There is a reason 90% of all people 10 years old or more think “I think therefore I am” is a stupid argument. It’s not because of the logic; it’s because what it is trying to argue is so obvious. Everyone already knows “I am” - and they rightly think that if you needed a proof to conclude you exist you might be an idiot.

If you think the cogito illogical and doesn’t show anything at all, you miss the point, just as, if you think the cogito doesn’t show how the obvious is an important philosophical observation, you miss the point. Those focused here on whether the cogito statement is valid or sound are not addressing what the statement is trying to say (which is obvious to a 10 yr old).

There are a lot of people talking past each other here, from two different directions.

Addressing the logical statement is a worthy exercise in logical analytics. But you can never conclude “I am” is not something. I am already is. That I am is as prior as it is immediately present; it need not be a conclusion for it to already be proven.

This is why it is hard to make a logical proof out of the observation, the recognition, the thought, “I am”. We are taking a real, visceral, present moment, a simple obvious moment like reading these words right now, as I am here writing these words “words” right now, this very second where “I am” needs no explanation, a moment like this, and then we are trying to make a formulaic logical expression to re-capture this moment and codify a logical explanation on top of it. This is obviously difficult to do, and maybe “I think therefore I am” doesn’t quite recapture it.

Don’t mislead yourself, if you are misleading, then you are. This is both obvious, and once known, once conceptualized as “I am”, an example of the certain knowledge science seeks.

What defines us as Real existing beings, is the [x]ing. — ENOAH

“x-ing”. Exactly.

That is Descartes whole point.

Thinking, doubting, knowing…always x-ing.

“I x; therefore I’m being.”

Observation and thinking are totally different mental operations. — Corvus

So observing and thinking are different. I was talking about observing my own act of observing, like a self-reflection, which is like relfection, or thinking.

But I can work with that.

Granting observing and thinking are different “operations”, do you think “thinking” and “being” are different operations? Can you describe something that allows you to distinguish “thinking” from “being”? As in, “I think” distinct from “I am”?

Saying "I think, therefore I am." is like saying "I am tipsy, therefore I am drinking." — Corvus

No it’s not.

The statement is “I think, therefore I am.”

This is the same statement as “I am thinking, therefore I am.”

In the alcohol induced version we would have to say “I am drinking, therefore I am.” Or “I am tipsy, therefore I am.”

You keep missing the point, which is an observation of something existing, namely the observer in the act of observing, or simply “observing” is.

"Think" doesn't warrant for anything. "Think" means "think". — Corvus

If “think” means “think” then “”think” warrants for the meaning of “think.” So you can’t say think doesn’t warrant for anything.

No one is saying “I am, therefore I think.”

It’s like you are using words to try and not have a conversation.

I agree, the cogito statement can be logically deconstructed and is problematic, or tautology.

But Descartes wasn’t proving he existed. He wasn’t proving he was thinking. He observed that while trying to prove anything, he was existing, he was seeking proof, he was observing, he was thinking, and he observed he could not doubt any of these showed he was existing.

He stumbled upon a certain existing thing - namely stumbling.

It’s an observation one can’t remove from any picture, or better, from any act of picturing. Every time you are proving Flannel wrong or proving you are right, you “are proving.” Simple observation.

How best to codify it as a logical statement… the saga continues.

I swim, therefore I am wet.

If you define swimming as propulsion through water, then being wet is contained in, or comes along with, or is a consequence of, swimming.

So “therefore” here isnt pointing to a conclusion; it is pointing to a property or aspect of the premise. Swimming includes being wet. You say “swimming” you have already splashed some water on the statement.

I think therefore I am works like that.

I am isn’t a conclusion. It’s as much the premise as the conclusion. It’s just a premise that self-certifies it’s fact as a premise.

The cogito statement is an attempt to define self-certification.

All of the logical analysis is good, instructive of logic itself, pushing us all to clarify what we see here. But none of the logical analysis of the cogito syllogism really addresses the content of what Descartes was observing.

No matter how meaningless or meaningful we make the statement “I think therefore I am”, it would be more on point to talk about “making meaning” then whatever meaning is made.

“I am making the cogito look meaningless, therefore I am.” “Making” is the point. Something being always remains here and that is what Descartes said was certain about.

Lots of vodka drinking causes one to be drunk.
I am drinking lots of vodka, therefore, I am drunk.

“Therefore” causally joins drinking to subsequent drunkenness.

But there is no causation and subsequent effect or conclusion between “I think” and “I am.” When one realizes one is being, when one realizes one is, “I think” is already “I am thinking”, so already “I am”; not therefore I am.

But this is no small observation (despite how cleverly we can think small of the cogito syllogism).

