“I argue for the vanishing point of difference between science and philosophy through the essential linkage connecting brain and mind.” -Ucarr

I agree, but for a different reason: reality itself is the negation of impossibility (e.g. facts in contradiction to one another or to themselves; things with inconsistent properties), or that the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC) is the coin of the real(m) with complementary faces: Philosophy (roots, heads) and Science (branches, tails). — 180 Proof

I agree. It makes sense to me that empirical science was later distinguished from philosophy which came first. They are more essentially connected as involving the application of mind and its logical processes to sense or to conceptual objects or to experience. The philosopher is the scientist taking the broadest view, having the blankest slate, and having everything at his or her disposal to use for hypothesis and experiment.

I would say the two sides of the coin include science and philosophy together on the one side, keep the coin as the connector logic, but put everything else on the other side as the objects of science/philosophy.

So I think I agree with you both but for a third reason.

Fair question. I maybe shouldn’t have said questions. Someone has a dream of God or sees a burning bush and hears a voice - that is one whole thing to talk about. Then the voice says something - those words are another whole thing to talk about. I’m saying the words might mean more to someone about these being words from God than the fact that a bush was burning and talking, or the fact that it happened in a dream.

if God was termed to speak through dreams, they would be, essentially, indistinguishable phenomena. — AmadeusD

If God speaks to someone at all, that person is presented with two different questions, was it God and what is this God trying to say. If you look only at the question was it God, no one will ever know, because no one can prove the separate existence of any phenomena.

But what if the only evidence there could be that it was God speaking was the content of what was said? Because of what God said, the person sees something new, something new to them. Then they might think, this dream couldn’t have come from me because I could not have understood that, yet I understand something new now because of what was said. Like because of what was said, because of what the dream did to you, you would bother to wonder if it was God, and so you had your evidence in the very content of whatever was making you wonder.

Doesn’t mean it might not still be a hallucination or just a dream, or a fantasy wish, but if what was said really meant something, and hit home to you, and it was new, you might have to wonder about God.

I wonder if you'e thinking philosophy is always an instance of Chinese boxes? — ucarr

In what sense? That the philosopher doesn’t understand the symbols but can use a manual to create responses that work but have no understanding behind them? Or that the philosopher understands that the symbols are meaningless, and so, when philosophizing, is conducting a meta process while processing the meaningless symbols?

there seemed to me in your explanation, a reluctance to go a certain distance as far as truth being an illusion/invention — ENOAH

I can see reading me that way. Basically agree with you. You’re seeing me from a perspective, but you’re seeing me. But I’d frame the reluctance (which is a sort of negation), in a positive way. I admit the illusion, without a reluctance to also see truth there with the illusion. So I get seeing a reluctance to admit the depth of the illusion, since I temper illusion with truth.

But I see this same spot as: I only know the illusion is illusion as I see truth dashed to pieces over and over again. I mean, how could something present itself as an illusion to me, if I couldn’t see that it was not real, not truth? So I just see both. I think Nietzsche did too.

If you have illusion, you have truth obscured.
If you have truth, you have illusion clarified.

So if you have one, you have them both, because each defines the other. But at the same time, you need them both before either one might come to be distinct.

These conversations open huge rabbit holes of paradoxes, dashing logic, identity, metaphysics, this sentence… But knowing anything, be it illusion or not, seems both impossible and already accomplished at the same time. We are dealing in living paradoxes… so it is hard to speak. Like where does Nietzsche lie on the scales of “it is true that there is no truth” and “If there is one thing I know, it is that I know nothing”?
We are bound to find he agrees with and must disagree with, both and neither of these quotes.

Or are you reluctant to ascribe to N. a more absolute abandonment of truth in human existential/phenomenal experience because, for e.g. he's so ambiguous and that would be pinpointing him to an extreme; or, it sounds like nihilism, etc.? — ENOAH

Nietzsche can be very dogmatic. He’s clear that some things are vacuous and empty and other things are full and overcoming. He describes both, and tells us what is true and what is not true about them both.

So he bears witness to truth, he just tells us we are fools to make so much of this creation; or more positively, when we do science, we must practice it gaily, with a spirit that would toss it all away to maybe start over or move on, at any instant.

We should not seek the truth as if to follow a shepherd, we must make it.

That is his method, like anyone else who tries to communicate. He deals in setting out what is, what is true. He just sets out to destroy the vacuous. His content, what he really thinks is, truth is just one small way of being about it. There are other things we can seek and we can see besides the truth; and this truth can itself be illusion and create lies; and it is easier for truth to be a lie than the thing that eluded you in the first place, so maybe we should avoid the concept, we are smarter to jettison it from discourse…

But still, in order to say all that or to tear down any dogma, as I said, Nietzsche had to be as dogmatic about these things as anyone else. He dealt in truths as much as anything else, just more carefully, using a hammer as quickly as the tuner.

