It life is a cycle of experimentation and learning, the reasoning is one apprach. It needs to be combine with intuition and creativity if something entirely new is to be discovered. When I already learning the piano or drawing it is almost entirely intuition, creative motion and observation.

I think we mold our thinking as we grow from a completely small intuitive baby to a big rational man. There is a loss along the path, as you pointed out in your post.

Yes, if one simply applies their life to reasoning things out, they would be missing out on a lot of variety. I just try a little bit of everything and try to grow in all directions.

Trusting in intuition is what makes people idiots.

Trusting in intuition is what makes people idiots. — Partinobodycular

Could you elaborate that?

Could you elaborate that? — Ergo sum

Sure, no problem. First, you have to understand intuition. Rich described playing the piano or drawing as examples of things that are intuitive, but such intuitive behavior is based upon learned skills. If I ask an untrained child to draw a picture, or play the piano, their intuitive capabilities will most assuredly be limited. The child may be able to play notes on the piano that aren't completely displeasing, or draw a stick figure that resembles a person, but these skills are almost certainly attributable to previous exposure to sounds that they found pleasant, or coloring in a coloring book. Intuition is an offshoot of a learned skill.

In such instances intuition can be a good thing, but the point where intuition leads to idiocy is when people apply intuition to beliefs. When they apply learned biases to insufficient evidence. Remember, intuition is just an offshoot of learned behavior. It's a reinforcing agent for what one already believes. Now we're all guilty of relying upon intuition. Even Albert Einstein intuitively believed that Quantum Mechanics was wrong. So we can't simply dismiss it, because we rely upon it all the time. But we should recognize that it tends to reinforce that which we already believe. Now sometimes intuition can turn out to be right, and the person looks like a genius. Most times however, intuition turns out to be completely benign, and we barely notice it. But far too often intuition turns out to be dangerously wrong, and we end up with radical Muslim terrorists.

The point is, that trusting in intuition without questioning it's validity, or recognizing its source, is what leads to idiocy. Always question what you believe, and always recognize that intuition is inherently self-reinforcing. And it's those self-reinforcing biases that lead to idiots.

1. I would think it should be "I am here because I think" not "I think because I am here". We could not be here without perceiving here.

2. "Thus I perceive the existence as something that belongs to the realm of my mind", should be more along the lines of "I perceive my mind as existence".

3. Using cogito ergo sum, we can technically state we exist. I would suggest you read Meditations. The fact that there is a thing that thinks points to the fact that there is indeed a thing. Though, I think cogito ergo sum falls short, as it is not so much that we think that makes us a subject, rather it is that we are aware we think that makes us subjects. As through primary thinking, we become objects. With secondary cogito, we can view the objects as the subject.

With that, the secondary cogito is where reason lies, but this reason acts on the objects and is not itself an object. So, we do not live through reason, we reflect and perceive with it. I would argue that we do not feel reality solely through reason, rather we feel reality through negation And I do not think reason "denies the spirit" because it is not physical, nor because it is an abstract concept. The opposite of reason is not abstraction, they can easily go hand in hand.

A different approach is that 'I think, therefore I am' means 'my mind works by thinking'. Descartes is regarded as one of the ancestors of mental representation theorists. Descartes thought that persons are the same as souls. He thought that souls operate by thinking. According to Descartes, the essence of mind is (mental) thought.
Similar arguments appeared in Kripke's argument against materialism. According to Kripke, Descartes is not identical to Descartes' body. When Descartes is dead, the corpse of Descartes is not identical to him.
Descartes did several things by 'Cogito, ergo sum': He derived his existence from the statement. He defined the nature of 'self' or 'soul' or 'mind'.

Hi, Partinobodycular. There are a few points I'd like to reply:

[...] their intuitive capabilities will most assuredly be limited — Partinobodycular

Yes, limited, but only if one builds up a concept for "limitation" first. The act of drawing a picture, or playing the piano, is per se art, not matter how you classify the outcome.

[...] but these skills are almost certainly attributable to previous exposure to sounds that they found pleasant, or coloring in a coloring book. Intuition is an offshoot of a learned skill. — Partinobodycular

This is your reason working in order to try to fit an explanation (what reason does), not what reality is. The fact these skills do change and evolve only mean they do change and evolve.

In such instances intuition can be a good thing — Partinobodycular

Intuition is a thought, an insight. It can't be good or be bad, it is what it is.

but the point where intuition leads to idiocy is when people apply intuition to beliefs. — Partinobodycular

Everything may lead to idiocy. Reason may lead to idiocy in terms of beliefs; the search for "why".

