Can anyone please improve upon this scenario. — Agent Smith

Descartes walks into a pub, gets a beer and is kindly mocked by a fellow pubgoer: "I drink, therefore I am." (Bibo, ergo sum)

Soon thereafter Descartes found himself peeing on the wall outside, muttering to himself: "I take the piss, therefore I am."

Later that night Descartes dreamed of the Evil Demon, who looked a spitting image of Descartes except for the lurid glint in its eyes. "I'm sorry to feed you these doubts, my friend, but as a demon I know the truth of the matter. You must stop thinking or terrible things are going to happen to you." Evil Descartes took a gun from his pocket and waived it around. "You thought and therefore I might shoot... I see your fear. To kill is a thrill for me I must admit, second only to fomenting unreasonable doubts. The truth or... lie, is that this is a dream you're dreaming. Fortunately, for you at least, you dream therefore you are, Descartes."

Descartes woke up to find he had wet his bed.

Agrippa's trilemma?

1. If I think then I exist
2. I think
Ergo,
3. I exist [1, 2 MP]

Premise 1 is shaky for the simple reason that it's derived from the more general premise every action has an actor (walk, walker; talk, talker; etc.) which in addition to being empirical is also derived from what Descartes considers could be an illusion created by a deus deceptor. In short, notwithstanding his brilliance, Descartes' drinking from the very well he just poisoned. Suicide comes in all shapes and sizes, eh?

Do I really exist or is some evil demon fooling himself into thinking I exist so that he can have fun tormenting his imaginary friend?

Not a koan for the feint of heart.

Do I really exist or is some evil demon fooling himself into thinking I exist so that he can have fun tormenting his imaginary friend?

Not a koan for the feint of heart. — Yohan

The brain is very complex mon ami! Don't, no, not even for a single moment, assume you know what's going on.

Plus, you've committed the divine fallacy by saying what seems absurd/ridiculous to you is false.

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. — Hamlet

Ironically you are assuming I was not being serious.
Everything I say is serious, especially when I am being playful.

Thanks for the reminder. I believe that there is no such thing as being too skeptical.
I believe one's capacity for wisdom is precisely aligned with the degree of one's capacity to doubt.

Anatta (no self/Buddhism). How would you resolve the contradiction therein between anatta (Siddhartha Gautama) & cogito ergo sum (René Descartes)?

Anatta (no self/Buddhism). How would you resolve the contradiction therein between anatta (Siddhartha Gautama) & cogito ergo sum (René Descartes)? — Agent Smith

Is this what you mean by Anatta?

The meaning of ANATTA is a basic Buddhist doctrine affirming the nonexistence of a soul, essence, or any other enduring substantial entity.

As far as I know, Buddha Dharma doesn't have metaphysical doctrines.

My favorite Sutra on the topic of not-self is the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.nymo.html
I don't see any claim about the non-existence of self here and its quite thorough in its rejection of what is not to be considered self. I'd be interested if anyone could point to a sutra where the Buddha claims there is no self.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. — Walk Whitman

The 'I' casts off the illusion of 'I' and yet remains as 'I'. Such is the paradox of Self-Realisation. The realised do not see any contradiction in it. — Venkataraman Iyer, also known is Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

We'll need to work on it mon ami! Clearly anatta translates in English as no self. Do you think this is a mistransaltion of a more nuanced concept of I the Indians had OR do you suppose Buddha's I $\neq$ Descartes' I?

I think whoever wrote this Wikipedia article on it expressed it quite nicely:

[/In Buddhism, the term anattā or anātman refers to the doctrine of "non-self" – that no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon. While often interpreted as a doctrine denying the existence of a self, anatman is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent, while staying silent on the ultimate existence of an unchanging essence.

Bold added. Why is this also in quotes when I do not have the quote commands typed around this sentence?

When Vacchagotta the wanderer asked him point-blank whether or not there is a self, the Buddha remained silent, which means that the question has no helpful answer. As he later explained to Ananda, to respond either yes or no to this question would be to side with opposite extremes of wrong view. Some have argued that the Buddha didn’t answer with “no” because Vacchagotta wouldn’t have understood the answer. But there’s another passage where the Buddha advises all the monks to avoid getting involved in questions such as “What am I?” “Do I exist?” “Do I not exist?” because they lead to answers like “I have a self” and “I have no self,” both of which are a “thicket of views, a writhing of views, a contortion of views” that get in the way of awakening. — https://tricycle.org/magazine/there-no-self/

staying silent — Yohan

How do we make sense of this apparent contradiction? Is it a question of ethics, being pragmatic, calling it as you see it, being honest, perhaps gennaion pseudos, a complex puzzle that needs solving, all of the above, none of the above?