I'm interested in seeing if people who are comfortable with N. would be comfortable saying that from a Nietzschean perspective Heidegger's Dasein, throwness, ready at hand, etc. etc. etc., though brilliant and functional, is also, in the end, illusion, and seeing, actually inaccessible by means of the illusion, — ENOAH

I think Heidegger put things in a more classically logical, more metaphysical way, and all of this might be dismissible as facade to Nietzsche. Heidegger had to invent a whole bunch of words just to say what he saw there being. Heidegger’s world is more becoming, being, but being in time, and Nietzsche would see no fault in that, but Heidegger’s world is rigorous in its own way, and so subject to utter destruction like all the rest.

Throwness is a great idea and adds to the conversation. I think Nietzsche would have made good use of that concept.

And they both loved the Greeks. Heidegger thought we lost a connection to what the Greek roots of our words meant, so we needed to relearn and so reuse original uses of those words to better capture our ideas. Nietzsche thought the Greek tragedy was a pinnacle moment in human expression, the human willing into existence Oedipus Rex.

But in the end, Nietzsche would have probably said Heidegger was as full of crap as most everyone else.

As for "exaggerations," I'm not sure I see them that way, which is the "why" of my queries here. — ENOAH

“Truth is an illusion that we have forgotten was an illusion” becomes an exaggeration when you realize there is some truth in it. Nietzsche knew it, so he was exaggerating.

I can’t say Nietzsche was only saying “there is no truth” (which I don’t think he ever plainly says); this exaggerates his point. He wasn’t a relativist either (though some of the things he says logically lead to relativism). I, instead, would say he thought truth comes to be like many other things come to be, and so it passes away, and changes, and is forgotten, and so shouldn’t be honored above, (and because it was so honored for so long needs now to be held below) all of the other things that come to be and pass away. And because truth needed to be taken down a leg, he knocked it down three pegs, exaggerating to lead the masses with him. But we can’t really escape the invention of truth.

He saw that since Plato and Socrates, we had exaggerated the Truth, so he exaggerated No truth, taking God down with it.

Though we all may have forgotten, for Nietzsche to remember that truth was an illusion, he also remembered what truth truly was. He used truth to build the hammer to destroy anything that would not stand if its own will.

Which is why I agree with you, he wasn’t a nihilist either.

This could go on…

I wonder what you think of where I see the the truth of it all, how illusion is only illusion in the eyes of something who knows truth, or simultaneously, truth is only truth in the eyes of something seeing illusion; how the presence of either one, brings the presence of both together. Basically, how we can’t escape the many paradoxes that it is to have any opinion about these things at all.

I personally prefer to think in terms of direct awareness, knowledge and belief all being quite distinct and independent of one another. — Janus

Good stuff. You said it all there.

“direct awareness” - the present becoming of experience.. Thrown there, in motion, with it. It immediately presents an object to a subject; but it can also just be seen as just the subjective experiencing…, becoming in the moment - direct awareness.

“distinct” from “knowledge” - the what, the content, the qualia of this experiencing. If the act of experiencing is direct awareness, the noun of experience is what is made distinct as “knowledge”.

distinct from “belief” - this is an act like direct awareness, but it is the act of willing, of consenting, of choosing to relate the “what” of your “knowledge”, related to the act of experiencing (aware), and claim or judge both “believed” in as related.

All three are instantly present if you try talk about any one of them alone. Experiene, knowledge, belief.

Knowing itself is the act of distinguishing (even if just distinguishing what you presently see from what you presently hear) but distinguishing the whatness as now objects of knowledge, distinguishing knowledge itself from what it is knowledge of, while simultaneously believing your knowledge is either true or not true, judging, understanding, in the direct awareness of these distinctions of knowledge.

You don’t need the word “true” to show all the parts. Truth is covered by “belief”.

We can say there are things in themselves and there is knowledge of things, and when what one believes reflects well enough what there is, this belief is equivalent to knowledge. There, I married all three without saying “truth”. Or we can say we will only base our beliefs on the following: knowing the thing in itself and, now possessing this knowledge, now knowing the knowledge itself of the thing in itself, only when these are each knowledge of the same thing. Or you can just use the word “true”.

When what we believe reflects what truly is, we can say we know; we know the truth.

There is one question in this mix - what is there to believe? But this question includes within it - what is there? And “is there” begs we start all over again.

In order for you to read this very sentence, you have fix whatever I mean by “fix”, right here in this sentence, (you just did it twice!) and then, and only then, can you move on to the next word, the next sentence…

We fix experience with knowledge we can believe in so we can stand on it and move on to the next sentence.

We judge (belief) what we know (knowledge) we are experiencing (awareness). We judge what we experience. We know.

All inseparable in the end.

So Alice and Mark both experience the same qualia of "green", but Alice has a different label for it, so when they look at "green", Mark says that's green, Alice says that's blue, and yet they both see the same color and are having the same qualia experience. Anyway, not sure where to go with that, I just wanted to show that our experience of color is inherently intertwined with language and it should somehow be a part of the argument or at least mentioned.
Anyway, I'm certainly no expert, — Matripsa

You sound like an expert, deep in the cave, unafraid of the light and the dark - welcome to the forum!

