I think that when he says, 'I think therefore I am" he imagines himself to be as he perceives himself, and ordinary person. — Beverley

He never wrote anything about that, so I have no idea how he feels about that idea. I think the "I" in "I think therefore I am" is a lot more amorphous than that, it's not referencing any thing in particular. He's not confirming he's a human, or a mammal, or has a brain - he's only confirming 2 things, the existence of his thoughts, and his own existence. Maybe he's a mammal with a brain, maybe he's a demon - these things are debatable - but either way, he thinks and he is.

the conclusion of the cogito is "Therefore I am." I'm just saying, if he's an evil demon, that conclusion is still left true.

I'm not sure how much demons have to do with his thought process for the cogito anyway. Seems unrelated to me.

if he's an evil demon, then he IS

Also, I didn't mean to type the word silly above. Typo. I've changed it to "clearly".

He was applying skepticism as deeply as he could, to strip his beliefs down to the last undeniable belief. "I know the world exist" - do you really? How? Do you know it can't be an illusion. "No, I guess not, I guess I don't know that. How about, I know other minds exist" - do you really? How do you know that? "Yeah I guess you're right. I know thought exists, because I'm experiencing thoughts. Therefore I know I exist. Even if I try to doubt I exist, or that I think, doubting itself is a thought, and requires existence."

I feel like if someone wants to follow Descartes process, but maybe they want to reject the ego, the "I", part of it, they can rephrase it in a way that makes sense without the ego, which is what I was trying to do in my previous post.

Therefore, the 'I am' part of the cogito, in my view, relates to him existing, but specifically in the form that he perceives of himself — Beverley

This isn't an uncommon criticism, and I definitely have time for it.

If you allow the "I" to take a more amorphous form, "I think therefore I am" could be interpreted more like "there is thought, therefore there is something" - and the word "I" fits in there not as a clearly defined ego but just as the experiential reason for why the thinker knows "there is thought".

You, whatever "you" might refer to, knows there is thought because you're experiencing thoughts.

I can definitely see why a non-native speaker reading "A therefore B" would initially think that must mean "A causes B" - but that non-native speaker would be easy to steer in the right direction, if you just show them some examples and how it's used in logic. A non native speaker would generally have some amount of humility about their understanding of another language, and be willing to learn.

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that anybody who cares to *try* to figure out what cogito ergo sum is saying would eventually come to understand that it doesn't mean "First I think, then later on thinking causes me to exist." That's absurdly far from a natural interpretation.

It is not saying that if we have thinking, then later we will have existing. It's not saying that. — Bylaw

yeah of course, I misunderstood your previous post.

If it didn't mean that, then it would mean that Descartes' conclusion included the idea that one could think while not existing, at least for a moment - if it was chronological or causal
the left of the cogito causing that which is on the right in the cogito. — Bylaw

Yeah, which would make it VERY puzzling why philosophers as a group like the cogito very much. Obviously it doesn't mean that - if it did, that would be the FIRST counter argument you hear against it when you look for what people think about it - rather than some obscure counter you've only ever heard once in your life, from a guy who thinks fallacies are valid deductions.

And all the philosophers who think that Descartes meant a different 'therefore' suffer the same ontological absence. — Bylaw

Do a lot of other philosophers think that? What do they think "therefore" means?

If by 'bioengineering' you mean making a thing that's identical to a human *down to the last molecule*, then it is relevant, but I wouldn't call that thing a robot - that would be more like a clone or something.

I see. Last time I asked him if he thinks that one needs to exist in order to think, he said "I don't know". Given that, I'm not sure I would interpret that other quote in the way you are. Maybe, though.

P1 and A1 are evidently true, as you have agreed — Lionino

He agreed with A1?

Incidentally, I agree that a p-zombie indistinguishable from a human is hard to imagine, but then, if you had advanced enough robotic technology — Wayfarer

A robot is distinguishable from a human. Maybe on the outside they look similar, but you cut one open and there's wires instead of guts. Chalmers means indistinguishable down to the bone, down to the cells in their skin and blood and brains

I could well be mistaken or overly simplistic in my understanding, — Malcolm Lett

No, I think your odd reasoning is correct. If Physicalism is true, then minds are a consequence of certain physical things in particular physical structures following specific physical processes. It naturally follows that, if you take one such physical thing which "contains a mind", if you will, and duplicate it such that now you have a second physical thing in the same physical structure following the same physical processes, it must also "contain a mind".

Denying the antecent has nothing to do with social pressure, now :roll: — Lionino

Notice that he has just complimented Corvus on his stubbornness, but not actually agreed with his reasoning about denying the Antecedent.

Sticking to your guns no matter what is the only virtue here. Not logic, not evidence, not considering the arguments of other people.

Some people, when they find out they've been behaving in a way that other people see as narcissistic, might choose to change their behaviour. They might self reflect. If they're brave.

You have been distorting facts the whole time you goof. Remember when you said your Denying the Antecedent was in any logic textbook? Remember when you found out that wasn't the case but refused to acknowledge it or show any willingness to consider that that might be a sign you are wrong?

Remember when you insisted therefore can only be used one way, and you had mountains of reasons to change your mind thrown at you that you ignored?

These are your distortions that you can just give up on. You don't need to hold so tightly to your mistakes.

