You wrote: "Thoughts are, let's just say, immortal ... ", didn't you???

You are, in fact, equating, or confusing, the non-physicality of thoughts/ideas with their alleged immortality. Why should this be the case? Thoughts/ideas may be non-physical, but they are not immortal, because they do require the existence of a mortal mind, or minds, to think about them and to comprehend their meaning. Without the latter, they are absolutely useless.

Thoughts/ideas have an ersatz immortality only, because they are preserved in the written works of human beings.

And, by the way, you never clarified your understanding of the meaning of the term immortality.

Empirical verification of a mortal's ability to experience the existence of immortal ideas would require prior empirical verification of that mortal's ability to experience the existence of an immortal mind, or minds.

As far as I am aware, this has never been accomplished.

Question: Is immortality an unending spatio-temporal existence, or is it existing completely outside of a spatio-temporal context?

Where's the logic in this? It's more like asserting that there is reason to believe the donut hole survives even after the donut has been eaten.

The meaning of the terms "unreflective knowledge" and "reflective knowledge" also remind me of Sartre's concepts of the "Pre-Reflective Consciousness" and the "Reflective Consciousness."

Excellent explanation!

Yes, I think someone else already thought of this, Renee Descartes.

Although his terminology differs from yours, through application of the rigorous test of surviving hyperbolic doubt he sought to determine what, in his opinion, would be an indubitably certain, ultimate form of what you call foundational knowledge.

Rightly or wrongly, Descartes thought he had found this ultimate foundational knowledge to be the Cogito Sum. He considered the Cogito Sum to be an existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying form of knowledge upon which he thought all other knowledge, what you term coherent knowledge, could be based.

Descartes wrote, as follows, in Meditation I:

“I shall now suppose … that some malignant genius exceedingly powerful and cunning has devoted all his powers in the deceiving of me; I shall suppose that the sky, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things are illusions and impostures of which this evil genius has availed himself for the abuse of my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, but as falsely opining myself to possess all these things.”

Assume the Evil Genius focuses not so much on deceiving me about “external things” but focuses, instead, on trying to convince me that my Cogito Sum performance, my “When and while I am thinking, I must be existing” is false, rather than true. If this were the case, then what follows is exactly what the Evil Genius would have to accomplish.

If the Evil Genius knows it is true that I am existing when and while I am thinking in the first person, present tense mode, then he must try to deceive me into believing the truth of the exact opposite, namely, that I am not existing when and while I am not thinking in the first person, present tense mode.

If the Evil Genius knows it is true that I am not existing when and while I am thinking in the first person, present tense mode, then he must try to deceive me into believing the truth of the exact opposite, namely, that I am existing when and while I am not thinking in the first person, present tense mode.

If the Evil Genius knows it is true that I am existing when and while I am not thinking in the first person, present tense mode, then he must try to deceive me into believing the truth of the exact opposite, namely, that I am not existing when and while I am thinking in the first person, present tense mode.

If the Evil Genius knows it is true that I am not existing when and while I am not thinking in the first person, present tense mode, then he must try to deceive me into believing the truth of the exact opposite, namely, that I am existing when and while I am thinking in the first person, present tense mode.

Descartes wrote, as follows, in Meditation III:

“. . . it occurred to me that a God might perhaps have endowed me with a nature such that I may be deceived even in respect of the things which seem to me the most manifest of all. For whenever this supposition of God’s omnipotence comes up in my mind, I cannot but confess that it is easy for Him, if He so wishes, to cause me to err, even in those matters which I regard myself as intuiting with the eyes of the mind in the most evident manner.”

In other words, my Defective Cognitive Nature could deceive me by always spontaneously and simultaneously replacing that which is existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying when I perform it in the first person, present tense mode (the true), with that which is existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating when I try to perform it in the first person, present tense mode (the false).

The “When and while I am thinking, I must be existing” is an existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying Cogito Sum performance when I execute it in the first person, present tense mode.

However, I must conclude that I do not have a Defective Cognitive Nature, or that it does not work the way it was intended, because the existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying (true) version of my Cogito Sum performance has not been, cannot be, and will never be replaced, spontaneously and simultaneously, by a version that is existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (false).

The following are the three possible existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (false) versions of the Cogito Sum performance:

"When and while I am not thinking, I must be existing” is existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (false), when I try to perform it in the first person, preset tense mode.

"When and while I am thinking, I must not be existing” is existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (false), when I try to perform it in the first person, preset tense mode.

"When and while I am not thinking, I must not be existing” is existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (false), when I try to perform it in the first person, preset tense mode.

Also, this hypothetical omnipotent deceiver God mentioned by Descartes in Meditation III is not the same as the Malicious Demon he mentions in Meditations I & II.

In fact, Descartes, in Meditation III, has his omnipotent deceiver God transform the Malicious Demon, who operated from without to try to deceive the subject about the world, into a Defective Cognitive Nature, which will now operate from within to try to deceive the subject about itself.

However, I submit that both the Evil Genius and the Omnipotent Deceiver God, the latter via the Defective Cognitive Nature, fail to accomplish their goal.

I think that doubts are not always only about the truth or falsity of propositions, but can also be about intuiting the truth or falsity of the existential consistency and existential self-verification of the cognitive performance (Cogito Sum) in the first person, present tense mode.

