think (have thought) I must exist. That didn't mean the world existed, or that his perceptions of the world was correct, or that his perceptions of himself were correct. All it meant was that he, the thing doing the thinking, had to exist in one form or the other, because he was thinking. The thought couldn't come from nowhere. Someone, he, had to be doing the thinking.

And the inverse isn't necessarily true if we're being ultra pedantic

A therefore B doesn't necessarily mean !A therefore !B

But the joke was good

Truly a man that was limited by his own thoughts.

River

Rene should have imagined a better life

"Cogito, ergo sum," is, to me, the essence of Cartesian dualism.

A good antidote for Cartesian dualism may be found in the book by neurologist Antonio Damasio, "Descartes' Error."

The foundational description of the alternative to dualism, namely holism, may be found in the book by Jan Christiaan Smuts, "Holism and Biology," The Macmillan Co., 1926, which is still in print through one or more publishers.

Whereas, in the Cartesian dualistic formulation, put in English, "I think, therefore I am," and put as a logical statement in English, " 'I think' implies 'I am.'," only asserts the contrapositive, " 'I am not' implies 'I do not think.'," and does not assert either the converse, " 'I am' implies 'I think.'," and does not assert the inverse, " 'I do not think' implies 'I am not.'," the holistic formulation begins with, " 'I am' implies 'I think.'," because thinking is the process of being, such that thinking and being are so totally inseparable that from a biological stance, I find that the statement "I am, therefore I think," is equally valid not only in its contrapositive form, but also valid as its inverse and converse, this being because thinking and being are two observable aspects of the same entity, the being alive of an organism.

Descartes should not have imagined a better life than he imagined because, from a holistic stance, nothing ever happens, it the actual context of its happening, other than in the "best actually possible" way. The mistaken belief that something that actually happened could actually have happened in an actually better way than it actually happened is actually the foundational error of Cartesian dualism.

While that is my view, it is rather well put, in my view, by Damasio.

Dualism allows regarding death as the opposite of life. Holism allows what appears as though dead to be the essential substrate of what appears as though alive, and, without its necessary substrate, there is no life. Thus, to me, the entire universe consists of organisms and their necessary substrates, and the entire universe consists only of organisms and their necessary substrates; therefore, the entire universe is itself life itself. LIfe, in that sense, has no possible opposition.

Scientific refutation is most welcome.