The concept of the qualia of experience is a great one. It makes an object of the purely subjective. Once we start talking about this as an object though, we lose the qualia to stumble through our languages. And we get all of the problems of labels.

There is no way to learn whether Mark was right or wrong to say “green” to describe the qualia of Mark’s own experience. Only Mark can know this. That’s why qualia is such a great concept - it is the “only Mark’s space” in the universe. You would have to be Mark to even know what word to say or judge the sense in saying anything like green.

Objectifying qualia is like saying “I am”. It turns something pre-linguistic, or extra-linguistic, or something that needs no words, into words, and the non-linguistic qualia is then lost to the distraction of its re-representation in text.

Qualia is better analyzed by a poet, or novelist, or shown in a painting. We scientific thinkers and philosophers stink at it. We come up with examples like “green” versus “red” and we think we might hit home on some nuance between qualia and language.

But whether qualia are physical (like feelings and sensations) or immaterial (like experiencing personified in the subject), I’m no expert either.

I guess I lean towards qualia being the union of the physical and the non-physical. Qualia unifies the physical senses with the reflective subject. Qualia is the experience of something coming to be, the experience of becoming, while it is the experience of something that already is, at the same time, in a subject, like Mark. Like Alice.

Are you answering "yes" to the question:

Is every category of philosophy a type of metaphysics? — ucarr

In the following sense, yes. Philosophizing is a reflective, meta activity. The earth formed and out of the waters animals diversified, and human beings thought. Somewhere in there was a moment where philosophy was new. At that moment, there was the thing (earth, waters diversifying animals, etc), and now the meta thing held or dispersed by a human. Philosophizing is humans being meta with things.

In the following sense no. Metaphysics starts with concepts (the meta) and gets theoretical and speculative from there (more meta). Metaphysics is a category of philosophy. But it is separate from logoic, which I think belongs in philosophy. Logic is pretty meta, pretty human, but maybe not just human, so maybe not only metaphysics (though it is a category of philosophy.)

I see ethics as tied to having a body in the world interacting with other bodies, causing ethical quandaries and being affected (so the effect) by ethical behaviors. So ethics as a category of philosophy can’t stay purely metaphysical.

Epistemology is like logic and metaphysics overlapping - maybe another type of metaphysics. Ontology overlaps with pure physics, but is maybe half metaphysics and half physics.

1. How do you suppose Nietzsche "defines" knowing (besides the quote provided)? That is what (ontology(?) if I am using the word properly) does he "ascribe" to human knowledge? It is clearly not a thing inherent in the universe which our superior brains can uncover? Is it, to N, a fiction, an illusion? — ENOAH

It’s easy to misrepresent Nietzsche, and when you try to briefly summarize what he says you are in danger of leaving so much out. A lot of philosophic writers are like that. But I’ll attempt.

“What then is truth? …truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions..” - FN

I see this as with so much of what he says as an exaggeration to make a complex point. He wrote with passion, but the point is that we humans make way too much of this “truth” we have invented. It’s not that truth is not something. It’s not that we can avoid knowing and seeking the truth. It’s that we have over valued so many truths and then built obscene facades of dogma and institution out of these over-valuations.

So if we could get to the core essence of what it is to know, what knowledge is to Nietzsche, in the end we are more likely to have built another illusion than to have stumbled upon the truth. And instead of being a truth seeker, of following the drive and will to truth, instead he was willing to live without it.

He devalued truth for all of the misconceptions it has been used to prop up. That is what truth is - based on convention so that when I say “poison” and then say “mashed potatoes” we all don’t get confused about what to eat - truth is less important than poison or potatoes or the will to eat both.

Unfortunately, he did such a good job correcting us from our over-valuing of our science and truth (and yes all science is only practical convention and can be over-valued as well), hammering everything down to where, as he says above, where “nothing happened”, philosophy hasn’t recovered. And worse, instead of over-valuing truth, we now over-value the disintegration, the act of disintegrating, and we now reify only the illusion, only the will without any content whatsoever. So because of Nietzsche we again stray from Nietzsche in the other direction.

He ruined all good discussions of what is “knowledge.” Damn Nietzsche.

And I just disagree with him. I agree that truth has emerged on the scene because of we humans being human, all too-human. And I agree that willing a truth or believing our own knowledge is fraught with peril and likely to lead where nothing happened, a house of cards with the knowing self standing on top smiling like an idiot. But then, once in a while, in those moments where science might be mixed with gaity, where the tuning fork makes use of the hammer’s rubble, we skip right past truth and knowledge straight to wisdom. Some things are just there, and by humans, once in a twinkling of a star in a remote corner of the universe, wisdom shines (for an instant for sure, but now forever if you will, because that is what wisdom knows).