1, When and while I am thinking in the first person, present-tense mode, I must be existing. TRUE

2. When and while I am thinking in the first person, present-tense mode, I must not be existing. FALSE

3. When and while I am not thinking in the first person, present-tense mode, I must be existing. FALSE

4. When and while I am not thinking in the first person, present tense mode, I must not be existing.
FALSE

Only the first statement refers to an existentially consistent and existentially self-validating (possible) Cogito Sum performance which I can execute in the first person, present tense mode.

The second, third, and fourth statements refer to existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (impossible) Cogito Sum performances which I cannot execute in the first person, present-tense mode.

Descartes was highly successful in the field of mathematics. He is considered the founder of analytical geometry.

The investigations you refer to continued morphing over the years into the scientific research methodology used today. But the scientific method, especially in physics, incorporates both theory development and revision along with rigorous experimental testing of predictive hypotheses to approximate ever more comprehensive explanatory models of the world (universe). And largely due to Hume's thinking, the notion of the existence of an absolutely necessary and strictly universal empirical truth was largely discarded because it became clear that it was not really needed to do successful scientific research.

The thinking and existing of the dreamed person have their originating source in the imagination of the person who is dreaming. The dreamed person is not the person who dreams. However, the dreamed person is unaware that the dreamer's imagination is the originating source upon which its thinking and existing depends.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. So be it!

I

Descartes deliberately searched for and argued for something he considered to be indubitably certain, i.e., true beyond all reasonable and hyperbolic (unreasonable) doubt. Its truth had to survive any and all kinds of doubt. He considered the Cogito Sum performance, the performing of the "When and while I am thinking, I must be existing," in the first person, present tense mode, to be precisely this sort of indubitably certain truth.

Descartes displayed great interest in creating different types of hyperbolic doubt against which he could test the strength of the truth of the Cogito Sum, and he fervently hoped, and believed, that the Cogito Sum performance, being existentially consistent and existentially self-validating, could survive all such tests. And he thought this indubitably certain truth could provide a firm basis upon which to build future knowledge.

In line with his wishes, I have simply tried to formulate a new version or example of hyperbolic doubt which I have argued the purported truth of the Cogito Sum performance cannot survive.

Incisive criticisms and basic transformations of theoretical paradigms long considered to be true have often occurred as a direct result of serious consideration having been given to a specific item of speculation that the authors of those theoretical paradigms were simply unaware of, or displayed little interest in, or fell outside the parameters of the paradigms.

How, exactly, would you tailor your explanation? The question, as I see it, is simply whether, or not, the Cogito Sum argument has an inherent integrity, regardless of Descartes' motivations. Can the argument stand on its own two feet? If not, explain why. We're talking epistemology here, not religion.

Perhaps one's motivation is to get at the truth.

Yes, I could claim to be something other than just my thinking (the Cogito).

But then I would be obligated to specify precisely how I, and any other human being, could derive my personal existence (my Sum) from it with an indubitable certainty equal to, or greater than, that associated with my Cogito Sum performance.

No!

But let me clarify something I think I should have clarified previously in greater detail.

By a dreamed person, I mean someone completely fictitious.

Someone you never met, when awake, before dreaming about the person and someone you will never meet, when awake, after dreaming about the person.

Someone fictitious whose dreamed existence and thinking depend completely upon your imagining activity while you are asleep.

Has anyone ever been able to converse with a dreamed person outside of the dream?
Once I'm able to do this, I'll let you know.

By definition, a dreamed person can neither think, nor exist independent of the dreamer. The dreamer simply makes believe the dreamed does both. We know better, don't we? You don't really think, you don't really exist dreamed person, it's just the dreamer imagining you do. Sorry, no real thinking, no real existing!

By the way, you're wrong! Whether I agree with him or not, Descartes stated explicitly that he considered the subject to be a thing that thinks. Research it!

Does not every object of experience I encounter in the world that surrounds me, from the most simple to the most complex, have something inherently "mysterious" about it that has nothing to do with me or my ways of trying to describe, explain, or getting to know it; something that goes beyond, and will always transcend, whatever kinds of simple or complex interpretations I might give to it, or any ways I might claim to participate, epistemologically, in its partial or complete creation (e.g., Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel)?

Does it matter that the very existence of the "artificially occurring" object of experience you chose to make your point, i.e., a printed word, already, by definition, must presuppose human involvement?

Show me how you think the same argument would still hold if, instead, you began by saying something like: "One can look at the "naturally occurring" object of experience, e.g., the planet Mars, and perceive it only as "x," or recognize it as "y," or one could perceive it only as "z."

Wouldn't we then be more justified in claiming that each perception is of an objective fact that is independent of what our perspective contributes to it?

Our minds are not able to create the existence of a naturally occurring objective fact, but our minds are able to interpret, in a variety of ways, the meaning of the existence and nature of a naturally occurring objective fact.

I have already given my definition of consciousness (see response to Daemon).

Essentially, I agree with Sartre's characterization of Being-for-Itself consisting of both a Pre-Reflective and Reflective Consciousness and Consciousness being the source of Nihilating activity.

Pre-Reflective consciousness does not require a positional awareness of self in order to occur, but Reflective consciousness does.

Nice exposition of the possible relationship between the subjective and the objective. It is amazing how many variations and modifications there are of Kant's original insight.

Is there a simple, reliable criterion one can use to isolate and identify precisely those characteristics the human mind contributes to the objects of experience? And would the same, or another, criterion be used to isolate and identify precisely those characteristics the human mind does not contribute to the objects of experience?

By "objects of experience" I mean the objects that surround us in the world.