Realizing that I am is an act of realizing - it’s an act. It’s not a thing. Realizing, like thinking, is an act. But when you realize you are realizing, then the thing realized is an act as well, and further, it is the same act that lead to the realization. This demonstrates self-evidence, or certainty. It combines cause and effect into something else, like a simple, momentary observation such as “I am thinking.”

Now you can introduce “therefore” again.

The causal relationship here is not between thinking and being (they are the same basically). The causal relationship is between an existing fact (“I am”) and subsequent knowledge of that fact (“therefore, here is what I still know despite all of the doubting.”)

Descartes was saying the fact that he is causes him to know something certain. The causal relationship and the “therefore” arises between the fact of his existence as cause, and him knowing certainty as effect. Fact causes knowledge; fact, therefore knowledge.

New cogito: “I can doubt everything and think I know nothing, but still, I am thinking, or more simply, I am being; and therefore, there is something I can know, namely, that I am.”

“I am” is one certain fact we can each stop and visit with whenever we want, like a security blanket for science.

if one of the benefits of being able to reason well, and use logic, is to find out what you're wrong about, then... what if you're wrong about logic and reason itself? — flannel jesus

You assume you are reasonable but your own reason teaches you that you are not using reason. Just sane enough to know you’re insane. Sounds like a Kafka novel.

the 'I' is not logical here. To make it logical at a stretch (whilst having to make assumptions) we would have to change it to: 'He thinks therefore he exists.' Then, we can more logically say: 'He does not exist, therefore he is not thinking.' But, as I am sure we are all aware, the cogito ONLY works from the first person perspective. Therefore, it fails; it all fails. — Beverley

I follow you on the logical analysis.

Does “I am” itself mean anything, show you anything, without the syllogism and analytics?

You say it all fails. I’m wondering if anything is left at all in your view.

'I think therefore I am' implies 'I do not think, therefore I do not exist'. It is logically valid.

People do exist until death once born, whether they think or not. We know that from the fact of the reality in the world.

Therefore I think therefore I am is false. "I am" has nothing to do with "I think". — Corvus

“whether they think or not”?

I thought we were on the same page but we can’t even seem to connect on what “I am” means and now you are bringing in what “I am until death once born.”

We are overthinking and adding way too much content to a simple observation - I am.

Forget the stupid syllogism.

It’s really just a simple, present moment - being here right now for instance reeding the word “reeding” spelled wrong twice now. And now reading “now.” Again!

“I am.” Is about right now, being present. Here.

Let’s drain the content. You could say “I am sitting/standing here reading now” to yourself. And whether you actually say this or believe or know anything you say or think, you already said “I am” before and during every any of them... What you say after you say “I am…” doesn’t matter anymore, it’s just content, like birth and death and think and say.

Forget the content. Whenever I say, I am saying. Whenever I think, I am thinking. The “am” is all you need to know about the cogito.

We can know that we exist, while we are existing. It’s what we do. It’s what we are doing right now, here, in this conversation. BUT, forget all that / to much content.

Words themselves do an injustice to the “am”.

This OP asks what we can know with 100% certainty. This brings in “what” and problems of identity and universal kinds.. and brings in “we can know” and problems of epistemology and its cousins physics and metaphysics… and brings in “certainty” on a scale up to 100%.

Forget all of that for one more second.

We’ve drilled down to this simple moment.

So, hey, let me ask you something.

Are you still reading?

Now let’s ask a simpler question.

Are you being?

I am.

If you are, are you sure?

I am.

This is the point in this writing where an all caps HERE makes its appearance. I typed all caps HERE
to completely waste your time.

That is where being is. Now. Currently below a couple HEREs.

That is where I am now when I say “I am.” It’s what it means to me - being in.

From this now, Descartes found certainty. That moves us away from the “am now” back into content and the stupid syllogism. I do see certainty as well, but I wonder if you even follow me here anymore.

Can you doubt that you are now reading my reply?

Point being, at the level you want to work, there are quite a few things besides the Cogito that are evident. — Banno

Yes, I can doubt everything except that I am doubting (which already includes that I am, which is the point of cogito).

What do you mean “at the level I want to work”?

Is it a valid inference, on which we must all agree, or is it an intuition, a mere hunch or impression? — Banno

Has anyone ever wondered if they might not actually exist successfully?

A good solid “wait a minute…am I?”

You doubt everything first, see if you can. No matter how far you get - total blackness, sensory deprivation, mind in a vat, lose the vat, lose the mind - if you find yourself no longer thinking, no longer doubting, or breathing, or you can’t find yourself anywhere anymore, you may have gone too far.

I have a hunch no one can get that far, because “I am” is either riding shotgun, or is the bus.