2. How would N. characterize the conclusions about Being (as ontology(?)) made by Heidegger and Sartre, for e.g.? As "arrogant and mendacious"? Or meaningfully nonetheless, and if meaningful, then how? — ENOAH

Hard to predict who Nietzsche would agree with and distance himself from. I get lumping Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre (along with Camus, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Goethe, and others. They all use such different vocabularies (absurd, dread, anxiety, nausea) to point at the same deeply intrinsic places and moments. If you want to talk about Nietzsche’s ontology, I think you start with the birth of tragedy - the Dionysian, the murky unformed passion out of which instinct is first born. You have to look there, using his words.

But as soon as we fix things with too much Apollonian appearance, it gets ugly again (to Nietzsche) and loses its art.

But he was a true artist of a writer. He said many wise things. These refute his exaggerations, to me, and allow me to still cherish what he did for these discussions.

Does accepting a lack of knowledge impart some form of knowledge? — Benj96

In a sense it does. We still know something (maybe generally) before we might adduce we know nothing in particular.

The point is, we can be certain of some things within a context / framework. But it is only as certain as the framework within which it resides is valid.

So certainty is relative. — Metaphyzik

But a statement like “certainty is relative” is not relative.

I agree that we are only certain of things within a context, but when we say “certainty is relative”, we are making everything the context (with no room left for the context to change) and speaking of all certainties ( namely they are all relative).

So maybe it is not that certainty is relative, but that certainty is rare and reserved for things in the context of everything and all time.

Science is science of x.

Except philosophy, which is the science of science or the science of scientiIzing. So philosophy is inherently self-reflective taking as its subject, the subject.

“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.”
“On Truth and Lies in a Non-moral Sense” - F. Nietzsche

How do you not love Nietzsche. Great starting point for these questions.

I see there are at least four things we must just put on the table and address before we can have any account of any one of them. This conversation about knowledge versus belief must address the following distinct things:
- knowing (the act or operation)
- the known (not an act or operation, but merely the “of” in knowledge of, or merely the other, or facts, or objects, or things, as in things known while in the act of knowing)
- truth relationship (the relationship between the act of knowing on the one hand and the thing now known, the object of knowledge on the other. This relationship, as truth or lies or reality or appearance, is most simply represented as “truth”) (have to address it, as Nietzsche did and we all are doing.)
- believing (called belief, but this is another act, of judging or deciding that the knowledge one is in the act of knowing is true. Belief ties them together.)

Nietzsche believed his words above to be true. He would admit the absurdity of calling this picture of man in the universe something he “knew.” He just also believed nothing important happened just because he so believed, he so knew, and the act of reifying “truth” or “knowledge” was as arbitrary as reifying believing or willing, AND in his belief system, wiling was more worthy of reification than any “true knowledge” anyway, but I digress.

So I agree with Nietzsche that you can’t discuss one of these without the others. And I agree you can conclude many different things about knowledge and belief and truth and knowing, such as “nothing happening here in this out of the way corner of the universe.”

Or you might conclude knowledge is merely belief, which I disagree with.

But I agree we shouldn’t reify knowledge above the willing belief, or truth above the simple act of knowing anything be it false or lies. I don’t reify any of it, and try to take it as it comes which is all all together. Nietzsche had to go too far to make us see truth and knowledge don’t deserve primacy over the act of willing, but he went too far and reified willing (but I digress again).

I see I am capable of knowing, and this operation has furnished me with facts or objects of knowledge, for me to then judge and decide for myself which of these things that I am knowing are truly relating my knowing with the things known. I also see it is possible that I never know truth, but then there would not be different puzzle pieces, just me never getting to move them along the game board. The pieces themselves are already there for me to puzzle about.

So, to me, belief is as essential in this discussion as is the operation of knowing, as is the operation of believing the knowing relates to the now known objects as truth or otherwise. Knowing, knowledge, believed to be true…these all happen together.

It would better be put “there is only belief.” Or “there is no knowledge.”

You can’t know what a belief is or what the difference between beliefs and knowledge are if knowledge is only belief.

You can’t say knowledge is only belief unless the two words are synonymous. And in that case nothing has been added to the notion of belief or of knowledge.

In order to wonder if knowledge is or is not belief, mustn’t you look at two different things and see where they are the same?

So what is the difference between knowledge and belief? We still have this question. You’d have to define that difference first before you might relate them as in “knowledge is only belief.”

Knowledge is not knowing and the word 'to know' is stupid therefore. It implies a failure in understanding. — Chet Hawkins

Then so does belief imply the same failure. So I can still wonder about knowledge versus belief, just from a position of failure in understanding.

What distinguishes a 'fact' from a belief is that THAT PERSON ONLY (<--- yup) has decided… — Chet Hawkins

A “fact” distinguished from a “belief” - based on a decision. Ok. I see the moving parts a bit here. A fact on the one hand, a belief in that fact on the other based on a decision. But you need two things to make a decision. So there must be a difference, say between knowledge on the one hand and what we believe is a fact on the other.

To take the position that knowledge is only belief, it is better put that knowledge is knowledge and belief is belief, and we each of us have very little knowledge, although we are full of beliefs.

