cogito_ergo_sum u24 je pense, donc je suis. I think, therefore I am. it does not make sense. 041116 ... smurfus rex sure it does. or do you mean the french part? 041116 ... unhinged you are the architect of your own reality 041116 ... pete bebito ergo sum... the name of an essay one of my class mates wrote last year on the social effects of drinking 041116 ... oldephebe dfw does a whole riff on that in two of his books... 041116 ... stork daddy my parents fucked, therefore i am. 041116 ... u24 "I think therefore I am" makes a false assumption; the logically correct way of stating it would be "There is thought, therefore it is". Why the need to assume an 'I' to do the thinking? 041117 ... marked . 041117 ... () (24: thinking is an act, implying an actor. regardless of it's nature, an actor, in order to think, it seems to me, would need some kind of identity. self awareness is an intrinsic part of anything that could be described with the word think as i understand. if i do a simple math problem in my head, by my standards i have experienced thought. if i do the same operation on paper i still have to think, i have just externalized the symbols i use as value holders into the physical world. they temporarily become an extension of my mind. but they can not be said to have thought. if i do the same problem using an abacus nothing has changed. i am still the actor. the abacus is a highly specialized symbolic machine, on which i perform my symbolic thought. if i use an electronic calculator i am still the actor, ordering it's symbolic operations through it's controls. a computer is no different. it only does operations that are preconceived by it's programmer. it does not act of it's own volition. a turing machine might be conceived which could be complex enough to do such complex symbolic operations that it might come very near to thought, fooling us. turing famously set that as the threshold in his attempt to understand cognition. that might qualify as an exception as you conjectured above. but without the i part, i can not call the machine's operation thought.) 041117 ... oldephebe i think 24 was just tryin' to get a reaction..but then again i could be waaayyyy off. Lord knows i been wrong many times. If i am my apologies U24 041117 ... u24 tis true, I just wanted to see what would happen. The counter argument presented by () is very valid; in Simon Blackburn's 'think' he uses the metaphor of dents - you cannot have a dent without something that is dented, in the same way that you cannot have thought without something that is thinking. Does it necessarily follow that the object that is thinking is me? 041117 ... Piso Mojado who/what else could the object that is thinking be? 041117 ... Socrates i think in unity so what does that make me?..or at least the cacophony of my inner choir... 041117 ... (z) (you seem to be implying that you could be a conduit for thought from another source. your terse hint does not include enough content to guess what kind of originator. i could imagine that you are comparing yourself to my symbolic machines above and that there is an external actor operating your symbolic controls. this has been proposed by some philosophers as a potential model for god's relationship to humankind. in this model, we are puppets, acting on the stage of creation through god's will.) 041117 ... u24 indeed; in the same way I hear words, I may hear thoughts, in neither case is it more probable that the thoughts or sounds I hear orginate from me. What is personal identity? that is, how can I rationally say that I am the same me that I was at any prior point, eg yesterday or one minute ago, or ten years ago? (or even ten years from now?) 041118 ... () (a standing wave in a river is a dynamic object that changes very little. yet it's medium is continually replaced. even still we can look at it, name it, measure it and describe it's behavior. you are an immensely complicated standing wave.) 041118 ... oldephebe hegel would say ha ha told you so..well maybe not ha ha or told you so..but he would grimly intone in a deadening paralaxis of qualification ah a statement that would reflect consistantly the perspective of objective reality.... (should've stayed out of this one too..) ... 041118 ... oldephebe still though the use of I to identify the self is the beggining of sentience, would you agree? I mean a sentience that is conferred beyond the limited endowments of instinct that collective, primordial atavistic animals are endowed with..so you because of not having the lobes and the ol' specialized hypothalmus and all... ... 041118 ... () (i think i and sentience are interchangeable. regarding sentience, i think it is a continuum. dogs clearly have an identity. certainly the great apes do. i think animal life has some seed of sentience, albeit rudimentary, that is expressed with each individual.) 041118 ... oldephebe One of the most intoxicating things about the observance of a faith and not merely an obligitory reliosity wich is bestowed and worn like an albatross. Is the volitionaary component to the exercise of belief and or aobservance of its' tenents (I'm speaking about Christianiy for that is the only faith that I am experienced enough and therefore qualified enough to speak on) The acolyte is allowed, is encouraged to excersise his individuality. When God reaches down from the everest of all creation into that singular wondrous well of our personhood it is a unique experience for God and acolyte alike every time. It is the ego, the repressive instincts of man that are intoxicated in the exercise of influence over poeple. It is because of that volition that man is able to derive, to apprehend the gift of a union with His creator. And I am confidant that whatever someones Faith is they would probably opine similarly w/r/t to the fundamental differences in theology or cosmology. I think the basis of all interaction between the deity and man must be unqualified Love. 041118 ... oldephebe No, not neccessarily tripping out on a tangant here just responding to the puppet comment... I think therefore I am. Yeah. Although, there are christians who think that man/women shouldn't think critically and question things. The God I experience is not threatened by my individuality or curiosity and impulses or faculty to try and see things from different perspectives. ... ... 041118 ... bird with a 5-day hangover i'm tired of thinking the world makes my brain hurt my new mottom bebito ergo sum i drink, therefore i am 041118 ... oE 5DAY? Damn bird take care of yourself bra'. 041120 ... three words cogito_ergo_sum i_really_don't_know role 050514 what's it to you? who go blather from