"Cogito ergo sum." -René Descartes, 1637
Often regarded as standing at the peak of philosophy's fame summit, 'The Cogito,' is a true gem of modern thought.
I think, therefore, I am.
Descartes found this pearl after what likely seemed an eternity of doubt. Reality-assaulting, face-melting, unadulterated doubt; And this melting destroys quite a bit more than just faces! With a level of doubt extending its grasp & reaching total encapsulating voiding to entirety of self, we can take comfort in the beauty of Descartes' resolution. He did the hard work for us... he founded a suitably reasonable method, with the ability to provide a clear crystal answer.
See, what is realized by all thinking creatures at one point or another is that all of reality would pass for a cleverly designed prison, such that the prisoner (you, me, or any conscious entity) would never be able to identify properly this imprisoning nature. Think "The Matrix," & similar tropes.
However, in its true form, this doubt is not some fear of something terrible left unidentified. In fact, what should be stressed, frequently, is that this doubt is referencially attaching a core quality of "unknowing" as it proceeds with littering reality. That is to say the prison reffered to above could take form as, and is equally likely to be, a paradise of wonders beyond description.
What's troubling isn't the nature of what's locked away beyond our perceptions, but instead the very fact that the lock exists at all.
In response to this troublesome wrestle with doubt, René Descartes realized that to have this doubt in the first place a subject needs some capacity for thought. To have the capacity of thought, one must be.
Thus, "I think, therefore, I am."
Put a pin here, as we will come back to this abundantly quoted (often to the point of a certain diffusion of its merit) statement on complex truth. For now I need to guide your attentions elsewhere.
What is human?
What qualities makes up humanity, and are they the same as those composing the individual humans?
What does it mean to think, act, or simply be human, and symmetrically, does it mean the same to be conscious?
Is consciousness linked to human experience, or is it linked to awareness?
Can one be aware of information without consciousness?
Questions as those former can tend recall toward more sophomoric, adventurous days of chemically altered youth. Nonetheless, a certain gravity permeates with titanic dimensionality, an importance buckling these terribly difficult questions under the weight of their own impossible answers.
Seeking impossible answers will focus most content delivery over the coming weeks,
each with central theme intended to stretch our conceptual plain toward its farthest boundary.
This post exists as preface to the first of those mentioned above, which will be driven by engine mentioned below:
How can a Human know?
Keep this question close, pondering intimately, pouring intensely over all possibilities found offered by its solutions.
And once posted, the first of this series on serious exposition will pick up right where we left off; at the tail end of a rather rushed, hardly helpful defining of the perpetual doubt persuing all existential crisis.
Hope I see you there!
OH! And please, engage!
Use a comment to help! Let's list as many of the "possibilities found offered by...solutions," to our question as we can before the next update!
<3<3<3 Stay Flawed, Beautiful Human <3<3<3