Before someone points out that I had a thought, so I must exist, just take it that I am not really here typing this, and you are not really there reading it, just to humour me ;) ) — Beverley

Can’t humor you there. It’s not possible that both you do not really think you are typing this and I don’t really think I am reading this; at least one of us (certainly me) is having the phenomenal experience of at least one of these two scenarios (namely me reading). You could be doubting you were typing, and I could be doubting I was reading, but neither of us could conclude to ourselves that means “I might not exist” while doubting, while reading, or while typing.

You said “I just take it that I’m not really…”. You said “I” twice here to make your point (in type I take it.) So you demonstrated the certainty to yourself that “I take it, therefore I am” really whether you want to admit it or not. You can’t experience yourself not experiencing yourself. If you take anything, taking, or being, has to be taken with it.

What a clown. Goodbye.
— Lionino

Suppose this is a typical response when the hidden ignorance was revealed. :nerd: — Corvus

Really guys - we are at the root of any certainty, any practical use for logic at all - that is the subject.

There is a practical, raw observation at play here, namely “I am”. This shows what certain knowledge looks like. This is a whole universe to enter (may be a small universe - Descartes immediately had to toss in God to find anything else.). Shows how a mind that developed mathematics and modern science would want to move, on certain, empirically verifiable ground.

Then there is the logic built around and on top of it “I am.” This logic “I think, therefore I am” is not great logic; it’s not a syllogism tempered for the rigors of analytics.

But Descartes was still a genius. His discovery in “I am” will forever be a part of philosophy. So downplaying the cogito as meaningless nonsense is just missing the point.

What other philosophical assertion besides “I think, therefore I am” joins the objective physical reality of my experience with my subjective reality of experiencing anything? When I experience anything, because of Descartes, I can admit things exist. It gets you out of your head by placing you in the world with certainty. “I think over here in my head, therefore, it’s already true that something is there in the world.”

Hi Bill,

I’m a practicing Catholic, BA in philosophy too. Always good to know someone thinking for themselves while grateful to God for inviting us all to the table of wisdom.

I still draw a clear line between philosophy/science and theology. Not because there is more than one world. There is only one truth. And not because the two are irreconcilable. (Jesus did that in the incarnation.).

But philosophy/science, is a product of our experience, observation subject to reason. Science has its hands full just asserting “what is” or “scientific law reflects objective reality.” Talk of God in a logical, scientific way is so far away from what science is willing to admit. This is why the God of the philosopher, to me, has always been a hollow thing, nothing like a person - “monad” or “infinite pure actuality” or just a concept like an unmoved mover, or “the One” or even “the Good”. This hollowness is why, to me, the scientifically contextualized God led Aquinas to call his words “straw” and Augustine “a grain of sand.” Our only evidence of God in history that would approach useful objects of scientific inquiry are miracles and resurrections which are by definition, unscientific (I mean, the last place you would want to experiment on cures for cancer would be on Jesus’ resurrected body, for instance, because why would we expect any sample tissue from a resurrected body to have anything to do with anything else in nature, where cancer occurs and resurrections don’t).

Now, all that said, turning instead to theology: God is one God; this one God, revealed himself to us in the name of the Father, the Son, and their self-same Spirit. Three persons each fully the one God. Son, eternally begotten of the Father, receives all from the Father, and in the same Spirit of the Father, says “not my will but thine be done” and gives everything he receives back to the Father…

Or, the word was with God, and the word was God.

I see a lot of other issues we might want to tackle before understanding how this God could be before creation, then in creation, unchangeable and simple, and changing and complex.

We could ignore all of those issues just as well, but then, where did we come up with “God is simple” or “a person” in the first place?

Since I already see God as one, being Father, Son and Spirit, I see room for God to be living, changing, creating, while not moving, not changing at all. There is room for it, somewhere between one God and three Persons. But not an easy math problem here (more of a Russell’s Paradox). And we may just as well try to crack the logic of how the Son refers to His Father when he says “I and the Father are one” as we would solve the problem of an infinite regress in any personhood at all.

Individual lives like ours, may be as much of an impossibility to explain as is the life of God. Since we are like Him, made in His image, that actually makes sense to me. So I use science/philosophy to try to explain my impossible condition in life. Any truth gleaned gets me closer to God as a bonus, but I struggle to use science to see God directly. When I try to use that same reason to explain God’s life, I have to admit to non-believers (most modern scientists) that it sounds crazy (if the subject ever comes up).

It is a psychological mumbling or monologue, or as Banno put it correctly, an intuition. — Corvus

No, it's discovery of a certain objective fact in reality. It's just a discovery each has to make all by themselves. It doesn't mean nothing is discovered, or nothing is - quite the opposite.

What you are thinking is irrelevant. If you are thinking, you are - that's the whole point. That's it.

Descartes was doubting. Do the objects of sense exist? Maybe not. Does his body exist? Maybe not. After removing everything that could be removed he was left with "I am".

