I THINK, THEREFORE I AMPLITUDE MODULATE (AM)

TheMadFool

I have this oddball theory [sorry @Banno] that I want to throw out there just in case people find it worth exploring.

First to explain the title: AM is a radio term and refers to Amplitude Modulation used in radio broadcasting. You can visit the Wikipedia page here

Rene Descartes has a made a mark in the history of philosophy with his famous cogito ergo sum argument (I think, therefore I AM). Descartes' argument is that since he's thinking, he must exist (as the thinker doing the thinking). In essence, Descartes identifies himself as the entity doing the thinking and what's germane to my theory is that Descartes considers himself as the originator of thoughts i.e. Descartes believes that he, Descartes, is the source of the thoughts that pass through his mind. This must be so for if it weren't it wouldn't be Descartes who's thinking and if that's the case, Descartes can't infer that Descartes exists.

What if...Descartes is wrong?

I remember my late grandfather who used to regularly listen to the radio. He would tune in to a station and listen for a while and when whatever program he was interested in ended, he would tune into another station and when the program there ended, he would switch to another station...you get the idea.

Now, a radio is - bottom line - a receiver; all it does is pick up radio waves and play it on its in-built speaker. The contents of a program playing on a radio don't originate in the radio but exist outside as radio waves, in the air.

Consider now the possibility that thoughts too exist like radio waves - disturbances in the electromagnetic field - permeating all space and our brains are simply receivers that pick up these thought waves, these thought waves being broadcasted by various "stations" that may be either natural or artificial (think ET).

If the above thought wave scenario is possible then, Descartes isn't warranted to conclude that he exists based on the mere fact that he thinks because the thoughts aren't his - it's not Descartes who's thinking. Just as a radio can't claim to be the originator of the contents of a station it's tuned in to and hence can only be a passive receiver of radio waves, Descartes too can't claim to be the originator of his thoughts i.e. he can't claim to be thinking for all that's happening is his brain is picking up thought waves from whatever "station" he's tuned in to. Ergo, Descartes' claim that he's thinking is no more justified than a radio's claim that it's creating the contents it's playing on its speakers.

Outlander

Descartes isn't warranted to conclude that he exists based on the mere fact that he thinks because the thoughts aren't his - it's not Descartes who's thinking. — TheMadFool

Assuming we're not talking about telepathy, and even still, kind of a disturbing and dystopian topic. I'd say it's a safe bet they didn't have that technological capability during his time. Of course, who's to say. I can't recall if it was an urban legend or not but I remember hearing something about someone who started picking up radio signals from a filling he had and was able to hear the programs. Maybe he was just crazy though. Again, who's to say.

turkeyMan

↪TheMadFool

I'm adding this to my jounal. i'm going to read this later

Streetlight

This is irrelevant because Descartes 'proof' does not depend on the self being the source of thought. That it thinks is enough.

Jack Cummins

↪TheMadFool

Yes, this is a new, interesting area of discussion and I am thinking about it before I begin replies to other discussions. But I can relate to it, of course, because playing music on my speakers is my basic mode of being,

As a child, one of the things that I found so fascinating was the way in which sounds can be impressed onto grooves of records and to the tapes inside cassettes, and I think that this relates to the whole area of radio transmission and the transmission of thoughts. It comes down to identifying the source.

It would be wrong to say that the radio is speaking or that the record was singing. They are the outer layer responsible for the transmission but did not create the sounds. However, unlike Descartes, radios, records and CDs don't have self-consciousness, so they do not begin to think they are identical with the sounds.

The question is to what extent, are Descartes and ourselves different from the radio? We transmit thoughts, but are not identical with the source of consciousness itself. The source can be identified as the brain or mind, depending on whether one is a dualist or not, and how reductionist one is. Or, the source can even be seen as the collective unconscious.

Where Descartes identified himself as existing on the basis that he was thinking, he was drawing on the idea of the 'I' as the observer, or as Ken Wilber spoke of 'witness' consciousness. But, on the basis that we observe or witness, what does this mean about the 'I'. Is the 'I' an entity, even a self, or is just an illusionary fragment.