Neither am I using the term self-consciousness in the sense of being preoccupied with how I appear to others.

I am using it in the sense of being able to encounter myself as a subject, rather than as an object.

Not studying the object as an object, nor studying the subject as an object, but studying the subject as a subject.

Knowing myself as being nothing more than a unique subjective frame-of-reference from which to encounter the not-me.

It is this meaning of self-consciousness that my questions referred to.

What's your definition of consciousness?

No problem with the scientific/biological process you are describing to account for the evolution of consciousness.

Questions: But at what crucial point in the process does self-consciousness arise? And who experiences it? Were Neanderthals self-conscious in the same way and to the same degree as Homo Sapiens? What evolutionary purpose(s) does self-consciousness serve?

Then I assume you are indicating that personal consciousness can also exist, in the first person present tense mode, but with an orientation to the past "remembered objects" and an orientation to the future "imagined objects".

Descartes' Evil genius scenario postulated hyperbolic conditions under which the necessary a priori truths of logic and mathematics (his clear and distinct ideas) could be doubted.

[reply="Amalac;506998"

I think it would be more measured to say that I use the term "experience" in a way you choose not use it. I do think your use of the word "strange" conveys an unwarranted negative value judgment. Perhaps I think your use of the same term "experience" is not comprehensive enough and somewhat narrow.

Experience = whatever I can encounter. I can encounter objects as objects. I can encounter my consciousness (thinking) as an object. I can encounter my consciousness (my thinking) as a subject.

But, I cannot encounter the other's consciousness (the other's thinking) as a subject.

Excuse me, I don't know why, but your use of the term "the subject of all perfections" reminds me of the term "the great wizard of Oz." I think my ability to experience your "subject of all perfections" (by the way, how do you define a subject and perfections?) is less likely than my ability to experience "the great wizard of Oz."

So, let me see if I understand correctly. I must believe that some, or all, ontological arguments are capable of convincing me of the truth of the idea that a purported subject of all perfections exists necessarily, but I can't verify the truth of this idea empirically because I can't have a personal experience of it's perfect thinking and its perfect existing in the first person, present tense mode.

I'm not trying to PROVE the existence of anything! You are!

All I'm saying is that the occurrence of NECESSARY thinking and existing cannot be EXPERIENCED by a human being in the first person, present tense mode. Only the occurrence of CONTINGENT thinking and existing can be EXPERIENCED by a human being in the first person, present tense mode.

And you're claiming that this fact has no bearing on whether an ontological argument for the existence of God is feasible? Not true or false, but feasible?

I beg to disagree!

The only kind of thinking and existing human beings can experience, in the first person, present tense mode, is contingent, i.e., vulnerable to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. Ontological arguments, in one way or another, try to contest this fact. Ontological arguments claim that necessary thinking and existing can also be experienced by human beings, in the first person, present tense mode.

Ontological arguments can, at most, only prove the occurrence of human ideas of necessary thinking and necessary existing. They cannot, and do not, prove the occurrence of human experiences of necessary thinking and existing, in the first person, present tense mode.

If not necessary thinking and necessary existing, then what would an ontological argument argue for?

1. The occurrence of my personal thinking along with the simultaneous occurrence of my personal existing are open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. In this sense they are both contingent.

2. No one knows why the occurrence of my personal thinking and the occurrence of my personal existing are open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence; i.e., are contingent. They just are.

3. I am "only open to this kind of thinking;" viz.; contingent thinking, because I cannot engage in any other kind of thinking. All my thinking is contingent. If I could engage in necessary thinking, which I cannot, I would be divine, because my existence would also be necessary.

4. Descartes' Cogito Sum is primarily an existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying performance which must be executed in the first person, present tense mode. It is not originally a proposition, although it can be expressed as one; viz., Cogito, ergo Sum. In other words, if, whenever, and while I am thinking in the first person, present tense mode, I will simultaneously have an indubitably certain intuition of the truth that I must be existing. Any attempt on my part to try to perform the opposite in the first person, present tense mode will be existentially self-defeating. But my thinking and my existing are inherently contingent.

5, I think issues revolving around the Cartesian notions of Contingent and Necessary Thinking and Existing are extremely relevant to all ontological arguments, including yours, even if you persist in preferring not to think so.

1, Semantic distinctions are tangential to the core issue.

2. As a human being, the only kind of thinking I can have both an idea of, and a direct personal experience of, in the first person, present tense mode, is a kind of thinking that is open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. What I call contingent thinking, or human thinking.

Nothing prevents me from entertaining the idea of a kind of thinking that is closed to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. What I call necessary thinking, or divine thinking.

But logical thinking, which is human after all, cannot enable me to have also a direct personal experience of this kind of necessary thinking, in the first person, present tense mode.

Logical thinking is not divine. Logical thinking has its limits, and this is one of them.

3. I am not pretending to know God's essence. What I am speculating about is one way in which divine thinking might differ from human thinking, if the divine existed, by extending certain basic principles derived from Descartes' epistemology.

4. Human thinking is the idea of an: "While I think contingently, I exist contingently," which idea I can experience in the first person, present tense mode.

5. But Divine thinking is the idea of an: "While I think necessarily, I exist necessarily," which idea I cannot experience in the first person, present tense mode.

The point being that your argument is false precisely because you do not recognize that it must depend upon that experience in order to be true.