The point is, that trusting in intuition without questioning it's validity, or recognizing its source, is what leads to idiocy — Partinobodycular

When one questions intuition, he's questioning it with his reason: at this point, the intuition was already gone and he's being rational. By recognizing something, assessing, you're using reason, the kind of thought defined by "Cogito, ergo sum". This is a state, not reality itself.

Though, I think cogito ergo sum falls short, as it is not so much that we think that makes us a subject, rather it is that we are aware we think that makes us subjects. — AcesHigh

We're always "thinking", since the mind is a sense, the same way we're alway smelling something, because we have a nose all the time. The difference is how we use and how we choose to perceive the sensations. So, one way to use our mind is applying logics, "If A, then B" (Descartes's method). So using reason, there's no room for interpretation, and we can state we do exist, but existence becomes a product of our potential to "reason" things with our mind.

When one questions intuition, he's questioning it with his reason: at this point, the intuition was already gone and he's being rational. By recognizing something, assessing, you're using reason, the kind of thought defined by "Cogito, ergo sum". — Ergo sum

But the question is, is reasoning enough? I would say no, it's not. Because some things simply aren't deducible by mere reasoning. Like why there's something rather than nothing. Now if the answer to this most fundamental question isn't deducible by reason, then what is?

Basically, "Cogito, ergo sum", I think therefore I am. Now a solipsist might argue that this irreducibility to reason is evidence that consciousness creates reality, and not the other way around. Although to stay true to reason, it may be more accurate to deduce that neither creates the other. But rather that both are but two aspects of something else.

I wonder whether Descartes ever read Buddhist philosophy, specifically the part where it talks about anatta (no-self). The self, as per Buddhists, is an illusion. Therefore, Descartes' argument is invalid:

1. I think (true)
Ergo
2. I exist (false)

Using reason is part of the process of living, but should not be all of it. — Ergo sum

I wonder whether Descartes ever read Buddhist philosophy, specifically the part where it talks about anatta (no-self). The self, as per Buddhists, is an illusion. Therefore, Descartes argument is invalid: — Agent Smith

As AgentSmith intimates, the questions you are asking highlight the difference between eastern and western philosophies.

I don't think eastern philosophies were available in the west till the late 1700s or early 1800s. Not sure about that.

difference between eastern and western philosophies. — T Clark

:up:

But how to feel reality without using rationality? My mind tells me the truth, but this truth is abstract because the mind also is. How reason explains the spirit? It denies it since it is not physical. Denying our spirit is the same as denying our intuition. — Ergo sum

If you are saying that spirit and intuition are the same thing, I disagree. My experience of spirit is wordless awareness of myself and the world around me. I think intuition is a much more mundane capacity. Most of the things we know we never learned as facts. Since the minute we were born, we have been immersed in the world, taking in sensory information and processing it, often wordlessly. From that process, we develop a model of how the world works. Mommy feeds me. If I drop things, they go down. If I hit my head, it hurts. My foot is part of my body. Things I do make other things happen. And on and on. There's nothing magical and spiritual about it. The fact that many people distrust their intuition is just a result of a lack of intellectual self-awareness. We don't know facts. We know a world.

But how to feel reality without using rationality? — Ergo sum

Eat an orange. Now you know what an orange is without rational knowledge. You have knowledge by way of taste. There are many categories of knowledge and ways to knowledge - experience, consciousness...

I'm confused on the use of mind here...Mostly because from what I can gather rational allows the perception for/realizes the mind, and then the mind verifies the rational?

One of these sensations is called reason - when I suppose my reality is true because I'm feeling it with my mind. — Ergo sum

I wonder whether Descartes ever read Buddhist philosophy, specifically the part where it talks about anatta (no-self). The self, as per Buddhists, is an illusion. Therefore, Descartes' argument is invalid: — Agent Smith

Illusion/delusion is central to Descartes' analysis. Logic dictates that to be deluded or to experience an illusion requires that there be an entity so deluded. He very specifically asked if he could be deceived of being deceived, but he could not. That fact proved he existed as a thinking thing.

Whether another tradition denies some substantive component of the self will have no bearing on the logic of the cogito or of his argument.

That is to say, Buddhism poses no challenge to Descartes' logic here. That isn't to say there are not some who argue his logic is flawed (in that it is tautological), but that argument isn't based upon Buddhism.

Yeah, true that for an illusion, there has to be something that experiences that illusion but that doesn't seem to imply that that something has to be real does it? Unless of course illusions are treated as nonexistent.

The dilemma then: Descartes' argument is invalid or illusions are nonexistent. What are illusions?