Perhaps it is an entity in the sense that it is a means of establishing an autobiographical self through life, but perhaps it is not really an actual being but more like a device for channelling sensory and mental stimuli. But, having just written that sentence, I can sense my own inner 'I', saying, 'But of course I am real' So, what do we make of this mysterious I. It is the seat of ego consciousness and cohesive identity. Without it, we would be a jumble of sensory experiences. It would be wrong to see oneself, or Descartes, as the source of thoughts but it could be said that the I is able to, at least, establish itself as existing as the seat of consciousness.

khaled

↪StreetlightX

the self being the source of thought. That it thinks is enough. — StreetlightX

How is "the self is the source of thought" different from "the self thinks"?

Streetlight

↪khaled

The same way that the radio plays music is different from the radio station playing music. But it really doesn't matter. The point is that for Descartes' purposes, it is a distinction without a difference.

Tobias

Streetlight is correct.

"Descartes identifies himself as the entity doing the thinking and what's germane to my theory is that Descartes considers himself as the originator of thoughts i.e. Descartes believes that he, Descartes, is the source of the thoughts that pass through his mind."

Descartes merely identifies himself as 'thinking being', in ancient language, the being which' essence consists of thinking. However, he needs not accept that thinking consists of 'originating thoughts'. He merely accepts that there is 'something doing thinking' and that that certain something self identifies. This is a very elaborate way of saying the same thing Streetlight says actually. Your 'radio-wave thinking' theory is therefore not incompatible with Descartes.

Consider now the possibility that thoughts too exist like radio waves - disturbances in the electromagnetic field - permeating all space and our brains are simply receivers that pick up these thought waves, these thought waves being broadcasted by various "stations" that may be either natural or artificial (think ET).

However Descartes' theory is metaphysically (in this case at least) more lean than yours. He does not have to accept any metaphysical nature of 'the thought as a certaon something'. He 'merely' has to accept that thinking exists and that it is located in a certain something, something which you also seem to accept.

Metaphysician Undercover

If the above thought wave scenario is possible then, Descartes isn't warranted to conclude that he exists based on the mere fact that he thinks because the thoughts aren't his - it's not Descartes who's thinking. Just as a radio can't claim to be the originator of the contents of a station it's tuned in to and hence can only be a passive receiver of radio waves, Descartes too can't claim to be the originator of his thoughts i.e. he can't claim to be thinking for all that's happening is his brain is picking up thought waves from whatever "station" he's tuned in to. Ergo, Descartes' claim that he's thinking is no more justified than a radio's claim that it's creating the contents it's playing on its speakers. — TheMadFool

Right, and thought is always directed toward some want or desire, indicating that something is lacking, so the more appropriate argument would be I think therefore I want to be.

Descartes merely identifies himself as 'thinking being', in ancient language, the being which' essence consists of thinking. However, he needs not accept that thinking consists of 'originating thoughts'. He merely accepts that there is 'something doing thinking' and that that certain something self identifies. This is a very elaborate way of saying the same thing Streetlight says actually. Your 'radio-wave thinking' theory is therefore not incompatible with Descartes. — Tobias

The issue then is how the thinking self-identifies. The self-identifying always requires another premise for the purpose of comparison. if the thinking thinks that it is necessary that there is something like a being which is thinking, then I think therefore I am, is appropriate the conclusion. But if thinking means something else to the thinking, then the conclusion would be otherwise. So the true question is what does it really mean to be thinking.

TheMadFool

I remember hearing something about someone who started picking up radio signals from a filling he had and was able to hear the programs — Outlander

I came across that story too. It would've made my day if it were true. Unfortunately, it appears to be just one of those tall tales people spin to make their lives just that bit more interesting.

This is irrelevant because Descartes 'proof' does not depend on the self being the source of thought. That it thinks is enough. — StreetlightX

The point is if there are thought waves of the kind I described in the OP, no one, including Descartes, is thinking. If this is a difficult for you to accept, consider vision. When we see objects around us, do we conclude that we're the light waves that enter our eyes? No, right? Similarly, if our brains are simply receiving (like our eyes receive light wave) thought waves, we can't assert that we're the thought waves and if that's the case, we can't claim to be thinking beings just as our eyes can't claim to be the light waves.