The basis for this claim is that the Cogito Sum performance, when executed by a human being in the first person, present tense mode, would be able to prove the existence of a Necessary Being IF AND ONLY IF it had access to a kind of thinking which was inherently closed, rather than open, to the possibility of complete cessation (i.e., a necessary or divine, rather than a contingent or human, kind of thinking) --which, unfortunately for your argument, it does not have access to and never will.

Technically you're correct.

But the whole point of my argument, which you are missing or ignoring, is that your type of exceedingly abstract argument, which is typical of the paradigm to which all traditional ontological arguments subscribe, completely misses the point that it is inherently impossible for the arguer, a human being, to have "a concrete personal experience of divine thinking." Only the occurrence of such an impossible experience by a human being would constitute a legitimate, concrete verification of the existence of that abstract divine being which he falsely claims to be able to prove.

I think the following article, although lengthy, constitutes a direct response to your OP. Hope you enjoy it.

CRITIQUE OF DESCARTES’ ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

That the existence of God may be rightly demonstrated from the fact that the necessity of His existence is comprehended in the conception which we have of Him.
Rene Descartes

The (ontological) argument does not, to a modern mind, seem very convincing, but it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies.
Bertrand Russell

It is this author’s contention that Renee Descartes should have rejected the validity of all ontological arguments for the existence of God and that his philosophy would have provided him with a unique and sound rationale for explaining why such arguments had to be false. Descartes should have realized that his version of the ontological argument, as well as the version formulated before him by Anselm, was simply incompatible with the new philosophical methodology and criteria he established for determining indubitably certain existence.

It was not sufficient for Descartes and Anselm before him merely to present the individual with the idea, or definition, of a necessary being and then, by performing a detailed analysis of the idea, or definition, try to claim to have demonstrated successfully the necessary existence of such a being.

I submit that Descartes’ own well-defined methodology and explicit criteria for determining indubitably certain existence should have prompted him, instead, to explain (a) the difference between contingent thinking activity and necessary thinking activity, and (b) the corresponding difference between contingent personal existence and necessary personal existence. The specific definition of the terms contingent and necessary, as used in this paper, will be made clear during the following discussion.

In Meditation II, Descartes presented the reader with a detailed explanation of the human Cogito Sum along with the method the reader could use to realize it. He claimed that a person attempting to doubt his own existence, even under the most extreme (hyperbolic) of scenarios (the dreaming doubt and the malicious demon doubt), would ultimately and inevitably realize or intuit, during his doubting activity, that his existence was an indubitably certain existence. A simultaneous intuition or realization would occur that not existing while doubting or thinking was impossible for the thinker. Or, phrasing it positively, a simultaneous intuition or realization would occur that existing while doubting or thinking was indubitably certain for the thinker. As Descartes put it: “I am, I exist. This is certain. How often? As often as I think.”

However, Descartes did not say that his existence was necessary-in-itself. He said only if, and when, he doubted, only if, and when, he thought, only then, during the time of their occurrence, did he simultaneously intuit his existence to be indubitably certain. If he ceased to think for an instant of time, then Descartes claimed that he would have no ground for believing that he could have existed during that instant. As Descartes cautioned: “For it might indeed be that if I entirely ceased to think, I should thereupon altogether cease to exist.”

So, then, according to Descartes, a person’s thinking activity is contingent in the specific sense that it is experienced by the person as always being open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. In other words, the Cogito portion of the Cogito Sum is experienced by the person, in the first person, present tense mode, to be contingent thinking activity (a contingent Cogito), since it is experienced as always being open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence.

Search as one will, there is no separate or concomitant intuition available which would also assure the person, beyond all reasonable and hyperbolic doubt, that his doubting or thinking is an activity impervious to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. And the force of this realization would apply equally to all the many different modes of the person’s thinking activity such as perceiving, inferring, deducing, imagining, remembering, conceiving, speculating, calculating, hypothesizing, etc.

Descartes showed how the performance of a human Cogito Sum did, in fact, yield the intuition of an indubitably certain, yet contingent, personal existence (the contingent human Sum) based upon, emerging from, and restricted to the human person’s simultaneous experience of the occurrence of its contingent thinking activity (the contingent human Cogito). Or, stating it more succinctly, a person’s contingent thinking activity (the human Cogito), during the time that it is experienced by the person, always provides the person with a simultaneous intuition of the indubitable certainty of that person’s contingent personal existence (the human Sum).

Surprisingly, in none of his subsequent meditations did Descartes attempt to present the reader with a detailed explanation of the divine Cogito Sum which would have paralleled nicely the detailed explanation of the human Cogito Sum he offered in Meditation II.

Preoccupied as he was with the urgent need to provide a divine guarantee for his clear and distinct perception criterion of truth, in Meditation III Descartes decided to present the reader with a series of more, or less, traditional a posteriori arguments for the existence of God and, in Meditation V, he decided to present the reader with his a priori ontological argument for the existence of God based, curiously enough, upon his clear and distinct perception criterion of truth.

Nevertheless, had he intended to do so we suspect Descartes could have provided a detailed explanation of the divine Cogito Sum along the following lines.