But you can’t have belief without a separate sense of knowledge.

As a matter of fact, 'facts' are always wrong in some way. — Chet Hawkins

Right here you assert you have knowledge (where you say ”as a matter of fact”) separately from belief (where you say “facts are always wrong”). And you negate your own point since what you end up saying is “As a matter of fact ( which is wrong),…” And in order to understand how a fact is a wrong fact, there must be something else that is understood, like a belief in the ability to know facts and to know they’re wrong.

I believe if you have a belief, you have knowledge separately, unavoidably, incontrovertibly resting on the horizon, the context with that belief, but not only that belief.

There are three levels in there.
Knowing
Fact
Belief — Chet Hawkins

You can’t make different levels out of knowledge and belief if “knowledge is only belief.”

(God) does reveal certain things within the pages of the Bible.
— BitconnectCarlos
I don't think so. It reads like a patchwork authored by men, not the word of an omniscient being. — Banno

I see that because the story of the God of the Bible has to emerge from a patchwork, and a patchwork that is as much fact and history as it is fantastical and contradictory, no human author or group of people would have ever thought to put it all together in one story.

The fact that the Bible is one story, to me, seems impossible. But the Bible is nonetheless. And it makes sense to me. So it makes sense to me it has to be divinely inspired.

I know this wouldn’t have to mean as much to anyone else, but that’s what I see.

I have not claimed that the cogito is meaningless. — Banno

So I asked you what does Descartes mean. And you said.

Well, I'm not at all sure - that's somewhat the point.

Some folk think he was making an inference.

Some folk think he was setting out an intuition. — Banno

If he was making an inference, then he was making or inferring. If he was setting out an intuition or intuiting, he was just the same.

Then you go right after the “I” further distancing from what I think Descartes meant, which is the “am”.

But I wish you would have answered my question.

We don’t have to know whether it’s an inference, or an intuition, or logical, or whether we can know, or whether I have a split personality such that the “I” in “I am” starts us off on a bad foot. When you attempt to empty the “I am” reflection you have already moved past what the reflection means, moved on to where you “are emptying”, and you find again “I am”.

Enoah above said the am “is-ing”. That’s meaningful here. The inference or reference, is an act. The intuition is of intuiting. The content doesn’t matter anymore. Inference and intuition distract as much as the I who might infer or intuit.

Thinking “I am” already happened when it is happening.

So you are certain of the Cogito without any justification? — Banno

You said “justification”. I thought of a third way to address your question.

You distinguished “certainty of the Cogito” from “without justification”. In order to justify certainty, or justify anything, I need some framework, to judge the certainty as justified. I have to clarify one thing “certainty of Cogito” and clarify some means and framework of justification, and then marry the two I suppose.

In order for me to justify the certainty of “I think therefore I am” I would have to be justifying, be in the act of justifying, to myself, to you, to whomever, about whatever. At the Cogito, the details are all drained and the only thing left is being, or becoming at best, like justifying or doing anything’s else.

The clearest meaning of the Cogito starts looking at the act of justifying, or now the act of “looking” at the act of justifying. It’s always an act that is the subject. An act of being, stated simply. It may as well be “I am justifying, therefore I am.” All I see is that I am, as I am justifying or I am anything (and even the “I” no longer matters in this seeing or this being).

I am is self-awareness.
It is mental reflection.

Thinking that I am does seem to be knowing that I am, and knowing that I am, while I am in the act of thinking seems to be knowing something that justifies itself in the act of “thinking justifying thoughts.”

So maybe I would say that, the “I am” reflection is self-justifying.

If by justification you mean words like “I am” that reflect or refer to an existing object, a referent, there being in the world in this case there being specifically here, being the “thinking justifications”. But I know that’s an outlandish statement here.

BUT, like a tautology, (which is what I think of the language of the stupid Cogito; “I am thinking = I am” is just as good of syllogism for my purposes as “I think, therefore I am.”), like a tautology it kind of makes sense that the “I am” reflection would be self-justifying. It literally fabricates a self.

An “I” just to be expressed.

You just helped me clarify what I mean by the Cogito. I see it as: the “I am” reflection.
That’s it. No “therefore”. I also recognize we could deconstruct “reflection” and there are always identity problems, but then I would be deconstructing, or identifying, and would come right back to the “I am” reflection.

So you are certain of the Cogito without any justification? — Banno

I don’t know what you are asking me.

If you are asking am I certain that I exist while I am in the act of thinking “I exist”, than yes - I am certain of this. Something is up, and I am certain of it at that moment. And that is something I can know, while in the acting of knowing I am existing there still…. It’s a phrase like “knowing now” that describes this moment, this place. Immediate certainty of my own becoming that is seeming to forever keep coming once I am being aware of it……aware of being “I am”, calling my own name because “am calling told me I could.
Certainty of all that which is really nothing but “I am”.