This was his very first premise. The confusion here is that "I am" is not a logical conclusion, it's a discovery of a first premise, one that, because of it's objectivity and certainty, can be used to build the first bit of knowledge about the world "I am in it" or "the world is at least my thinking."

Descartes didn't conclude from logic that he exists; he used logic to conclude that everything else might not exist. Then he was left at a moment where there was this thing he could not doubt. That was his first premise.

To make this a bumper sticker moment, we coined "I think, therefore I am." Which axiomizes the premise. Now we have a source of meaning, content, truth, certainty. Tons to work with. Finally after all of that doubt.

So in a sense I agree with you that the syllogism "I think, therefore I am" is really not a good example of syllogism, as it is really a colorful way of saying "I am, therefore I am" which merely clouds the premise "I am" (which is certain throughout this exercise) in a conclusion.

Therefore I think therefore I am is meaningless statement to the rest of the world, and it is not an objective statement. — Corvus

Completely agree the statement "I think, therefore I am" demonstrates nothing objective to you about me. But "I think therefore I am" or better put, "thinking 'I am'" to myself demonstrates the objective fact of thinking as content in the world. The world is just very small, objectively comprised of me thinking "I am."

I have to assume there are other thinking beings, but I don't have to assume that if a being is thinking, it is being. I can know this with certainty because thinking is already a particular instance of being.

Cogito cannot be examined for truths. Therefore it is a meaningless statement, and Cogito ergo sum is a false statement based on the meaningless premise. — Corvus

That is too sweeping a statement. It’s not meaningless. It’s something kid can derive meaning from.

It’s not possible for you to think you are while you are not. That is a positive assertion about objective reality (to yourself).

There are moving parts with content. Thinking is objective content. It’s an instance of general being sought as a ground for something to know. Knowing is part of the content. The general “being” versus the particular “thinking” is part of the content (happens to be in the premise and the conclusion turning this into tautology, but there are distinctions). And because there are parts there is a logic that stitches them into a single, somewhat tautologous, meaningful and certainly true statement.

It seems tautological because it is so obvious, and it is obvious to us now because he pointed out, but he did have to point it out. — Lionino

It’s a tiny bit of logic as a statement, but it is a monumental basis for science. Things we may know can be demonstrably proven true, and valid and sound because, for example, “I think, therefore I am.”

Do you agree with him for the same reasons he thinks? — flannel jesus

Not for the same reasons.

He thinks that if someone accepts "I think therefore I am", they must also accept "I don't think, therefore I am not". — flannel jesus

I disagree with that.

My point is that it is tautology, not that it is unsound or invalid. Saying “I think therefore I am” to yourself does show a logic only to yourself. You, the existing one (as premise), thinking or saying or being, to conclude “I am” - it’s not bad logic, it just just a tautology that doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.

“I do not think, therefore I am not” doesn’t work here. (Except for maybe Parmenides.). If you assert anything whatsoever, you already are, so you can’t conclude from it “…therefore I am not”. The act of asserting even “I do not..” is an act of “am being”. “I negate, therefore I am” makes it a positive assertion that shows the conclusion “therefore I am not” to be unsound. This is why Descartes couldn’t doubt anymore. This is why he found his certainty. Undoing the logic of the statement “I think therefore I am” can never lead you to doubt the fact that you are.

To the extent it is an argument, it is still self-validating (to yourself when you say “I am”).

I think, therefore I am (which Descartes barely actually said) is the catchphrase for “Knowing something to any degree of certainty, or just thinking about something, requires an act of being, or is itself an act of being, therefore, I can know with 100% certainty that I am being, when I am thinking or when I am knowing something else with any degree of certainty.” And this tautology laden argument validates itself when it is a thought, or when you say it out loud.

Someone who speaks and who has the ability to hear at the same time: You don’t need to wait for your own words to reach your own ears to already know the listener exists; no logic need bring you to this conclusion. The listener exists because the listener is the speaker who made the noise.

Bottom line to me, “I am” can only be a premise. It’s an ontological observation, not a logical conclusion (except to yourself if you were ever wondering who that was who was doing all that thinking inside your head).

I agree cogito is not a logical statement, and it looks doubtful if it is even an inference. — Corvus

I agree too.
I think = I am thinking.
So “I am thinking, therefore I am” isn’t much of an argument. It’s a tautology. Descartes pre-loads being as thinking in order to pull content out as “certain knowledge” of a thinking being.

I mean I see how he got to there, and that he was at a pivotal moment in his exercise of doubting.

Parmenides said “It is the same thing to think and to be.” He captured the Cartesian moment better. The cogito moment is an ontological moment, not a logical one; it highlights the “am” most of all in the words “I am.” You no longer really need any words so there is no argument to be constructed. You’re not at a conclusion.

If I say “am” out loud, there is no need to cloud this assertion by saying “I” first. Saying “am” is self-assertion. The “I” or any other self is redundant. More tautology. Saying is as good as thinking where you are trying to conclude “being”, as in “therefore, I am being.”

