I think therefore I am

I can't for the life of me remember who spoke those famous words, it's annoying me hugely, anyone know, google hasn't given me much help.

I've always loved that quote

Cheers

I interpret it to mean - i think therefore i AM - your thoughts are what build you; the,... i will, i am.

^ best post ive ever seen. blows descartes out of the water. IMO

I think therfor I am.

Does that mean that anything we think about, is?

And things which do not think are not....because I banged my toe off my precious things chest yesterday, and I'm sure it's not self conscious...but it definately was there....it was you know.

Philosophers for the most part said things like this to confuse people and pick up girls.

It worked, too, Kevy. You have to admit.

I don't know if Descartes meant that our thought process created reality, though there are of course those who take this view. From what I understand, which admittedly isn't all that much, Descartes was trying to find a sort of "first assumption." Everything he tried to think of that was self-sufficient and solid depended on assuming something else. The more he thought about it, the more he believed that he couldn't trust his senses, couldn't trust anything, because all the sensations flooding his body could be illusions. Finally, though, he reached a point where he felt that he didn't need to assume anymore. He decided that he could trust his own thoughts, because they couldn't be illusory, or else he wouldn't exist to be thinking them. Thus, the Thought becomes that basis upon which other all assuptions can be built. "I Think, therefore I Am."

....So... did I just pick up any gents?

Philosophers for the most part said things like this to confuse people and pick up girls.

^haha, or they may have been delusional, who knows what good ole Socrates and Plato were smoking..jks

"I think there for I am"-means something to me because it creates identity. It makes life, mind and soul more real to me. When people say "Is what we are living in real, or is it simply a dream, is it not until we die that we are truly awake? As for those who are delusional, who says what they think and believe are delusions, to them they are true. Whose right is it to classify what is right from wrong when it may very well be the opposite. I have met people who are so absorbed in the workings of their mind and caught up in what we know not that they give a completely new meaning to the quote "I think therefore I am". But "I am", I am what?.. I think therefore there's hope; I think therefore there's bound to be adventure, I think then therefore there are uncertainties.

Darn why am I thinking, I'm supposed to be going to a ball tonight, I think that I am thinking that I should go...

Therefore you shall? : )

I thought therefore I was.

I don't think so, not really.

One is about potential, the other about what we already are.

What you have just said is a philosophy itself, you great philosopher, you.

Ddavid, how can you say that bro, about all the interesting posts people have made here....that no one understood or responded to your question...because that would take a great thinker?

Perhaps someone has, but you are not able to see it because, dare I say it, you along with the rest of us are not a great thinker either and so the real meaning of the line escapes you too.

He was probably drunk when he said it.....

Whoa, easy tiger...I wasn't slamming you, and I don't think I'm a great thinker....it just felt to me from your last post you were hinting that no one had yet really understood the meaning of the famous line, and that you did.

Which would mean you would have to be a great thinker to understand such things.

Have a cigar, relax.....

Toy with you? What like a smoke free guy with a fag in his avatar?...huh? baaaabeee, when I'm playing with you, you'll know about it...

hey man, lay down your insight into the line for us...share your pearly wisdom me old mucker...

Davey lad, I do hope you know I am only jesting with you, I had hoped that would be obvious from my last post, but I don't know you well enough to guess whether you are actually taking me seriously or are just fooling around in return.

Regardless, I think I am joking, therefor I am.

You know I bet if we met we'd be wary of each other...and then weeks later we'd bump into each other at a party, perhaps slightly intoxicated or just naturally giddy and we'd realize how much we have in common....aside from being handsome devils that is.

You know I wonder, with the advance of computer intelligence how long it will be before we start to debate whether or not computers are actually "thinking"....I read, I think in new scientist about quantum computers that can do amazingly complex computations without actually doing them..so to speak...because the use the dynamics of quantum mechanics to just arrive at the answer without any calculation....how wacky is that?

In that way, then yes, I'd say it does involve a self-conscious awareness, more than just thought. He could well have said "I recognize that I think, therefore I am."

Honestly, though, maybe only Descartes knew what Descartes was thinking. I haven't been involved in any conversations with him. I also haven't read his -Discourse on Method-. Because of that.... who can say?

I think therefore I am.

There are three kinds of answers. The literal, the lateral and the fantastical.

The literal. I think therefore I am.. Yes. I think. I am.. at least I think I am.

The lateral. I think I am a frog: Ribbit.

The fantastical. I think, but am I me in the 376 million other parallel dimensions?

In all honestly there isn't much to think about this quote. As an existentialist, Descartes wasn't that good, Heidegger was much better, and that bugger was a nazi... go figure. It's a throw away line that many people cling to to show they have knowledge of philosophy.

In reality "I think therefore I am." is nothing more than a blanket statement; a bullet point for existentialism if you will.

^^Being starts from the moment we feel that separation and we become an individual who is able to perform abstract thinking.

OK, so how does corporate advertising, commercialism and thought policing fit into this? Individualism is very relative thing these days after all.

I'm just saying, dddddaviddddd friend, that you seem to be taking his few words and putting entirely your own thoughts and mind into them. And that's entirely ok, as long as you know that you're doing it. There's no reason to be restricted to what he himself thought about what he wrote.

My philosophy prof. always said that Descartes separated existence from intelligence.

He said "Cogito ergo sum," not "Bibo ergo sum," (I drink, therefore I am...thank you Monty Python) not...I dunno..."Video ergo sum."

The point is, he draws something very important from the word "I think." To think is to be intelligent...this was a very important part of his meditations.

If he hadn't separated thinking and just performing simple actions, then he could have just left his philosophy at a very primitive stage: "Ego sum, ego existo." And thus he would not have recognized much of what it is to be human and what it is to actually perceive the world as it is.

PS Sorry if I repeated anything posted before this...I didn't go through every post prior to writing it.

Read up. It's pretty interesting.
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/
descartes/meditations/meditations.html

You could just tell us. Anything I say will differ from your opinion anyway.

But because you're making a stand, I'm not asking. *grins*

I absoultely love the instantation principle...

If my love was the essence and instantation principle the property. Then my love must exist for the instantation principle..

Lol...

Everyone is over analysing a philosophical quote to death...All you need to do is just state your opinion, although I find it hard to follow the quote, when reading another person's words...

I can, therefore I am.
Simone Weil

My cat can crap just outside of the litter box, therefore he is.

"I think I am, I think I am...I KNOW I am, I KNOW I am!"
Descartes always did love to narrate the story of the Little Engine That Could Exist.

Har.

And I wonder whether he also thought the chicken came before the egg.

I think, therefore I am

Really a personal realization. Even if I am the creation of another, I still hold some form of existance. I still hold the ability to think, to reason, to question, even if those actions are drievn by a higher power than I, on some plane they still exist and I, in my mind, with it.

To be or not to be

Shall I stand or shall I fall? Will I fight even if I may not win or will I submit? Death could be seen as a way of avoiding this question all together.

I think its anonymous

Its Rene Descartes.
Its from his view on "the self" and "being"

Its Rene Descartes,..he3

I think therefore I am...I think

^_^ LOL

xx