If one assumes the divinity thinks, then its thinking activity (the divine Cogito) would be necessary in the specific sense that it would be experienced by the divinity as always being closed to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence and, as such, it would always provide the divinity with an intuition of its indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

In other words, he could have explained how the performance of a divine Cogito Sum would have provided an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum) based upon, emerging from, and restricted to the divine person’s experience of the occurrence of its necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito). The divine person’s necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) would provide the divine person with an intuition of the indubitable certainty of the divine person’s necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

He could have gone on to explain that if the human person were also able to experience the occurrence of such necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito), then the human person, too, would be able to experience it as always being closed to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. But that since the human person is, in fact, simply not able to experience the occurrence of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) in the same way as the human person is able to experience the occurrence of contingent thinking activity (the human Cogito), the human person is, therefore, prohibited from ever having direct access to an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

This Cartesian-based distinction between the impossibility of having a personal experience of necessary thinking activity and the possibility of having a personal experience of contingent thinking activity should not be confused with the traditional distinction between an essence that contains within itself the reason for its existence (necessary being) and an essence that does not contain within itself the reason for its existence (contingent being). The Cartesian-based distinction is grounded in, and can be verified through, a person’s experience, whereas the traditional distinction is grounded in a person’s abstract thinking but cannot be verified through a person’s experience.

From a Cartesian-based perspective, the central issue is the possibility of having a personal experience of thinking activity that can cease to occur and can go out of existence versus the impossibility of having a personal experience of thinking activity that can never cease to occur and can never go out of existence.

Human thinking activity is contingent being because the human person experiences his thinking activity can cease to occur and can go out of existence – nothing more, nothing less. The human person’s, alone, is the I think contingently, I exist contingently (Cogito contingenter, Sum contingenter).
By contrast, divine thinking activity is necessary being because the divine person experiences that its thinking activity can never cease to occur and can never go out of existence - nothing more, nothing less. God’s, alone, is the I think necessarily, I exist necessarily (Cogito necessario, Sum necessario).
It is simply impossible for a human being to have a personal experience of thinking activity that can never cease to occur and can never go out of existence (the divine Cogito).

However, from a Cartesian perspective, it is precisely this impossible experience which is the indispensable prerequisite that would enable a human being to have a performative intuition of the indubitable certainty of necessary personal existence (the divine Sum), i.e., the existence of God.

But, unfortunately, all ontological arguments lack this indispensable experiential prerequisite.

And, in response to Russell, this is precisely where the fallacy of the ontological argument lies!

For whatever reasons, the preceding line of thought is what Descartes chose neither to pursue, nor to explain. Nevertheless, from a Cartesian point of view based upon a well-defined Cartesian methodology and explicit criteria for determining indubitably certain existence, I would submit (a) that the occurrence of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) is precisely what a person would have to be able to experience in order to make a legitimate claim to having an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum), and (b) that this Cartesian-based explanation of what would be required for a human person to successfully execute an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum) is far superior to Descartes’ ontological argument and that of his predecessor, Anselm.

This Cartesian-based critique specifies precisely what is fallacious about Descartes’ ontological argument, Anselm’s ontological argument, and all other ontological arguments for the existence of God in a manner uniquely different than the critiques proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Gottlob Frege.

Ontological arguments, being conceptually abstract through and through and remaining completely detached and isolated from the empirical realm, lack the requisite foundation of a personal human experience of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito). Only the possibility of having such a personal experience would also permit a human person to have an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

It is of interest to note, too, that all the critiques cited above are essentially as conceptually abstract as the ontological arguments they seek to contest. The total inability of a person to experience the occurrence of necessary thinking activity is never made the central issue of contention. For all these critics, the perennially unresolved central issue is simply the logical validity, or invalidity, of the abstract reasoning involved in the ontological arguments. Without exception, this is their exclusive, limited focus.

I submit that the Cartesian-based critique succeeds in altering this traditional focus since it offers a unique, experientially grounded explanation for why, ab initio, all ontological arguments for the existence of God must be false.

Certain assumptions shared by Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God, be the arguments a posteriori or a priori, are that the ideas of the infinite and the perfect are ontologically prior to the ideas of the finite and the imperfect, and that the ideas of the infinite and the perfect are innate to the human mind because they are implanted there by God.

For example, for Descartes my idea that I think contingently (which is my idea of a finite and imperfect activity) presupposes an ontologically prior, innate idea of what it means to think necessarily (which is my innate idea of an infinite and perfect activity). Or, to understand that I think contingently (a finite and imperfect activity) requires that I must have some ontologically prior, innate understanding of what it means to think necessarily (an infinite and perfect activity). However, as this line of reasoning relates to the central theme of this essay, I would submit, contrary to Descartes’ position, that my understanding of the idea of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity) is not innate to the human mind and is not implanted there by God.

Neither is the idea of my contingent thinking activity (a finite and imperfect activity) obtained, as Descartes would claim, by my limiting or bounding, in some way, the ontologically prior, innate idea of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity). Instead, my idea of necessary thinking activity is a direct result of my deliberate attempt to try to remove, albeit unsuccessfully, that characteristic from the idea of my contingent thinking activity which limits and constrains it; viz., its vulnerability to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. This, I submit, is the genuine way in which I arrive at an understanding of the idea of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity).

Nevertheless, it does not necessarily follow, either from the former interpretation of Descartes or from the latter interpretation of this author, that I can have a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity) in the same way as I do, in fact, have a direct personal experience of contingent thinking activity (a finite and imperfect activity).

As I see it, the central issue is not a matter of the possibility of my being able to have, or not to have, an idea of perfect thinking activity or an idea of perfect being – be those ideas innate, adventitious, or factitious. Instead, the central issue is a matter of the possibility of my being able to have, or not to have, a direct personal experience of that perfect thinking activity or of that perfect being.