Then I guess you'll be considering my points just as much as you were before I was on your ignore list. The only way to keep your beliefs in tact.

Keep publicly smelling your own farts. So far it's gotten you literally 0 people who agree with your reasoning, and you haven't begun to question why.

Your advice is not good, it's hypocritical. You shouldn't be saying it, you shouldn't even be saying it if you were right. It's so disgustingly self righteous and haughty.

People are providing arguments, giving links, and you ignore everything and say "read my posts until you agree with me", it's ridiculous. There's no way anybody could take that seriously.

I get to ignore you, but you have to read my words on repeat. No way dude.

All I can advise you is to read my previous posts repeatedly — Corvus

This line you keep repeating reall could use a good inspection. If you're right about whatever you think you're right about, then this maybe gives off some sense of righteous superiority, BUT if you're wrong (and there's a lot of indications you are, if you care to pay attention to them), then... this thing you've said muliple times now, in different ways, takes on a very different tone.

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.

What would you think about a person on this forum arguing for something unambiguously untrue, like that 1 * 1 = 2 (thanks Terrence Howard), and they steadfastly held to that, and when someone disagreed for enough posts in a row, Terrence Howard says "Read my posts repeatedly until you understand that 1*1=2". How would that look to you?

That's how you look to us.

NOT, for the record, because you disagree with the cogito. That's fine. I don't care about that. Because of your misunderstanding of what the word 'therefore' does in logic, and because of your insistence on the validity of denying the antecedent, mainly.

1*1=2, read my posts repeatedly until you agree with me. That's what you look like to the rest of us when you make those points and say those words.

And what does it say if you do the exact same experiment, but ask it to support indirect realism instead of direct? Or... maybe I'm misreading it. Is it trying to support one or the other? We obviously can't see everything you said to it so that makes it a bit hard to interpret its replies

right, so then saying "we don't have culpability because of determinism" doesn't really seem to make sense - if randomness doesn't add culpability, then we wouldn't have culpability even WITHOUT determinism.

If that's your view, we don't have culpability either way, and determinism has nothing to do with it.

.

In short, people make conclusions about the past using information they have in the present all the time. There's nothing unusual about a scenario where a conclusion about the past is drawn from information that we obtained more recently.

"if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit" - this is a hidden syllogism where the conclusion happened before the premise.

If he committed the murder, then this glove must fit him.
He just tried to put on the glove, and it didn't fit.
Therefore
He did not commit the murder.

if you know that you only eat when you're hungry, you can absolutely say this is a valid argument.

I only eat after I become hungry.
I ate
Therefore
I must have become hungry prior to eating.

If you don't remember being hungry, but you do remember eating, you can use this logic to convince yourself you were in fact hungry.

23 and me says I'm 98% Asian, therefore I can conclude my parents were Asian.

My dog is shitting, therefore she must have eaten something.

"I think therefore I am" is one - but obviously that's a bit flippant.

A woman's on trial for arranging the murder of her husband, by hiring a hit man. The key piece of evidence for the prosecution is a text she sent 30 minutes after the murder - she sent a text to the murderers phone that said "Good job, he's really dead. I will pay you later"

The syllogism looks roughly like this:

She texted him that.
She would not have texted him that if it wasn't her desire to have her husband murdered.
Therefore
We can conclude it was her desire to have her husband murdered.

The conclusion happens in time before the premise.

You never conclude something, then list premises afterwards — Corvus

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.

What is it going to take for you to consider the possibility that this might be right?

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. — Corvus

That's how language works. You said yourself that you looked up your definition from "official" sources. Why do you get to decide what's right because what other folks say in official sources, but I don't?

And the "consequence of" wording can work to. I know B, and as a consequence of knowing this, I also know A. I know B, therefore I know A. That doesn't mean B has to happen before A. Can you think of any examples where "I know B, therefore I know A" makes sense, even though A was true in time chronologically before B? I can.

Are there people who don't? How can you tell the difference?

flannel jesus I don't think randomness adds culpability. — Truth Seeker

Neither do i, which is why I wonder why early in the thread you tied culpability to determinism.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/therefore#:~:text=(%C3%B0e%C9%99%CA%B3f%C9%94%CB%90%CA%B3%20),a%20logical%20result%20or%20conclusion.

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?

I think you can.

Okay, so please link it.

Lovely, I agree with you that you mentioning that outside source IS relevant, because I think that outside sources are relevant pieces of information and evidence when it comes to conversations about standard usage.

Do you have a link to your outside source? When you link to an outside source, I promise I won't say anything like "Don't lean on the others' shoulders or hide behind their shadows".

I don't control what he posts.

We're having a meta conversation about why outside sources are relevant when there's a disagreement about how words are defined as a standard.

That's how language works. Language is a social construct. If everyone uses the word 'apple' to refer to one thing, and you use it to refer to another -- and then you say to me "your use of apple is nonstandard" -- yes, how other folks use the word apple can be a fundamental part of demonstrating that you're wrong.

Other folks disagreeing with you, and agreeing with other things, is how standards about word usage are set.

I don't understand. You're saying that you're allowed to use outside sources to confirm how a word is defined and used, but I'm not allowed to reference outside sources to explain to you why I think it's defined and used in a different way?

This feels very assymetrical.