However, unlike Descartes, radios, records and CDs don't have self-consciousness, so they do not begin to think they are identical with the sounds. — Jack Cummins

This begs the question. For to assert that there's self-consciousness amounts to saying that one exists as a thinking being but the catch is, if thought waves are real, no one claim to be thinking (see my reply to StreetlightX)

Streetlight is correct. — Tobias

See my reply to StreetlightX

self-identifies — Metaphysician Undercover

See my reply to JackCummins

I'm open to ideas thought. First things first, we all seem to have some hardwired tendencies/proclivities which are very difficult to override - perhaps this reflects brain architectures that tune in to a certain assortment of thought waves (the brain has a preference for certain broadcasting "stations").

Secondly, there's the matter of how we seem to have some control over our thoughts - we can, for instance, decide to close a book we were reading and go out for a walk. This I suppose is what JackCummins means by "self-consciousness" but these instances can be explained in my theory as simply a preset sequence of contents broadcast from the "station" our brains are tuned in to. So deciding to stop reading a book and go out for a walk could simply be the next program in thought wave "station" broadcast.

Streetlight

The point is if there are thought waves of the kind I described in the OP, no one, including Descartes, is thinking. — TheMadFool

Again, irrelevant.

TheMadFool

Again, irrelevant — StreetlightX

You missed the point then. Did you get my eye analogy? :chin:

khaled

↪StreetlightX

Descartes' purposes — StreetlightX

And those are?

What is the "I" in "I think therefore I am"? If it is not the source of thoughts then what? The receiver? Similar to a radio? Guess that works. But now what?

Streetlight

And those are? — khaled

To establish the existence of the self, as every first year philosophy student knows. The 'nature' of the self in question is simply irrelevant for that purpose. Descartes answer to the OP would simply be: who cares?

Did you get my eye analogy? — TheMadFool

It was irrelevant, like the rest of the OP. Descartes does not set out to establish that the self is what thinks. Only that there is a self at all.

khaled

↪StreetlightX

To establish the existence of the self, as every first year philosophy student knows. The 'nature' of the self in question is simply irrelevant for that purpose. Descartes answer to the OP would simply be: who cares? — StreetlightX

Thanks for clarifying. I'll look up the rest. It just seems odd that whatever he planned to use this concept of "self" for would accept both definitions. A radio OR a radio station. I forget how the whole "self" fit into his overall goals of finding undoubtable knowledge.

Jack Cummins

↪TheMadFool

I do agree about your essential idea about our brains being transmitters, receiving information, and I think it is a bit similar to those of Henri Bergson and his whole idea of Mind at Large. Perhaps you do not need Descartes to be at the centre of the theorI about tuning into to thought waves. I have also been writing in response to @Possibility, about art, this afternoon, and reading her writing is inspirational for thinking about dimensions which we can tap into.

Tobias

The point is if there are thought waves of the kind I described in the OP, no one, including Descartes, is thinking. If this is a difficult for you to accept, consider vision. When we see objects around us, do we conclude that we're the light waves that enter our eyes? No, right? Similarly, if our brains are simply receiving (like our eyes receive light wave) thought waves, we can't assert that we're the thought waves and if that's the case, we can't claim to be thinking beings just as our eyes can't claim to be the light waves — The Mad Fool

The example actually proves the point you like to disprove. By your lights, somehow when we discovered that vision and seeing consists of light waves falling on our retina and being transmitted to the brain, we stopped 'seeing'. Descartes does not contest that he 'is' thinking, in the sense that 'thinking' and 'Decartes' are absolutely identical, which seems to be what you presuppose he says. He does not contend: "I am thoughtwaves", het just states that he is thinking in much the same vein as I can say that I am seeing. Whatever it is that I am de facto doing when I am thinking, is irrelevant to Descartes point. I am a being that thinks, he contends and I cannot escape holding true the idea that I am thinking. That is different according to him with 'seeing' and therefore that cannot be the basis of the self.