Or, approaching it from a slightly different direction, doubts and desires may come from an understanding that I lack something, and that I would not be aware of that lack unless I was aware of a more perfect being that has those things which I lack. However, my ability to have an idea of, or conception of, or understanding of, or awareness of a more perfect, or infinite, being that possesses all those things which I lack (inclusive of necessary thinking activity), does not mean that I am also able to have a direct personal experience of that being and its necessary thinking activity in precisely the same way as I am able to have a direct personal experience of my being and my contingent thinking activity.

Certainly, I can postulate the existence of a being that thinks necessarily and exists necessarily, but I cannot have a direct personal experience of the necessary thinking activity which would simultaneously yield an intuition of the indubitably certain existence of such a necessary being.

Again, I can perform the “Cogito contingenter, Sum contingenter,” but I cannot perform the “Cogito necessario, Sum necessario.”

Descartes’ a priori ontological argument for the existence of God is not an experientially grounded performative argument like the one he formulated that successfully and persuasively proved the existence of the human self. His ontological argument, lacking the crucial, indispensable experiential foundation of necessary thinking activity, is destined to fail from its very inception. It is a non-persuasive, quasi-intuitive argument espousing a so-called self-validating idea of God which is given in consciousness and which represents God as existing, but which, in fact, completely misses the mark.

In fact, one could assert even further that the ultimate test of the efficacy of any argument for the existence of God, be that argument a priori or a posteriori, does not consist in the ability of that argument to provide the meditator with a clear and distinct idea of God’s necessary personal existence. Instead, one could assert that the efficacy of any such argument is determined, first and foremost, by whether, or not, it can engender in the meditator a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito). And even assuming such an argument can engender in the meditator a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity, then can it also engender in that meditator a simultaneous intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum)?

However, in conclusion, this author knows of no traditional, professionally recognized, a priori or a posteriori argument for the existence of God that has succeeded in providing the meditator with the requisite foundation of a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) while also engendering in the meditator a simultaneous intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

I believe Einstein is stressing the importance of the role of creative imagination in scientific discovery. However, he did not mean this to exclude the importance of the necessity of empirical testing of the hypotheses predicted by the scientific theory.

I subscribe only to the ongoing development of better, more comprehensive, empirically testable scientific theories about the physical universe in which we live.

By the way, for what it's worth, Descartes' use of hyperbolic doubt, exemplified by the machinations of the "evil genius," showed that even the truth of the so-called "necessary" propositions of logic, arithmetic, and Euclidian geometry, what he referred to as "clear and distinct ideas," were not indubitably certain.

However, I wish you success with your pursuit of anamnesis.

A "perfect" circle never existed, does not now exist, and will never exist. It is inherently impossible for humans to experience a "perfect" circle. A "perfect" circle, being nothing, emanates from nothing. Both the alleged "perfect" circle and its alleged "perfect" a-spatial and a-temporal source are figments of human imagination. Also, the alleged "perfect" circle is "imperfect" from the frame-of-reference of non-Euclidean geometries. Appreciating Plato requires a vivid imagination, rather than deductive reason.

Charles Darwin argued that forms are not divine, eternal, Platonic ideas but natural biological species that originate and gradually develop, one from the other, over long periods of time through the combined action of natural selection and spontaneous genetic mutations. In other words, there is nothing
"a priori," or absolutely necessary and strictly universal, about the Platonic Ideas. They are simply natural biological species situated in space and time, some of which persist and others of which become extinct.

Precisely because contingency is an essential characteristic exhibited by the human Cogito Sum that is equal in importance to its indubitable certainty and, therefore, should not be dismissed out of hand.

Also, I think the notions of contingency and necessity, as I defined them, play a crucial role in understanding whether, or not, Descartes' Ontological Argument for the Existence of God works.

I am taking the liberty of forwarding to you a piece I wrote to verify this contention. It's lengthy, but I hope you will enjoy it.

CRITIQUE OF DESCARTES’ ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

That the existence of God may be rightly demonstrated from the fact that the necessity of His existence is comprehended in the conception which we have of Him.

Rene Descartes

The (ontological) argument does not, to a modern mind, seem very convincing, but it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies

Bertrand Russell

It is this author’s contention that Renee Descartes should have rejected the validity of all ontological arguments for the existence of God and that his philosophy would have provided him with a unique and sound rationale for explaining why such arguments had to be false. Descartes should have realized that his version of the ontological argument, as well as the version formulated before him by Anselm, was simply incompatible with the new philosophical methodology and criteria he established for determining indubitably certain existence.

It was not sufficient for Descartes and Anselm before him merely to present the individual with the idea, or definition, of a necessary being and then, by performing a detailed analysis of the idea, or definition, try to claim to have demonstrated successfully the necessary existence of such a being.

I submit that Descartes’ own well-defined methodology and explicit criteria for determining indubitably certain existence should have prompted him, instead, to explain (a) the difference between contingent thinking activity and necessary thinking activity, and (b) the corresponding difference between contingent personal existence and necessary personal existence. The specific definition of the terms contingent and necessary, as used in this paper, will be made clear during the following discussion.

In Meditation II, Descartes presented the reader with a detailed explanation of the human Cogito Sum along with the method the reader could use to realize it. He claimed that a person attempting to doubt his own existence, even under the most extreme (hyperbolic) of scenarios (the dreaming doubt and the malicious demon doubt), would ultimately and inevitably realize or intuit, during his doubting activity, that his existence was an indubitably certain existence. A simultaneous intuition or realization would occur that not existing while doubting or thinking was impossible for the thinker. Or, phrasing it positively, a simultaneous intuition or realization would occur that existing while doubting or thinking was indubitably certain for the thinker. As Descartes put it: “I am, I exist. This is certain. How often? As often as I think.”