With all of this tautology and self-evident assertion at play, Descartes found “certainty” close by, which makes sense.

But the logic and certain knowledge comes after, or around, or just separately from the ontological observation here. “I am” is a premise, not a conclusion. I think.

Extraterrestrial refers to a physical thing or many physical things. You will not get to any use of the term extraterrestrial until you place the earth and some space beyond it. Now you can introduce a distinction between a term and its instantiation in a physical world. You had to take the earth as a fixed jump off point to go extraterrestrial and sharpen a distinction between instantiated terms and non instantiated terms.

Instantiation of certainty is found in tautology (instantiated in the mind, instantiated in the brain if you will…). If you are saying certainty has no instantiation, is not distinct, then how are we still talking about it?

Can anyone think of alternative arrangements that might work better? — Vera Mont

If everyone, from their heart and deepest convictions, set out to help and serve everyone else first before they even asked what they themselves wanted out of the day, and lived in a spirit of charity and humble respect towards all others first, then each of us would have the entire world looking out for us. We’d all be employed by everyone else who were all working for us just the same.

Until then, probably just need a good management structure and some policies and procedures.

I am 100% certain that you know of some difference between “certainty” and any other term. Or this conversation wouldn’t work.

If there is any use in the term «extraterrestrial», there must be something that is extraterrestrial. — Lionino

That’s not quite parallel to what I said. To make your example parallel to mine, you would have to say “If there is any use in the term “extraterrestrial” there must be something taken to be extraterrestrial.” Besides there is the moon, which I’m some percentage certain is extraterrestrial. So even without some real distinction between the extraterrestrial and any other term, you’ve managed to use the term functionally well to describe the moon, creating the real distinction, taking something distinct up.

We are here distinguishing “certainty” as a term.

In order to move from one sentence to the next using this term, we must make, we must take something distinguished in this term in our minds, hold it as something, and then build the next statement.

Following this process you can reply to Truth Seeker “how can you be 100% certain of the place of your birth?” And you can mention “lie” or show place of birth can’t be 100%, etc, and make all of the context, but still hovering around this term “certainty”. You can’t be hovering around certainty (or focus on any single thing) without taking something as certain. Or you would not be able to form your question.

Now I can make something of your statement and say, we wouldn’t still be using the term “certainty” in this discussion unless there was something still clear, still fixed, a center of gravity - something is there we are getting at.

We are each taking this “something there” as the currently fixed idea “100% certainty.”

This means to me the same three things I said before: certainty is exemplified in the tautologous; certainty itself is therefore certain (clear, a useful term); and certainty in a practical sense, in complex scenarios, is rare and best thought of as a tool or method used to seek out further clarifications in the complex.

If there is any use in the term “certainty” there must be something taken to be 100% certain. Otherwise, the term wouldn’t work at all, at any percentage.

For example, I know that the English word "sky" is spelt "sky". — Truth Seeker

That looks like an example of a tautologous kind of certainty.

How does knowing trillions of things with certainty respond to what I said? Can’t tell whether you saw what I was trying to say or not. Are you adding to it, narrowing it, disputing it, agreeing with it?

There are two kinds of programmers. One kind makes relatively simple programs. The other kind makes programs with bugs in them. I want to teach you to make programs with bugs in them. “

Aka: there are two types of certainty: the tautological kind, and the kind that has flaws. And it is better to have the kind that has flaws. — Metaphyzik

Love it.

The tautological kind shows us what certainty is, but gives us no real content. The simple non-buggy program we build is perfect example of certainty, but the program does no real work.

When we build complex things to do real work, we can take our understanding of the certain learned from the tautologous kind, and keep it as a tool to inspire improvement or identify areas that need to be tested to further the goal of getting some real work done as we build, but this is now a use of certainty in the process of building without a goal of achieving certainty in the function of the program, just the goal of getting the work done.

All of this means to me three things: we know tautologous things for certain; so we know what certainty is for certain; and we will rarely see certainty outside of tautology but nevertheless can use it as a guide to getting work done.

Mind might not have any corresponding Being, or Reality, "driving", "grounding" or "behind" it, and that it might just be structured by empty signifiers. Comparing that to eastern philosophies, I find the principle of Sunyata (emptiness of Reality). While I believe that the Mahayanists might have gone too far, and that Sunyata applies only to the constructed reality of human experience, yet still, there is a workable parallel. — ENOAH

Interesting discussion. I find that Eastern thought on mind or self instructive. Western traditions make too much of fixed, reduced constructs which give them little tools to really enumerate the being of a mind. Eastern thinkers are more adept at recognizing nothingness as if it was like a western substance, but they avoid substance talk by leaving things more mystical and less defined (as nothingness would have to be less defined).

