People die. Philosophies never die.

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. — Fire Ologist

Agreed. :up:

f you think the cogito illogical and doesn’t show anything at all, you miss the point, — Fire Ologist

You still need to give some merit to Cogito. It is undeniable that it is a historical byproduct of ideas, which made start for the new philosophical tradition based on the method of doubt.

Supporting Cogito blindly as if it is a logical statement like some twidledee twiddledum folks in this thread would make them sound asinine.

However totally ignoring and rejecting Cogito as useless, and claiming, therefore it is not even worthwhile to discuss about it would make the interlocutor appear to be obtuse.

The most we can say for certain is that our perception of consciousness may be completely delusional. — Malcolm Lett

Thoughts can be delusional too.

Same thing happen in the case of science. Scientific views could be biased too. There is a whole lot of research going on in the field of philosophy of science about the biases of science. But it doesn't stop science does it. — Abhiram

:eyes: :smirk:

But I'm sure someone could come up with a better interpretation and criticism of his work than me, too. So take this uncited pile of nonsense as what it is, an athiest waxing lyrical about faith on the internet. — fdrake

Great explanation. Very informative and nicely put. :up:

Why "unfortunately"?

'cos he's sexist as hell. — fdrake

Was he? Never knew that. Any particular reason for him had been so? Or just a social trend at the time?

That is, if our intuitions and reasoning about it are worth anything. There is also likely a limit to what can be guessed if the afterlife is like our time on Earth at all, which indicates that the set of potentially accurate guesses is not infinite or can at least be made up entirely of pieces that could be predicted. — ToothyMaw

Afterlife is not that vacuous concept as some folks make out.  It depends on how much credibility we give to our reason.

If we blindly trust our reason as truly and absolutely the only criteria for knowledge, then afterlife looks and sounds like a vacuous concept. But we see the obvious limitations and restrictions in its ability of knowing the abstracts.

If we say, like Kant had done in his CPR, our reason has limitation in its ability to know, and it is not the only and truly the criteria for our knowledge, then Afterlife, Immortality and God concepts all wake up from the vacuity as a plausible possibility.

I would drop this; the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, if you catch my drift. There are plenty of other places your posts might be appreciated while you let this cool off, such as in my thread in which I responded to you. — ToothyMaw

Good advice TM. Yeah I left the thread while back, but they kept on writing to me with the distorted facts, hence I dropped back in briefly to clarify the biases and prejudices they were spreading.

I more or less had to keep repeating my points for the clarification. In the end, all I could do was, advising them to read my posts repeatedly until they get the points right. :)

Really? You must be a mathematician like I was. And one working in functional analysis. I have perhaps four books that speak of Hilbert spaces in certain chapters. — jgill

No I am not. :) I was trying to learn about it better. I kept getting more books on the topic until I find the best one. Ended up with about 10 of the books in the shelf. The last one I got was "Introduction to Hilbert Spaces with Applications" by Lokenath Debnath and Piotr Mikusinski 3rd Edition. It seems the best one so far. But the N. Young and Holland Jr. ones seem also good.

It is not good idea to converse with anyone who distorts the facts. That's all. It is just too cumbersome to keep correcting the continuing distortions. So it is OK. No one's going to lose sleep over this. You go and talk to whom you agree with. I will do the same.

You are in my To Ignore list. So don't waste your time writing to me. Thanks.

Because of your tendency keep writing posts blindly without checking what the others have written, I stopped reading your posts seriously. Just for your info.

You're demanding other people read your words on repeat until they come to agree with you, while yourself showing a general unwillingness to try to read and understand the arguments presented to you. There's a very narcisstic quality to this approach. And hypocritical, of course. — flannel jesus

You also seem to be not able to read English sentences properly. How could anyone discuss anything with you when you cannot read, but distort the others' writings to that degree? Please I would advise you to read it again. I wasn't demanding anything. I was advising. Please stop keep writing nonsense wasting your and others time. You don't seem to know difference between advising and demanding, or you cannot read words properly.

Apart from the fact you refuse to understand what material implication is, what "therefore" means, and that you have basically zero knowledge of Descartes. — Lionino

Sorry mate. There is nothing making sense in your claim. You neither seem to know anything about Descartes nor logic or metaphysics. All I can advise you is to read my previous posts repeatedly, and meditate until you see some lights of wisdom.