If you are asking me whether the statement or syllogism “I think therefore I am” is valid, or sound, or both, or neither, or equivalent to “if P then Q”, than I am only mildly interested in that discussion because I think those things have little to do with what Descartes observed.

Here is the thing, I can’t tell if you think the above two questions I posed are different questions, so that’s why I started this post with “I don’t know what you are asking me.”

You asked me a question and I answered you the best I could, posing two interpretations and answering them both.

Now let me ask you an honest question. Can you say what Descartes meant (or gets credit for for some reason even though any idiot knows “I am” for certain)? What did Descartes mean?

Without letting some syllogism, or logical, third-party verification, constrain you or set you free or justify your words - just what do YOU think Descartes meant. I am not asking you whether you are certain of it, or whether you are certain of it with or without any justification. My question is simpler. You have to see what I think Descartes meant. What do you think Descartes meant?

I have not said that the cogito is meaningless. — Banno

Then I don’t know what you are arguing with me about. I already said I’m not interested in the gaming of logical analysis of “I think; therefore, I am.” That whole conversation is an exercise in missing the point the feeble statement is trying to show, a point that any 10 year old thinks is so obvious it allows them to laugh at philosophers.

I know that I am while wondering what is, and I can’t unknow this.

It’s not about the “I”. It’s not about the “therefore”. It’s about the “am” present in “think”. “Am thinking” says enough.

It’s a premise more than a conclusion, so certainly no argument is needed.

If you disagree with me I can only assume you might not exist to check my math.

One can find all sorts of other stuff that one cannot coherently deny - like that you are reading this post. So if that is our standard, the Cogito is hardly special. — Banno

I can coherently deny any sense data, like reading “this post”.

But I can’t deny to myself that I am reading, or at least that I think I am reading. (Hence Descartes’ use of “I think”.)

But you just said “the Cogito is hardly special” based on it showing something one cannot coherently deny. BUT, you asserting that the Cogito isn’t special won’t work for you to argue that the Cofito is meaningless. You just asserted it has a non-special meaning.

Have you an analysis that shows the validity of "I think, therefore I am"? — Banno

The “validity?” Of the cogito text? An “analysis”?

The point of the cogito, once you get the point, is that no analysis is needed; by analyzing anything further, you just make the point again.

And again.

If one is carefully considering whatever may exist, once one comes to be considering one’s own existence, one finds something existing that one can’t deny.

One can deny the statement, but then “I deny, therefore I am.”

And again..

No, no urgency in the cogito or anti-cogito argument. Just trying to analogize looking at the logic of the words before addressing the meaning of the statement.

Descartes says: “You are standing on the train tracks, and that train is coming fast, therefore you are going to get hit!”

Opponent: “First of all there are the epistemological problems - how can you know any of this? And what is this “train” really or what “you” means?”

Descartes: “You need to get off the tracks! The train is coming therefore you will get hit or worse!”

Opponent: “Therefore? Really?? It’s not even a logical statement. I can show you how meaningless your babbling is with some analytics.”

Descartes: “Ok. Just sayin. You might want to be quick about it. Because I don’t think we are talking about the same thing, and I’d like to get back to my point.”

The inquisition, the crusades, the child abuse and pedophilia - these aren't Christianity. These are the perhaps the gravest sins ever committed because not only were they murderous and tortuous and just evil, but they were done as if Christ would condone them or just distorting any chance of someone getting to know what Christ really said and did. Jesus did not crusade or raise a sword. Jesus did not torture anyone, but was a victim of torture and murder. He turned the evils we do into hope through the resurrection we celebrate tomorrow.

I don't blame anyone for looking at "Christianity" as a force for bad given how few good Christians there are. I am no good example, and I love Christ. But the crusades, the inquisition, just like the hospitals and universities, that the "Church" built - these are what men and women do - these are good and bad, success and failure. They are not Christian. They are not the Church. And the worst of all, to wear a cross as you murder and torture as if you could presume to know anything about what God and Jesus would want you to do to others, as if the example you set was Christlike - the worst of evils.

All of the evils we do to each other are what we do. Christianity and Islam, and Judaism - these bring hope for salvation, and it is salvation from ourselves we need.

I just had to post something because it is Easter. Jesus, simply speaking his mind, was condemned by us, tortured and murdered, on a cross for all to see who we are - what we do. Not what Christ does. Not who a Christian is. And then he rose from his grave for all of us to see there is more in store for us. There is way to hope and joy, recompense for all of the torture and evil we've built.

I doubt this has any impact on those who, seeing the evils done in the name of Christ, are finding their own way. Ultimately, every saint had to find his or her own way, so we're all off to a good start here on this forum. But please just know that some Christians, that is, some people who love Christ like a brother, are just as crushed by the evils done in his name, over and over again.

There are so few Christians worthy of the name.

I am.
..saying that.

I have been.
…saying that.

I say, therefore I am.
(Just ignore the “therefore” if the game of expressing “I say” or “I am” as a conclusion rather than a premise or just a present fact is no fun.)