I see it that, the Buddha took neti neti to its conclusion and remained silent on the truth, recommending neti neti to others.
Descartes also followed neti neti, and shared his conclusion rather than recommend neti neti to others.

We need to study :zip: There are many possibilities to consider; as a novice skeptic, I believe one needs to explore the possibility space on every issue.

Returning to the contradiction of anatta & cogito ergo sum, how do you propose we resolve it? Neti neti as in everything we think is the self isn't the self?

Returning to the contradiction of anatta & cogito ergo sum, how do you propose we resolve it? — Agent Smith

Just don't assume either is true. Instead, clarify what you mean by the word 'I'?

contradiction of anatta & cogito ergo sum — Agent Smith

Maybe what Descartes meant was: thought arises and this cannot be denied (thought=thought). If no thought could arise, no selective ordering of recurring memories, on what basis could we construct/refer/reflect self?

Seems like he could easily fit in with the no self Buddhists, if he can refrain from his favorite foundationalist pastime. If no thought (or no unity/relations of thought), then no (illusory/abstract) self.

_______

Silly fiction...

Descartes awoke in a panic, hands pulling at the cuff of his nightgown. Am I mad. This elusive demon is tormenting me with doubt and how will I think and be from fear? What if I fall through the floor into a pit of pikes? What if the fleas around here have bubonic plague? What if those whores gave me syphilis? I think I'll just stay in bed until woken by a new absurdity. Descartes curled up under his heavy woolen blanket and closed his eyes. Mind, you must stop these sadistic fancies, tuned up by terror and paranoia. Why can't I doubt in moderation? Have I no free will?

"As Gregor Samsa (formerly Rene Descartes) awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." ~Kafka (The Evil Demon as Author)

Just don't assume either is true. Instead, clarify what you mean by the word 'I'? — Yohan

Excelente! That's a plausible explanation for the Buddha's Noble Silence and yet, despite his unwillingness to do so, he had to turn the Dharma Chakra and that involved a lot of speaking. Assuming he would've preferred to have kept mum about what he had discovered, it's worth delving deeper into what he preached.



Descartes laid the foundation of all philosphy on the self for to Descartes, as existing, couldn't be doubted for to do so, Descartes hadta exist (doubt $\to$ doubter). Funnily, the Delphic Oracle seems to have been in the know about this; recall what the Oracle said: temet nosce (cogito ergo sum) and surety brings ruin (skepticism).

However, Descartes' argument breaks down when Agrippa's trilemma is brought to bear upon it.

1. I think $\to$ I exist
2. I think
Ergo,
3. I exist [1, 2 MP]

What's the proof for premise 1? What's the proof for the premise of the proof of premise 1? So on, ad infinitum.

What's the proof for premise 1? — Agent Smith

:up: I saw some good replies to your main thread about Agrippa's trilemma.

It's self-evident for Descartes. No proof needed. I still just don't see how the cogito serves as an epistemic foundation for Descartes when there so much more that needs to be taken at self-evident/axiomatic to even attempt to argue or philosophize. What else constrains Descartes doubting? To question/doubt on the basis of needing a proof already presumes were resting on/using functional axioms... but maybe he assumes we don't need to doubt those things either.

Just because Descartes can't doubt that he doubts (he cannot doubt the doubter, so there is a doubter), how does that serve as a certain foundation for anything, when there is everything else he could doubt or find self-evident before constructing his philosophy. It's seemingly not much to stand on compared to everything else he is already standing on (the assumed/unspoken laws thought/logic). But maybe he said as much.

For me too it remains a mystery how he rebuilt philosophy, after having demolished it, on the cogito? This is no small feat by all accounts. Remember the Holy Grail of all seekers of wisdom is al-Haqq (the Truth), truth with a capital T. Maybe I exist is the Truth, for Descartes it was.