I end up falling prey to thinking of nothingness as though it was a thing - the substance of spirit.

However, I've recently been thinking that the mind spins up when it spins up an idea. Kind of like an instance of "consciousness is consciousness of" from Satre. But the mechanism is a paradox, or more mystical. There is no mind in between moments of minding something. So the mind becomes a container for ideas at the same moment the ideas become experienced in the mind. The structure of the mind is the shape of the idea, and the idea is all the mind is while that idea is minded.

Applying that to seeing what a mind is in-itself, or, applying that to me asking myself what I am doing when I ask myself what am I doing, my mind is recognizing it has being only while it is recognizing. My mind is the activity, and not some fixed thing. My mind is becoming a mind as long as some mental construct is being constructed.

Yes. Philosophy is idle talk — unenlightened

Mechanic is to racing driver as philosopher is to politician — unenlightened

.
I think I agree that mechanic is to racing driver as philosopher is to politician, or at least mechanic can be to racing driver, as philosopher can be to politician.

But wouldn't you be lowering your opinion of racing and politicking, if philosophy is idle talk? I'd argue you were. If idle talk was the same as sharpening language, then a politician has no tools; and if these are compared to mechanics and racing drivers, the whole thing is brought down and idle, and wouldn't run - around the track or for the office.

Philosophy is not some universal, pre-human absolute. Just as Philosophy defines everything else, it defines itself. Why should it necessarily be restricted by the walls it constructs? — ENOAH

I agree with the general direction you're taking, but we cannot remove walls without revealing new ones.

Walls are the ground we walk on, and the sentences we write. Philosophy seeks the absolute, constructs it, makes of itself the universal, and, as everything we construct is, it is restricted by the walls it constructs. That's how things move. Motion moves the fixed, and from the fixed, motion begins again. There are always both. Philosophy holds these things for us. There are very few of them to hold.

why shouldn't philosophy explore the mystical? Does it really restrict itself to Truth? Or is Truth necessarily arrived at through reason? — ENOAH

I agree philosophy should explore the mystical. In my experience, there is mystical experience, as much as there are true experiences. We do math, so we have to admit truth. We know the paradox, the impossible that is actual, the sublime, so we know what the mystical is. So the mystical is truth too. The mystical is arrived at through reason just as much as truth. The mystical is as true as reason. Reason is as mystical as Truth, now with a capital "T" to sound a monastic gong that might remind us of its invisible presence.

So what in particular are you looking for an answer to? — Punshhh

I wasn't really looking for an answer. If someone told me what a mind is then I wouldn't be making the observation I made, but the answer to the underlying question of "what is my mind?" is such a difficult nut to crack, instead I was just noticing a peculiarity about wondering what mind is.

I can only use the same mind that is wondering, to wonder what mind is.

So mind is fully there, but still I ask the question and wonder if I can see one distinct feature about "mind" that is there. And we have nothing.

While I am being the thing that is being wondered about, while I am wondering about the thing, I still don't even know if I am looking at anything, or have a clue how to construct any walls around it that might distinguish it as something real, something there, or just say what a mind is.

Do I dare say it is spirit? NO! Too easy, and means literally, nothing, no matter. If I say my mind is spirit, I must immediately ask "what is spirit?" and again I am being the thing that is wondering what is there.

Do I say matter? Sure, but matter is dark and deep, and thick and hides other matter, and more matter, until we isolate functions like consciousness and then maybe mind and "ideas" like "wondering about 'wondering'". I see nothing again that clarifies what matter is mind and what matter is not mind - where does mind begin and end, and where does other matter next to mind begin, specifically, in the matter? What matter carves out the matter that is the complete structure of mind? I might focus on the brain, but to find the instance of "wondering what a mind is" in this "mind" that is this brain... Maybe. But I am still forced to wonder and search.

Either way, spirit or brain function, this function of wondering what my mind is, can only result in the embarrassment of looking for my glasses while wearing them; nowhere in sight can I possibly appear, because in everything I look at, in the looking itself, I am already there, and still I wonder "what is there?"

I think we'll figure it out. But man, kind of embarrassing.

"The answer to the ultimate question is..........................42."

Sounds like more of a gay science, than just an art. Idle "Truth" talk being one component of the science, or maybe a shading tone of brown as you re-paint the old cave metaphor for artistic purposes.

I say no it's not just idle talk, but I think life is so full, there is room for objective, absolute, eternal truth. Philosophy, for me, involves the pursuit of that. It leads to true discovery of what is, was and will be. Which I find enjoyable, even if I'm not sure I discovered any such things yet.

But if you really thought there was no absolute in the picture, it's just idle talk. If you still enjoyed it like a game, fine, but playing a game is close to idleness.