However, Descartes did not say that his existence was necessary-in-itself. He said only if, and when, he doubted, only if, and when, he thought, only then, during the time of their occurrence, did he simultaneously intuit his existence to be indubitably certain. If he ceased to think for an instant of time, then Descartes claimed that he would have no ground for believing that he could have existed during that instant. As Descartes cautioned: “For it might indeed be that if I entirely ceased to think, I should thereupon altogether cease to exist.”

So, then, according to Descartes, a person’s thinking activity is contingent in the specific sense that it is experienced by the person as always being open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. In other words, the Cogito portion of the Cogito Sum is experienced by the person, in the first person, present tense mode, to be contingent thinking activity (a contingent Cogito), since it is experienced as always being open to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence.

Search as one will, there is no separate or concomitant intuition available which would also assure the person, beyond all reasonable and hyperbolic doubt, that his doubting or thinking is an activity impervious to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. And the force of this realization would apply equally to all the many different modes of the person’s thinking activity such as perceiving, inferring, deducing, imagining, remembering, conceiving, speculating, calculating, hypothesizing, etc.

Descartes showed how the performance of a human Cogito Sum did, in fact, yield the intuition of an indubitably certain, yet contingent, personal existence (the contingent human Sum) based upon, emerging from, and restricted to the human person’s simultaneous experience of the occurrence of its contingent thinking activity (the contingent human Cogito). Or, stating it more succinctly, a person’s contingent thinking activity (the human Cogito), during the time that it is experienced by the person, always provides the person with a simultaneous intuition of the indubitable certainty of that person’s contingent personal existence (the human Sum).

Surprisingly, in none of his subsequent meditations did Descartes attempt to present the reader with a detailed explanation of the divine Cogito Sum which would have paralleled nicely the detailed explanation of the human Cogito Sum he offered in Meditation II.

Preoccupied as he was with the urgent need to provide a divine guarantee for his clear and distinct perception criterion of truth, in Meditation III Descartes decided to present the reader with a series of more, or less, traditional a posteriori arguments for the existence of God and, in Meditation V, he decided to present the reader with his a priori ontological argument for the existence of God based, curiously enough, upon his clear and distinct perception criterion of truth.

Nevertheless, had he intended to do so we suspect Descartes could have provided a detailed explanation of the divine Cogito Sum along the following lines.

If one assumes the divinity thinks, then its thinking activity (the divine Cogito) would be necessary in the specific sense that it would be experienced by the divinity as always being closed to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence and, as such, it would always provide the divinity with an intuition of its indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

In other words, he could have explained how the performance of a divine Cogito Sum would have provided an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum) based upon, emerging from, and restricted to the divine person’s experience of the occurrence of its necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito).

The divine person’s necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) would provide the divine person with an intuition of the indubitable certainty of the divine person’s necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

He could have gone on to explain that IF the human person were also able to experience the occurrence of such necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito), then the human person, too, would be able to experience it as always being closed to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence.

But that since the human person is, in fact, simply not able to experience the occurrence of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito), in the same way as the human person is able to experience the occurrence of contingent thinking activity (the human Cogito), the human person is, therefore, prohibited from ever having direct access to an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

This Cartesian-based distinction between the impossibility of having a personal experience of necessary thinking activity and the possibility of having a personal experience of contingent thinking activity should not be confused with the traditional distinction between an essence that contains within itself the reason for its existence (necessary being) and an essence that does not contain within itself the reason for its existence (contingent being). The Cartesian-based distinction is grounded in, and can be verified through, a person’s experience, whereas the traditional distinction is grounded in a person’s abstract thinking but cannot be verified through a person’s experience.

From a Cartesian-based perspective, the central issue is the possibility of having a personal experience of thinking activity that can cease to occur and can go out of existence versus the impossibility of having a personal experience of thinking activity that can never cease to occur and can never go out of existence.

Human thinking activity is contingent being because the human person experiences his thinking activity can cease to occur and can go out of existence – nothing more, nothing less. The human person’s, alone, is the I think contingently, I exist contingently (Cogito contingenter, Sum contingenter).

By contrast, divine thinking activity is necessary being because the divine person experiences that its thinking activity can never cease to occur and can never go out of existence - nothing more, nothing less. God’s, alone, is the I think necessarily, I exist necessarily (Cogito necessario, Sum necessario).

It is simply impossible for a human being to have a personal experience of thinking activity that can never cease to occur and can never go out of existence (the divine Cogito).

However, from a Cartesian perspective, it is precisely this impossible experience which is the indispensable prerequisite that would enable a human being to have a performative intuition of the indubitable certainty of necessary personal existence (the divine Sum), i.e., the existence of God.

But, unfortunately, all ontological arguments lack this indispensable experiential prerequisite. And, in response to Russell, this is precisely where the fallacy of the ontological argument lies!

For whatever reasons, the preceding line of thought is what Descartes chose neither to pursue, nor to explain.

Nevertheless, from a Cartesian point of view based upon a well-defined Cartesian methodology and explicit criteria for determining indubitably certain existence, I would submit (a) that the occurrence of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) is precisely what a person would have to be able to experience in order to make a legitimate claim to having an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum), and (b) that this Cartesian-based explanation of what would be required for a human person to successfully execute an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum) is far superior to Descartes’ ontological argument and that of his predecessor, Anselm.