The issue then is how the thinking self-identifies. The self-identifying always requires another premise for the purpose of comparison. if the thinking thinks that it is necessary that there is something like a being which is thinking, then I think therefore I am, is appropriate the conclusion. But if thinking means something else to the thinking, then the conclusion would be otherwise. So the true question is what does it really mean to be thinking. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with you, but I think that question lies at the heart of metaphysics. At least the point of Descartes for me is the identification of thinking and being and therefore pointing metaphysics in a certain direction, namely the relationship of being and thinking. This connection came under heavy fire from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein etc. but I think the point itself is momentous in philosophy.

Daniel

↪TheMadFool

I have always ask myself in what form a signal transduction event that's been initiated at one of our senses ends (what is the final form of a signal transduction event?). Are thoughts the end step in the dissipation of such signalling events? I mean, a nervous impulse initiated at the retina, for example, must end somewhere in the brain (the visual cortex, if I am correct); but what is the end result of such impulse ending at the visual cortex (or wherever it ends - since it certainly cannot go on forever). Do you understand my question?

turkeyMan

↪TheMadFool

I read it. I agree for the most part.

Hanover

I have this oddball theory [sorry Banno] that I want to throw out there just in case people find it worth exploring. — TheMadFool

Nothing you've said creates a problem for Descartes. You cannot doubt you are doubting.

Pop

Consider now the possibility that thoughts too exist like radio waves - disturbances in the electromagnetic field - permeating all space and our brains are simply receivers that pick up these thought waves — TheMadFool

:up: According to Fritjof Capra the basic unit of cognition is a reaction to a disturbance in a state, and according to the Santiago theory of cognition : "Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms, with or without a nervous system."

Your assertion fits very nicely into this understanding - as radiation effecting a state or a field, and hence the state / field effected by the disturbance self organizes in response to it. This phenomena occurs at the most basic level of cause and effect, then grows in complexity to eventually become thinking, and Descartes assertion "I think therefore I am" seems logical in this regard. What is illogical, or left undefined, is what is "I am"? In my understanding I am consciousness, or I am a process of self organization, or to put it in your words - I am something like a radio responding to radio waves. :smile: I don't think Descartes had this in mind when he made his claim, still he did a remarkable job given the information he had on hand.

Valentinus

↪TheMadFool

Descartes follows your reasoning up to the point of noticing being-able-to-think is given as evidence rather an explanation of any kind. It is a proof of God in so far that an awareness of thinking can only be accepted as what we find ourselves doing. The empirical can only appear in the silhouette of absolutes whose existence can scarcely be imagined.

In one register, the phrase is saying: You want a mystery? I have one for you.

Wayfarer

Agree with SLX. Worth noting, again, Augustine's precursor to Descartes' cogito.

I am most certain that I am and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians [i.e., skeptic philosophers], who say, “What if you are deceived?” For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token, I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am.

St. Augustine’s City of God (XI.26).

Metaphysician Undercover

I'm open to ideas thought. First things first, we all seem to have some hardwired tendencies/proclivities which are very difficult to override - perhaps this reflects brain architectures that tune in to a certain assortment of thought waves (the brain has a preference for certain broadcasting "stations"). — TheMadFool

How would you separate "hardwired tendencies" from conscious thinking habits which are learned at a very young age. Perhaps it's the case that all pre-existent hardwired tendencies are actually overridden at a young age through the training of the conscious mind, by the influencing adults. This would mean that all such broadcasting preferences are actually conditioned, acquired.

Secondly, there's the matter of how we seem to have some control over our thoughts - we can, for instance, decide to close a book we were reading and go out for a walk. This I suppose is what JackCummins means by "self-consciousness" but these instances can be explained in my theory as simply a preset sequence of contents broadcast from the "station" our brains are tuned in to. So deciding to stop reading a book and go out for a walk could simply be the next program in thought wave "station" broadcast. — TheMadFool

If what I said above is correct, then the only true self-control would be to tune out all conscious thought, these being the product of the influence of others. Until you do this, and tune into that radio station which such self-control might give you, you don't have any basis to say what that radio station might be like, because the only time you might have been tuned into it was when you were so young that you couldn't possibly remember it. If such a radio station could actually tell you anything, what do you think it would say?