Without any absolutes, the playing field is leveled by the playing. Philosophy's frustrations and discipline would not be worth it to me anymore. (But then, from what I can tell, even if all was just playing, idle banter when playing with words, we would have an absolute idleness, which calls me back in toward the view that philosophy is truth and wisdom and deals in absolutes and not simply idleness).

Looking back I really shouldn't have said that and need to be more clear. I love Nietzsche. The world needed him. Future generations should all read him.

All I meant is that, from what I can tell, one of Nietzsche's points was that philosophy was basically another lie. And all of the talk of truth-seeking was an expression of weakness. That is the "talk" to me that he was laying out - stop bothering with some fetishized version of the truth. But then he went on, to give us the truth, the truth of how wrong we have been. We got it wrong placing all truth in the Apollonian (which I agree was wrong), but now corrected, he gave us the truth in the Dionysian. He didn't want us to call it "truth" anymore, but, from what I can tell, there truth still is. And further, he scolded about how badly we can be wrong, how weakly we can hide and fail to act - so he demanded at least some attention to some sort of ivory tower, a mountaintop perhaps. He ended up still finding good from a position claimed as beyond (or better bereft of) good and evil, so to speak.

Does postmodernism lead to a dead end? — Tom Storm

I'd say it leads us back to a starting point. This may somehow mean the same thing. I guess it actually adds that it's not dead, it lives at the starting point of the conversation. POMO is more like a method.

I think postmodernism has forced a certain honesty and we've learned a lot from it. But postmodern deconstruction does not take enough time to admit that all along the process of deconstruction, fixed buildings stand firm to be deconstructed. They are always there too. We can say "truth" and "absolute" if we want, because we always had to, always have to, just to speak at all. And always will. Just is.

Of course there are many strands of postmodernism. It is best known for denying that there is any truth, or that one can claim to ground any statement in experience. Postmodernism is right in that one can not claim to represent or copy experiencing. But this does not mean that what we say has no relationship to what we experience—that there is no truth, that everything we say is arbitrary.

Exactly. I never heard of Eugene Gendlin, and I wouldn't say it that way (I. obviously, would use way more words than he did). But it fits right in line with my whole point. So, what do you think about that picture? Is there still room for truth to grow in the current consensus? Can we redirect anyone from error and show someone else something good?

His aim was not to deny the insights of pomo but to move beyond them — Joshs

I would say, my my aim is not to deny the insights of pomo. We should definitely keep them with us. But if we are to move, at all, we need something more; I think this something more immediately and just as presently calls up the absolute.

The POMO deconstructionist application of existentialism, focuses now too much on the process, making its goal the very process of goal-taking, not the goal, maybe never the goal.
This is neither good nor bad. Process is as real as the goal.
Anything that just is, now being known to me, is just wisdom. Process is the exist in existential. I can know this wisdom by deconstructing. By knowing the changing. POMO teaches us that. But I have still said "knowing" and once I even hint at wisdom or truth at all, there is the absolute raised from the dead just as it always was and has to be.

Like Nietzsche blamed so many post-Socratic truthseekers for focusing too much on content, I blame POMO for focusing too much on process. Oddly, the focus on process leaves us unable to build. Nietzsche left us with a gay science to address the content, the absolute. POMO doesn't like to admit that content remains through all of the deconstruction, the absolute is, always, right here in the becoming.

He goes right to heart of epistemology:

...it is not easy to understand why, conversely, a distrust should not be placed in this very distrust...

And ends the discussion. Beautiful. Then he gives us a reason to go on being reasonable among the objects we might now trust just as much as we just distrusted.

lest the fear of error is not just the initial error.

And then, Hegel's bravery where others still fear delivers:

More especially ...the Absolute stands on one side, and that knowledge on the other side, by itself and cut off from the Absolute, is still something real;

in other words, that knowledge, which, by being outside the Absolute, is certainly also outside truth, is nevertheless true
- G.W.F Hegel - The Phenomenology of Spirit §74

Hegel was brilliant. He's right there in the heart of things, delivering wisdom, with many others. I don't think I'm being clear because you raised Hegel to redirect or even correct what I said, and yet I think, by raising this, you must be right there with me, onto the same thing.

I'm not saying that, the prevailing modern/postmodern state of wisdom, is the only wisdom there is. I am also not saying that postmodernism has no wisdom in it, because it does. But I think at the same time, there is a prevailing wisdom today, and it is stuck. It hasn't gotten past existentialism.

Hegel talks of the "absolute", and the other side, full of "knowledge". These terms are not welcome in postmodern discourse. Yet, as I see it, as I think Hegel saw it, the absolute is essential to all movement, to logic, to knowing. But since we really don't deal in absolutes anymore, discourse cannot move far before it collapses back to the starting point again. Existentialism was a pendulum swing with the force of a wrecking ball. We are still having the conversation that the existentialists started.