Yup. It’s hard to say anything without presupposing. Even hard for you to say “It is denied” without presupposing all of the logic and games surrounding the words involved.

So it is hard to say what Descartes was trying to say. Established that. Cogito isn’t perfect. But you haven’t denied the existence of saying (something, anything, any game), and the saying is all you need to see what is said about existence.

My general take is that there is no good way to say what the cogito is trying to say. But at the same time, what it is trying to say can’t be denied, and so is useful to science.

Descarte's discovery was really "thinking therefore is-ing,." It does not rest thus no "am"; it does not rest thus no "I". — ENOAH

I totally agree. Or should say “agreeing is”.

There is a reason 90% of all people 10 years old or more think “I think therefore I am” is a stupid argument. It’s not because of the logic; it’s because what it is trying to argue is so obvious. Everyone already knows “I am” - and they rightly think that if you needed a proof to conclude you exist you might be an idiot.

If you think the cogito illogical and doesn’t show anything at all, you miss the point, just as, if you think the cogito doesn’t show how the obvious is an important philosophical observation, you miss the point. Those focused here on whether the cogito statement is valid or sound are not addressing what the statement is trying to say (which is obvious to a 10 yr old).

There are a lot of people talking past each other here, from two different directions.

Addressing the logical statement is a worthy exercise in logical analytics. But you can never conclude “I am” is not something. I am already is. That I am is as prior as it is immediately present; it need not be a conclusion for it to already be proven.

This is why it is hard to make a logical proof out of the observation, the recognition, the thought, “I am”. We are taking a real, visceral, present moment, a simple obvious moment like reading these words right now, as I am here writing these words “words” right now, this very second where “I am” needs no explanation, a moment like this, and then we are trying to make a formulaic logical expression to re-capture this moment and codify a logical explanation on top of it. This is obviously difficult to do, and maybe “I think therefore I am” doesn’t quite recapture it.

Don’t mislead yourself, if you are misleading, then you are. This is both obvious, and once known, once conceptualized as “I am”, an example of the certain knowledge science seeks.

What defines us as Real existing beings, is the [x]ing. — ENOAH

“x-ing”. Exactly.

That is Descartes whole point.

Thinking, doubting, knowing…always x-ing.

“I x; therefore I’m being.”

Observation and thinking are totally different mental operations. — Corvus

So observing and thinking are different. I was talking about observing my own act of observing, like a self-reflection, which is like relfection, or thinking.

But I can work with that.

Granting observing and thinking are different “operations”, do you think “thinking” and “being” are different operations? Can you describe something that allows you to distinguish “thinking” from “being”? As in, “I think” distinct from “I am”?

Saying "I think, therefore I am." is like saying "I am tipsy, therefore I am drinking." — Corvus

No it’s not.

The statement is “I think, therefore I am.”

This is the same statement as “I am thinking, therefore I am.”

In the alcohol induced version we would have to say “I am drinking, therefore I am.” Or “I am tipsy, therefore I am.”

You keep missing the point, which is an observation of something existing, namely the observer in the act of observing, or simply “observing” is.

"Think" doesn't warrant for anything. "Think" means "think". — Corvus

If “think” means “think” then “”think” warrants for the meaning of “think.” So you can’t say think doesn’t warrant for anything.

No one is saying “I am, therefore I think.”

It’s like you are using words to try and not have a conversation.

I agree, the cogito statement can be logically deconstructed and is problematic, or tautology.

But Descartes wasn’t proving he existed. He wasn’t proving he was thinking. He observed that while trying to prove anything, he was existing, he was seeking proof, he was observing, he was thinking, and he observed he could not doubt any of these showed he was existing.

He stumbled upon a certain existing thing - namely stumbling.

It’s an observation one can’t remove from any picture, or better, from any act of picturing. Every time you are proving Flannel wrong or proving you are right, you “are proving.” Simple observation.

How best to codify it as a logical statement… the saga continues.

I swim, therefore I am wet.

If you define swimming as propulsion through water, then being wet is contained in, or comes along with, or is a consequence of, swimming.

So “therefore” here isnt pointing to a conclusion; it is pointing to a property or aspect of the premise. Swimming includes being wet. You say “swimming” you have already splashed some water on the statement.

I think therefore I am works like that.

I am isn’t a conclusion. It’s as much the premise as the conclusion. It’s just a premise that self-certifies it’s fact as a premise.

The cogito statement is an attempt to define self-certification.

All of the logical analysis is good, instructive of logic itself, pushing us all to clarify what we see here. But none of the logical analysis of the cogito syllogism really addresses the content of what Descartes was observing.

No matter how meaningless or meaningful we make the statement “I think therefore I am”, it would be more on point to talk about “making meaning” then whatever meaning is made.

“I am making the cogito look meaningless, therefore I am.” “Making” is the point. Something being always remains here and that is what Descartes said was certain about.

Lots of vodka drinking causes one to be drunk.
I am drinking lots of vodka, therefore, I am drunk.

“Therefore” causally joins drinking to subsequent drunkenness.