As such, I argue that, given certain premises in this post, we should expect an afterlife that plays closer to our ideals than the aforementioned bottomless pit of fire - or an arbitrary eternity in heaven. — ToothyMaw

Problem with Afterlife is that it is a term which cannot be perceived or verified both empirically and analytically.

Empirically, no one has seen the existence of Afterlife or anyone who is living in their Afterlife in reality.

Analytically, Afterlife is a concept to mean a life via resurrection in different heavenly world after present life in this world. 

Nothing wrong with that.  But again there is no way to check its existence visually or physically in any possible way.  It is just a word that some people talk about. Analytic deduction cannot verify existence. Only sensory perceptions and observations could verify existence. Again, no real life data for any type of verification or validation is available for the concept in anywhere in the world and the history of mankind.

Hence Afterlife should belong to the noumena as a thing-in-itself in Kantian terms?  One can only make sensible discussions on it if one accepts the possible existence of thing-in-itself and noumena in the domain of faith and religious beliefs? 

It doesn't matter, Descartes' argument is about the very act of thinking, not about what the thought is about. — Lionino

Logically, semantically, and metaphysically Cogito doesn't make sense at all. "I am thinking." loses its credibility and meaning, as soon as the utterer stopped thinking and the utterance "I think".  It is only valid when he is thinking.  When he ended the utterance, "therefore I am." has no ground or validity, because he is not thinking anymore. This is especially the case, if you accepted the nonsensical claim that "think" implies "existence".

"Thinking" also doesn't exclude the possibility of being wrong.  How many times have you thought something was the case, but found out it wasn't later on?

But in cogito, due to the absence of its content and object of cogito, it can be anything. It could have been "I think that I don't exist, therefore I am." or I think I doubt that I am, therefore I am, ...etc etc.  It doesn't rule out these nonsense contradictory possibilities of implications in the expression.

Hence it appears that your claim has no logical or theoretical ground for validity.  There is no compelling arguments in your claims at all apart from the empty blind declarations that my points are wrong.

A wonderful topic, but I suspect that there is too much here for a single thread — Banno

I agree. Logicism itself could be a huge thread itself on its own. I have 2 books by Dummett on Frege, and they are over 1000 pages. I have about 10 different books on Hilbert space only.

Granting observing and thinking are different “operations”, do you think “thinking” and “being” are different operations? — Fire Ologist

Of course they are.

Can you describe something that allows you to distinguish “thinking” from “being”? As in, “I think” distinct from “I am”? — Fire Ologist

All being has unique properties. When you exist, you are in some location i.e. a physical space on the earth a city or town or up on a hill, and you have mass and weight and shape. Your being can be described with the properties.

Thinking is a private mental event. It has nothing to do with being in any shape or form. I think, therefore I am, tells nothing meaningful at all apart from you are alive and able to make a linguistic expression. And every statement of "I think, therefore I am." is a subjective statement, which means nothing to the other minds apart from you.

Wrong.

The earliest known translation as "I am thinking, therefore I am" is from 1872 by Charles Porterfield Krauth (The Penn Monthly, Volume 3) — Lionino

How do you know it was an accurate translation? Anyway, "I am thinking" is no much different from "I think" in terms of not able to link to "I am". And thinking has objects and content. What were the content and object of "Cogito"? Je ne sais pas.

I had my dinner, therefore I was hungry. :roll:

You're absolutely right, but they does not mean the fact of the conclusion literally temporarily happened in time before the facts of the premises. Just because you write the premises first does not mean they happened first — flannel jesus

Good point. Do you have some example arguments for that?

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

No publication on Descartes says "I am thinking, therefore I am." That sounds like your imagination.
It clearly says "I think, therefore I am."
Here "think" doesn't imply anything else than "think". You claimed also in your previous posts that "think" implies "exist". That is another nonsense. If think implied existence, then Descartes didn't have to say "I exist."

He could just have said "I think.". Saying anything more than that would be superfluous babble.
But Descartes weren't that daft. He said "I think, therefore I am." which means that he thinks that "think" doesn't imply "existence".