The existentialists provided a much needed correction. Existentialism reminded us of the mundane, the raw, the lived, the original (instinctual) inspiration for our notion of "the real" that was once innocently discovered, but for too long was fetishized and distorted. There is wisdom in the hammer and the tuning fork, and real substance in the ironic, the absurd, the terror of destructive will.

Postmodernism now fetishizes the destruction itself with less focus on what must absolute be there before it can be destroyed, the reconstruction for it's deconstruction. We now are told to distrust trust.

I only point this out because I long dismissed Plato... — Count Timothy von Icarus

You obviously successfully went through your deconstruction of Plato phase, which we all must because we live today, and because everybody encourages it, because they are told to encourage it....BUT you obviously also came out whole:

(Plato embraces) an idea of veridical hierarchy where what is "more real" is more real in virtue of being less contingent, less a bundle of external causes, and thus more fully itself and self-determining. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It might be better to think of Plato as a sort of objective idealist rather than any sort of a dualist, and his conception of the universal flows from his idealism and anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

An interesting way to revisit Plato, finding the continuum in an otherwise dualism.

But for Aristotle, forms, number, shape, etc. exist exactly where instantiated in the natural world — Count Timothy von Icarus

Aristotle, another top five brilliant one for me. But he too is subject to much dismissal today. The points you make that Aristotle made are good ones, to allow more positive philosophical discussion.

The biggest charge against this is precisely that it results from Kant's own dogmatic presuppositions. Aside from that, per Berkeley, Kant is just simply wrong and confused here, positing things he has no reason for positing. Point being, this assertion re the limits of knowledge is itself grounded in its own metaphysical assertion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kant's a bear. I see no need to refute the phenomena/noumena distinction, along with the reconstructing mind in between. As I said, there is wisdom buried in postmodern, deconstructionism. Kant was the construction part. Kant is part of it as with the existentialists who tear it back down. Hegel is an important unifier and stark contrast. But me mentioning Kant in my little OP tirade against modern thought, was a bit contradictory.

That brings me back though to the title of this. I called us the contradictory animal, as a positive, not a negation. The negation is contained in it, but I truly mean it as a positive.

Lot's more but I gotta go.

Thanks for the positive mentions of some great ones.

P.s I can summarize my point like this: I've found that at the heart of things, between everything, there is tension. With tension, there is unity and division, at once. Nietzsche came along and showed the danger of embracing too tightly the Apollonian unity. Now, post-Nietzsche, we grasp too tightly at the division. (And Hegel is a great response.). And you see why I call myself Fire Ologist, after the wisest of them all, Heraclitus.

Thanks for the post. Owe you a big reply.

I appreciate the reply, Joshs.

Is there only one starting point? You don't find that certain philosophers provide you with more clarity than others? — Joshs

My point was that no matter what the starting point is, and there are more than I mentioned, enough holes have been poked in things, that hole-poking deconstruction seems to be the last man standing.

I don't necessarily mind this being the case. I think it's incomplete, but maybe wisdom. Plenty of room to keep wondering though. This is the view deep in the cave. Is there anything with me in the cave, or is my experience really all there is?

And you are right that, "certain philosophers provide you with more clarity", which they definitely do. I love all of them to a degree. Truly. The essentials for me are Plato, Aristotle, Kant of course, Hume, maybe Descartes, and Hegel, but definitely Nietzsche and my favorite, Heraclitus. The classics. But I think Nietzsche or Kierkegaard or Camus would read what I wrote (they basically knew all of the philosophers I know) and say, "You still sound like me 100 plus years later." We haven't been able to really advance the discussion since existentialism (and it's bleed into post-modernism), and Nietzsche already burned most (not all), most of it down.

still take seriously the notion of reality as something independent of our experience — Joshs

I don't know if I am still taking seriously the notion of reality as distinct from the reality of experiencing, but I am wondering about experience. The phrase "still take seriously" kind of makes my point. The prevailing recommendation is to take philosophy less seriously; there are fewer serious things to take because we've deconstructed them. We get to play in the rubble. I am open for any serious notion, but we've made it hard to make a serious notion.

And what’s wrong with self-contradiction if it moves us from one meaningful-in-itself value system to another — Joshs

Nothing at all. It's my positive contribution. We reflective minds - contradiction is both the structure of the mind, and what it produces. We become the source of contradiction in this universe, as if enabling matter to reflect upon it's "self" instead of the matter - the first instance where what was becoming, simply is being. We provide a limit at which, by turning back, a reflection, a notion, a contradiction, is made. The word contradiction includes "diction" which places words in our essence, the self-contradictory animal who can speak about nonsense with clarity and poise.

Now I should proceed to deconstruct every last word I just said, remake the very impulse that led me to say it in first place. Or maybe not, because then I might just be contradicting myself, demonstrating my point by refuting it.