As has been said many times - there are only three things that we know for definite. One, we are born; two, we are here now; and three, we won't be here at some point in the future.
I love that! Kinda puts it all into perspective for me somehow. All those thoughts that I think all day long. All those responsibilities. My plans, My ego. At some point, unknown to me, everything is going to disappear in a flash. For a while a few people will remember me, but as time goes by my time on this earth will be forgotten.
So let's think - what am I up to today? Oh yes, animals to feed, seeds to plant, and oh yes, it's my turn to cook tonight, better think about that too! Ah yes, and I need to phone my daughter - must go down and see her sometime, and while I'm there I need to buy some new fake crocs - they are only £3.50 a pair in Newquay.
And in between all that heady excitement I must remember to be thankful for the life within me.
Amen!
PS Did I ever mention I come from quite a religious family - just don't read this blog if it annoys you (omg, is that why I only have two readers left).
I'm Eighteen and I Like It
8 months ago
Descartes would be very disappointed by those certainties- they rely on a lot of assumptions that turn out to be very tough to prove if you start questioning them.
ReplyDeleteGlenatron - Now you have got me interested! So might I not have been born, or might I not actually be here now, or am I going to live forever?
ReplyDeleteYou're right..that's pretty much all that we have to work with. Once we start adding all of our fanciful notions we overload our monkey brains and we put Descartes before the horse :)
ReplyDelete*sorry
So what happens with the airheads? Does the "I think, therefore I exist" thing work for them?
ReplyDeletePS.- Excuse me, but you have at least 3 readers left up to this moment.
I cannot be sure that you were born, I occupy a different here and now to you, and it seems to me as if you go on forever.
ReplyDeleteIf you read Descartes Meditations, especially the first one ( Of The Things Of Which We May Doubt ) he explores what one can consider to be factual in an environment of absolute scepticism.
ReplyDeleteThink about Rick Deckard- he knows he isn't a replicant because he has memories of the past, then he finds that they have created artificial memories for replicants, now how can anyone know whether or not they are a replicant?
It is a sci-fi example, but we know that all we have of the past is memory and that memory itself is shockingly mutable.
Donn - rest assured, I will never put Descartes before the horse!
ReplyDeleteLeni - No sorry, Descartes doesn't apply to 'airheads'. But don't worry too much if you don't exist - as long as you think you do, that's all that matters.
Vicus - In real life, you are simply not possible, and in my dreams you don't exist.
Glenatron - That's logic for you! You can prove all that stuff and it's obviously not true. I used to worry that I was merely an illusion, but I seem to have come to terms with it now.
Phew! I feel much better now!
ReplyDeleteAh but the point Descartes makes is that you can prove almost nothing outside of the realms of abstract self-coherent rulesets like mathematics or formal logic - hence the whole "I think therefore I am." Later commentators have suggested that the cogito does not actually go far enough and that he can't necessarily assume that there is an "I" to do the thinking, so really his core fact could be "there is thought."
ReplyDeleteNone of which has any great bearing on the price of cheese.
Glenatron - if we accept that we can prove nothing (and I don't mean in the mathematical sense) then practically maybe it is best to assume that what we see here is what we need to work with. Otherwise we are going to get in to the realm of not eating because we can't prove it will stop us being hungry.
ReplyDeleteRene Descartes was a very clever man
ReplyDeleteAs a thinker there was none keener
But he knew fuck all about the Cortina.
(Alexei Sayle, it went something like that, anyway).
Well said young man.
ReplyDeletenot the plastic shoes Tom - please please not the plastic shoes - remember those who are here in the here and now and see you from time to time? Do not punish us so cruelly - what have we done to deserve such treatment as seeing you in plastic clogs?
ReplyDelete*shudders*
I was on board with you until you mentioned Crocs!
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