But there is no causation and subsequent effect or conclusion between “I think” and “I am.” When one realizes one is being, when one realizes one is, “I think” is already “I am thinking”, so already “I am”; not therefore I am.

But this is no small observation (despite how cleverly we can think small of the cogito syllogism).

Realizing that I am is an act of realizing - it’s an act. It’s not a thing. Realizing, like thinking, is an act. But when you realize you are realizing, then the thing realized is an act as well, and further, it is the same act that lead to the realization. This demonstrates self-evidence, or certainty. It combines cause and effect into something else, like a simple, momentary observation such as “I am thinking.”

Now you can introduce “therefore” again.

The causal relationship here is not between thinking and being (they are the same basically). The causal relationship is between an existing fact (“I am”) and subsequent knowledge of that fact (“therefore, here is what I still know despite all of the doubting.”)

Descartes was saying the fact that he is causes him to know something certain. The causal relationship and the “therefore” arises between the fact of his existence as cause, and him knowing certainty as effect. Fact causes knowledge; fact, therefore knowledge.

New cogito: “I can doubt everything and think I know nothing, but still, I am thinking, or more simply, I am being; and therefore, there is something I can know, namely, that I am.”

“I am” is one certain fact we can each stop and visit with whenever we want, like a security blanket for science.

if one of the benefits of being able to reason well, and use logic, is to find out what you're wrong about, then... what if you're wrong about logic and reason itself? — flannel jesus

You assume you are reasonable but your own reason teaches you that you are not using reason. Just sane enough to know you’re insane. Sounds like a Kafka novel.

the 'I' is not logical here. To make it logical at a stretch (whilst having to make assumptions) we would have to change it to: 'He thinks therefore he exists.' Then, we can more logically say: 'He does not exist, therefore he is not thinking.' But, as I am sure we are all aware, the cogito ONLY works from the first person perspective. Therefore, it fails; it all fails. — Beverley

I follow you on the logical analysis.

Does “I am” itself mean anything, show you anything, without the syllogism and analytics?

You say it all fails. I’m wondering if anything is left at all in your view.

'I think therefore I am' implies 'I do not think, therefore I do not exist'. It is logically valid.

People do exist until death once born, whether they think or not. We know that from the fact of the reality in the world.

Therefore I think therefore I am is false. "I am" has nothing to do with "I think". — Corvus

“whether they think or not”?

I thought we were on the same page but we can’t even seem to connect on what “I am” means and now you are bringing in what “I am until death once born.”

We are overthinking and adding way too much content to a simple observation - I am.

Forget the stupid syllogism.

It’s really just a simple, present moment - being here right now for instance reeding the word “reeding” spelled wrong twice now. And now reading “now.” Again!

“I am.” Is about right now, being present. Here.

Let’s drain the content. You could say “I am sitting/standing here reading now” to yourself. And whether you actually say this or believe or know anything you say or think, you already said “I am” before and during every any of them... What you say after you say “I am…” doesn’t matter anymore, it’s just content, like birth and death and think and say.

Forget the content. Whenever I say, I am saying. Whenever I think, I am thinking. The “am” is all you need to know about the cogito.

We can know that we exist, while we are existing. It’s what we do. It’s what we are doing right now, here, in this conversation. BUT, forget all that / to much content.

Words themselves do an injustice to the “am”.

This OP asks what we can know with 100% certainty. This brings in “what” and problems of identity and universal kinds.. and brings in “we can know” and problems of epistemology and its cousins physics and metaphysics… and brings in “certainty” on a scale up to 100%.

Forget all of that for one more second.

We’ve drilled down to this simple moment.

So, hey, let me ask you something.

Are you still reading?

Now let’s ask a simpler question.

Are you being?

I am.

If you are, are you sure?

I am.

This is the point in this writing where an all caps HERE makes its appearance. I typed all caps HERE
to completely waste your time.

That is where being is. Now. Currently below a couple HEREs.

That is where I am now when I say “I am.” It’s what it means to me - being in.

From this now, Descartes found certainty. That moves us away from the “am now” back into content and the stupid syllogism. I do see certainty as well, but I wonder if you even follow me here anymore.

Can you doubt that you are now reading my reply?

Point being, at the level you want to work, there are quite a few things besides the Cogito that are evident. — Banno

Yes, I can doubt everything except that I am doubting (which already includes that I am, which is the point of cogito).

What do you mean “at the level I want to work”?

Is it a valid inference, on which we must all agree, or is it an intuition, a mere hunch or impression? — Banno

Has anyone ever wondered if they might not actually exist successfully?

A good solid “wait a minute…am I?”

You doubt everything first, see if you can. No matter how far you get - total blackness, sensory deprivation, mind in a vat, lose the vat, lose the mind - if you find yourself no longer thinking, no longer doubting, or breathing, or you can’t find yourself anywhere anymore, you may have gone too far.

I have a hunch no one can get that far, because “I am” is either riding shotgun, or is the bus.