Therefore it can be concluded that "I think, therefore I am." is logically unsound, if not false statement.

You could say it is a valid statement. But false statements can be valid, if you marry them up with the matching premises.

You see then it marks conclusion. From the fact that I think I can conclude that I am. — Lionino

Conclusion is always consequent of the premises. You never conclude something, then list premises afterwards. Or like ByLaw suggested, you can never conclude something at the same time telling the premises. It is a temporal logical impossibility.

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

Observation and thinking are totally different mental operations. You are mixing the two, and it seems the source of your confusion.

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

I do. I am saying it. I think it is a more meaningful statement than "I think, therefore I am."

Saying "I think, therefore I am." is like saying "I am tipsy, therefore I drank." or "I died, therefore I am living."

I am therefore I think, is just saying, I exist, therefore I think. Without me existing, I cannot think.

You use therefore to introduce a logical result or conclusion.

So the question is, can you derive a logical result or conclusion, where the *thing you're concluding* preceded, in time, the premises you used to get to that logical result or conclusion? — flannel jesus

You have agreed that Therefore is to mean "result of", "consequence of" here. Result and consequence is clearly chronological and cause-effect nature. Result cannot precede Start. Consequence cannot precede cause.

And if you claim that some point or idea is wrong, then you must be prepared to provide full answer based on your own factual reasonings and logic for the claim. You cannot just claim some idea or point of someone is wrong, and then say it is wrong because the other folks don't agree with it or some authorities says so. That would make you look like a psychological biased man with emotional problems.

Okay, so please link it. — flannel jesus

Please google Therefore for its meaning. It is everywhere. No need for link.
I swim therefore I am wet is correct. I am wet, therefore I swim, is not correct.
I drank therefore I am tipsy is correct. I am tipsy, therefore I drank, is not.

My definition for Therefore is standard definition from any dictionaries on internet. It is nothing special, and nothing obscure.

Therefore is to mean, as a result of, consequence of.

I don't control what he posts. — flannel jesus

Yeah, no blaming you. It is a bit irritating to see him popping up with most smarmy useless comments with nothing useful or helpful contributions to the discussions when we are trying to clarify the issues in haze.

I am saying to you that my definition of "Therefore" is from the dictionaries, not invention of mine.

You have your peeping wonder pal popped up there with usual smarmy comments.

Sorry I am not sure what you are even talking about. Now you are talking about some apples suddenly. I thought we were talking about your reasons and explanations for your claims.

I don't know why you're asking that question. — flannel jesus

Do you not recall you suddenly out of blue, clashing into my post with your saying "the other folks don't agree with you. so you are wrong"?

I was then, asking you for your ground for the claims, and your own reasonings and explanations, why my points were wrong.

So... you're referencing an outside "official" source? So it IS okay to do that for this conversation then? Please clarify that for me - are outside sources relevant? — flannel jesus

For checking out definitions, sure it is a must. But for saying "the other folks don't agree with you." Or UOC said otherwise, and basing that for your judgement for right or wrong, I would say, is not really making sense.

What makes you think my definitions were my own invention?

Disagreemnts about how words are defined and used CAN'T be settled withohut reference to outside sources. Words are socially constructed - if everyone tomorrow decided that they're going to use the word "watermelon" to refer to headphones, then... that's what it refers to, from that point on. — flannel jesus

Words are lost at your groundless babbles. Do you realise my post were written after carefully checking the official sources for the definition?

Yes, I am not sure on your point of your claim that my post was wrong. I think you said, the other folks don't agree, and UOC says differently.

I am asking you your reasons for your opposition.

Were you opposing the point without knowing what you were opposing against?

References to institutions are there to make it clear that the things I'm saying aren't just invented in my own head. If you had a reference to an institution for denying the Antecedent, for example, that would signal to me that you didn't invent it in your own head, but that a slew of respectable thinkers share your view. — flannel jesus

What is your reasoning that my point is not correct? Please tell us. Don't lean on the others' shoulders or hide behind their shadows.

I have given out the explanations based on the reasonings. But you just say, well the other folks don't agree with you, and University California says otherwise.

If you don't agree with something, come with your reasonings why it is not true, rather than simply saying, the other folks don't agree with you, and such and such institutions say otherwise.