Descartes' certainty of knowledge comes from his doubting. Without doubting, no knowledge. Whenever there is a reason to doubt, don't hesitate to doubt before coming to conclusions.this reminds me of Descartes's. "I think, therefore, I am." He uses something non-physical, such as thoughts, to prove something physical, himself. Therefore, even if he is mistaken in what he thinks he is (he may not realize that he is a brain in a vat), he cannot be mistaken in thinking that he exists, in whatever form. — Beverley
I think, therefore I am. I am, therefore the world exists. Yes, it seems to work.so we can use a non physical thing, light, to prove a physical thing, the object. — Beverley
What we are seeing is the reflected light, not the object itself, and it does give possibility of illusion with the visual perceptions. Therefore scepticism comes handy even in the practical life let alone philosophy. Yes, it does make sense.For us to see anything, light must reflect off a physical object. Even if you are in the desert and seeing a mirage, what you see is still the result of light waves being reflected off physical things, if only air particles. I think this makes sense…. — Beverley
So, at night I open the book, and start reading it. Due to the darkness I must switch on the light before reading it. With no light on, there is no vision. It is total darkness. I cannot even see the book. It is just total darkness. When the light is on, the book is visible. I can read it. In this case, was I seeing and reading the book, or was I seeing and reading the reflected light from the book? — Corvus
Great post. Thank you for your substantial post on the light and wave reflection mechanism for visual perception. It is a good argument with no complication at all.But what I was trying to say (before I ended up writing rather a lot about light waves!) was that if we can see images of objects, there MUST be objects/physical things around us, that are either emitting their own light, or reflecting light emitted from other objects. This would seem to prove that there are objects around us.
Hopefully this all makes sense, and I haven't over complicated things :/ — Beverley
My answer to that question was, when I am not perceiving the world, there is no reason that I can believe in the existence of the world. I may still believe in the existence of the world without perceiving it, but the ground for my belief in the existence is much compromised in accuracy and certainty due to lack of the warrant for the belief. — Corvus
So, is it just his belief that he is the res cogitans? — Beverley
How did he know he wasn't simply the thoughts? — Beverley
You agree that thought is an attribute of a substance which contains no extension, and conversely that extension is an attribute of a substance that contains no thought. So you must also agree that a thinking substance is distinct from an extended substance. — Descartes
Attributes are in fact what make existing substances intelligible to the human mind. He reaffirms this in Article 62, where he says that there is only a distinction in reason between an attribute and an existing substance. — SEP
But when it comes to knowing whether any of these substances truly exist, that is, whether they are present in the world, I say that it is not enough for them to exist in this way for us to perceive them, since in themselves they do not make us discover anything that awakens any particular knowledge in the world. our thinking. It is therefore necessary that it has some attributes that we can notice, — Principles of Philosophy part 1 section 56
I don't think it makes sense to consider duration to be the same as substances.For example, because any substance ceases to exist when it ceases to last, duration is only distinguished from substance by thought. — Principles of Philosophy part 1 section 62
Certainly it is. (Only that I would say, "a recurrent question".)↪Banno How is the existence of an outside world a silly question? It is quite the recurrent question in the history of philosophy. — Lionino
But a sceptic might say, how can I be 100% certain that my beliefs, memories and awareness are accurate? There are possibilities that the beliefs, memories and awareness could be wrong."Okay but, what if you experienced nothing, but you were so traumatized by it that your brain blocked it out?" you may say.
In this case, there is no world, but you are unaware of that. Therefore, as far as you are aware, you have never experienced the world not existing, and your reason for believing in the world is justified. — Beverley
Does this mean that what exists beyond our biological sensibilities doesn't count as the part of the world? Should only the objects which are possible to be experienced by the biological senses be the world and part of the world? Is that your point? If it is so, then we might have to drop all the scientific knowledge as non-reality which belongs to not this world, but in some possible world. That would be a strange world.There is but energy in the forms of frequencies and vibrations not all of which we experience. Objects are energy forms in the way of manifested objects because that is the way we experience given energies. Our given apparent reality is a relational fact, relative only to the biology perceiving it, in other words, energy affecting biology, biology being effected, and projecting apparent reality, a biological readout, not unlike that of a calculator. — boagie
Not so sure about what the conclusions might be, but that’s ok. — Mww
Certainly it is. (Only that I would say, "a recurrent question".) — Alkis Piskas
What is "a place"? Is it some location on the earth such as town, city or a well-known location, or a house, building, temple or even church?Apparent reality exists only for biological life and its consciousness, remember, ultimate reality is a place of no things. — boagie
Is the world devoid of objects in the absence of a conscious subject, a part of the actual world? How could a conscious subject access or understand the world, if the conscious subject is absent from the world?The place is the world, a world devoid of objects in the absence of a conscious subject. This is why I say, there is no such thing as something being objective, think of apparent reality as a biological projection, a biological readout. — boagie
The modern physics tells us that all there is energy, Tesla agree whole heartedly. So, if all there is, is energy then there are no things. — boagie
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