Metaphysician Undercover

At least the point of Descartes for me is the identification of thinking and being and therefore pointing metaphysics in a certain direction, namely the relationship of being and thinking. — Tobias

I really don't believe that thinking can be identified with being in this way. This is because "being", though the "ing" signifies an activity, is really a passive, unchanging sort of thing, a temporal continuity of the same identified thing. If a thing is changing, it is better described as "becoming" and so we have the ancient dichotomy between being and becoming. Since thinking is better described as an activity of change, it is better classified as a sort of becoming, and Descartes would have been more accurate to say I think therefore I am becoming (as changing). Now, in modern philosophy we have much conflation of being and becoming, such that we have numerous understandings of "being", one supporting the logic of "what is", and another supporting the existence of a growing living being, which is more like a becoming. This makes it very difficult to have any metaphysical discussion of "being", because it's very difficult to know what the participants of such a discussion have in mind by that term.

Joshs

↪Pop

Many recent theories of self-organization, at least those aligned with enactivism and autopoeisis, assert that the activity of the self-organic system stands in a relation of reciprocal creation with its environment. That means that it’s environment is just as much formed by the functions of the system as that system is shaped by three environment. So a consciousness is not simply the passive recipient of stimuli from a supposedly independently existing world , but enacts that world through its functioning. It co-invents the meaning of the ‘radio signals’.

Pop

↪Joshs

:up: I think we are on the same page. Consciousness or self organization is not a special function, but an ordinary function all information energy and matter is involved in.

TheMadFool

Did you get my eye analogy?
— TheMadFool

It was irrelevant, like the rest of the OP. Descartes does not set out to establish that the self is what thinks. Only that there is a self at all. — StreetlightX

I'm sorry to contradict you here but Descartes' self is the thinker but if thought waves are real, there's no thinking so we can forget about a thinker. There's no other way to interpret his argument: I think, therefore I AM.

You cannot doubt you are doubting. — Hanover

I'm sorry about repeating this part of my argument but it seems it hasn't sunk in. Doubting is thinking but if thought waves are real, there's no such thing as thinking and so there can't be a thinker and Descartes' self is, by all accounts, the thinker. Nobody is actively thinking in this scenario, everyone's just passively receiving thought wave signals that are traveling through space.

The example actually proves the point you like to disprove. By your lights, somehow when we discovered that vision and seeing consists of light waves falling on our retina and being transmitted to the brain, we stopped 'seeing'. Descartes does not contest that he 'is' thinking, in the sense that 'thinking' and 'Decartes' are absolutely identical, which seems to be what you presuppose he says. He does not contend: "I am thoughtwaves", het just states that he is thinking in much the same vein as I can say that I am seeing. Whatever it is that I am de facto doing when I am thinking, is irrelevant to Descartes point. I am a being that thinks, he contends and I cannot escape holding true the idea that I am thinking. That is different according to him with 'seeing' and therefore that cannot be the basis of the self. — Tobias

Again, sorry for repeating myself but Descartes' argument is that he is the thinker in the sense actively generating thoughts. Now this is necessary for Descartes' cogito ergo sum argument because if he's a passive recipient of thought waves then it's not him that's thinking. Just give it some "thought" - If the thoughts that I'm thinking aren't mine, i.e. I don't generate them on my own, then, how can I claim to be a thinker and if I'm not a thinker then how can I identify my self as a thinker? How can I say I am that which I'm not!

↪Pop

:up:

I'm sorry I couldn't reply to all of the other posters. I'm a bit tired today. Thank you thought.

Streetlight

I'm sorry to contradict you here — TheMadFool

You're not contradicting me. You're just making clear that you've never read a word of Descartes in your life. Which is par for the course with you.

TheMadFool

You're not contradicting me. You're just making clear that you've never read a word of Descartes in your life. Which is par for the course with you. — StreetlightX

Focus on the argument StreetlightX :smile: Descartes would've appreciated that (a lot).

Streetlight

↪TheMadFool

The argument is irrelevant because you're arguing against nothing.

I THINK, THEREFORE I AMPLITUDE MODULATE (AM)

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