This Cartesian-based critique specifies precisely what is fallacious about Descartes’ ontological argument, Anselm’s ontological argument, and all other ontological arguments for the existence of God in a manner uniquely different than the critiques proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Gottlob Frege.

Ontological arguments, being conceptually abstract through and through and remaining completely detached and isolated from the empirical realm, lack the requisite foundation of a personal human experience of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito). Only the possibility of having such a personal experience would also permit a human person to have an intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

It is of interest to note, too, that all the critiques cited above are essentially as conceptually abstract as the ontological arguments they seek to contest. The total inability of a person to experience the occurrence of necessary thinking activity is never made the central issue of contention. For all these critics, the perennially unresolved central issue is simply the logical validity, or invalidity, of the abstract reasoning involved in the ontological arguments. Without exception, this is their exclusive, limited focus.

I submit that the Cartesian-based critique succeeds in altering this traditional focus since it offers a unique, experientially grounded explanation for why, ab initio, all ontological arguments for the existence of God must be false.

Certain assumptions shared by Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God, be the arguments a posteriori or a priori, are that the ideas of the infinite and the perfect are ontologically prior to the ideas of the finite and the imperfect, and that the ideas of the infinite and the perfect are innate to the human mind because they are implanted there by God.

For example, for Descartes my idea that I think contingently (which is my idea of a finite and imperfect activity) presupposes an ontologically prior, innate idea of what it means to think necessarily (which is my innate idea of an infinite and perfect activity).

Or, to understand that I think contingently (a finite and imperfect activity) requires that I must have some ontologically prior, innate understanding of what it means to think necessarily (an infinite and perfect activity). However, as this line of reasoning relates to the central theme of this essay, I would submit, contrary to Descartes’ position, that my understanding of the idea of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity) is not innate to the human mind and is not implanted there by God.

Neither is the idea of my contingent thinking activity (a finite and imperfect activity) obtained, as Descartes would claim, by my limiting or bounding, in some way, the ontologically prior, innate idea of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity). Instead, my idea of necessary thinking activity is a direct result of my deliberate attempt to try to remove, albeit unsuccessfully, that characteristic from the idea of my contingent thinking activity which limits and constrains it; viz., its vulnerability to the possibility of complete cessation and non-existence. This, I submit, is the genuine way in which I arrive at an understanding of the idea of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity).

Nevertheless, it does not necessarily follow, either from the former interpretation of Descartes or from the latter interpretation of this author, that I can have a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity (an infinite and perfect activity) in the same way as I do, in fact, have a direct personal experience of contingent thinking activity (a finite and imperfect activity).

As I see it, the central issue is not a matter of the possibility of my being able to have, or not to have, an idea of perfect thinking activity or an idea of perfect being – be those ideas innate, adventitious, or factitious. Instead, the central issue is a matter of the possibility of my being able to have, or not to have, a direct personal experience of that perfect thinking activity or of that perfect being.

Or, approaching it from a slightly different direction, doubts and desires may come from an understanding that I lack something, and that I would not be aware of that lack unless I was aware of a more perfect being that has those things which I lack. However, my ability to have an idea of, or conception of, or understanding of, or awareness of a more perfect, or infinite, being that possesses all those things which I lack (inclusive of necessary thinking activity), does not mean that I am also able to have a direct personal experience of that being and its necessary thinking activity in precisely the same way as I am able to have a direct personal experience of my being and my contingent thinking activity.

Certainly, I can postulate the existence of a being that thinks necessarily and exists necessarily, but I cannot have a direct personal experience of the necessary thinking activity which would simultaneously yield an intuition of the indubitably certain existence of such a necessary being. Again, I can perform the “Cogito contingenter, Sum contingenter,” but I cannot perform the “Cogito necessario, Sum necessario.”

Descartes’ a priori ontological argument for the existence of God is not an experientially grounded performative argument like the one he formulated that successfully and persuasively proved the existence of the human self. His ontological argument, lacking the crucial, indispensable experiential foundation of necessary thinking activity, is destined to fail from its very inception. It is a non-persuasive, quasi-intuitive argument espousing a so-called self-validating idea of God which is given in consciousness and which represents God as existing, but which, in fact, completely misses the mark.

In fact, one could assert even further that the ultimate test of the efficacy of any argument for the existence of God, be that argument a priori or a posteriori, does not consist in the ability of that argument to provide the meditator with a clear and distinct idea of God’s necessary personal existence. Instead, one could assert that the efficacy of any such argument is determined, first and foremost, by whether, or not, it can engender in the meditator a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito). And even assuming such an argument can engender in the meditator a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity, then can it also engender in that meditator a simultaneous intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum)?

However, in conclusion, this author knows of no traditional, professionally recognized, a priori or a posteriori argument for the existence of God that has succeeded in providing the meditator with the requisite foundation of a direct personal experience of necessary thinking activity (the divine Cogito) while also engendering in the meditator a simultaneous intuition of indubitably certain necessary personal existence (the divine Sum).

In other words, for any human who performs the Cogito Sum in the first person, present tense mode, be it performed either in this world or in any possible world, the Cogito Sum would always be both indubitably certain and contingent; not so much in the sense of dependency, but in the specific sense that both the Cogito (I think), and the Cogito generated Sum (I am), would always be experienced as being open and vulnerable to the possibility of complete cessation.