Home› Poetry, Prose, Music & Art

"I think, therefore I am"

ThorneHopeThorneHope Posts: 40
edited June 2006 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
The French philosopher René Descartes said this......

"I think, therefore I am"

But what if....

..........I'm a figment of my own imagination???

Hmmmmm

~ThorneHope
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Imagination is a formulated mental image, a concept not necessarily dependent on language. It can be manifested as an extension upon sense memory; it can be visual, aural, concerned with touch, or smell. But it is dependent upon thought, and thought itself isn't necessarily a linguistic process: It needn't totally be conscious. However, to be conscious of one's imaginative capability is to formulate thought in words. And to rationalise that one is a thinking person is to recognise that one is prone to imaginings - voluntary, or unconscous and illusory. This being aware of one's imagination is awareness of one's thought. Consciousness of one's thoughts and tendency to imagination is consciousness-as-being. Therefore, through thinking that your being might be a result of your own imagination, you are conscious. Therefore you are conscious of yourself as a rational being. Therefore, you are. Cogito ergo sum. ;)
  • ThorneHopeThorneHope Posts: 40
    Yes....
    I guess....
    "I am"

    ;-)
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    And even if you're unconscious of the fact that you're imagining your existence, you're likely thinking you exist through a linguistic process of thought. And it it is this thought that determines your existence.


    That's the Cartesian view.

    I believe the opposite though: We are, therefore we think. :)
  • pacifierpacifier Posts: 1,009
    As a kid I used to freak out and worry that my whole life was a dream and that one day I would wake up and I would be someone else completely or even something else. It scared me to think that my whole life as I knew, my friends, my world, may not exist and upon the dreamer's waking I would lose it all. Then I used to feel sorry sometimes for my dreams, that I would create and then destroy their being. Hmm, I think I didn't think like most other 10 year olds :)
  • ThorneHopeThorneHope Posts: 40
    I used to think sometimes that it was all a big joke played on me. Kinda like that movie that Jim Carrey was in...."The Truman Show".
    Now I'm thinking more on the lines that waking life might be the real dream....
    After all... we're only using like 5% of our brain.....
    My kids always worry about death...
    So I asked them what they worried about before they were born...
    Gets them thinking....
    Things that make you go "hmmmm....."
    ~ThorneHope
  • JamalJamal Posts: 2,115
    Sometimes I think this might all be a dream
    Merely our imagination, or maybe that of someone else, like a scene inside their head. As soon as you walk of the scene, you are invisible to the main persona.
    Think of their thoughts as a stage, as a room, as ... and imagine that you really are dreamt up by someone. Would that make you less real? The truth is you'll never know, I guess, so you can't cease to exist in that way.
    Cogito ergo sum, as true as life itself (you just take that as you wish) :D
    Surf little waves big... Charge big waves hard

    - Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
  • JamalJamal Posts: 2,115
    I like philosophical stuff, just wanted to add that :p

    *damn edit button :@*
    Surf little waves big... Charge big waves hard

    - Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
  • pickupyourwillpickupyourwill Posts: 3,135
    ThorneHope wrote:
    I used to think sometimes that it was all a big joke played on me. Kinda like that movie that Jim Carrey was in...."The Truman Show".
    Now I'm thinking more on the lines that waking life might be the real dream....
    After all... we're only using like 5% of our brain.....
    My kids always worry about death...
    So I asked them what they worried about before they were born...
    Gets them thinking....
    Things that make you go "hmmmm....."
    ~ThorneHope

    ~~row row row your boat gently down the stream--merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream~~:)
  • pacifierpacifier Posts: 1,009
    ThorneHope wrote:
    I used to think sometimes that it was all a big joke played on me. Kinda like that movie that Jim Carrey was in...."The Truman Show".

    oh yeah, I used to think this aswell, long before the truman show came out. I was so suprised when everyone was saying what an original idea it was and how it gets you thinking, cos I had already been thinking like that for a long time. Actually after it came out I even wondered if perhaps it was a trick on me to make me think that such an idea was rediculous, while all the while they are doing the same thing to me :) Thankfully I don't think quite as crazily as I used to, which makes for a more settled mind, but sometimes a lot less interesting.
  • ThorneHopeThorneHope Posts: 40
    It sure is nice to know that there are other on the same page as me...and the same book too!!
    Here's another thought...a few weeks ago I was watching something...I think it was on the Discovery channel. It talked about other "planes" and likened it to living in an apartment building on one floor, while other things live on other floors...and sometimes they cross into each other...like on the elevator. I guess that would explain Bigfoot, UFO's and Elvis...lol
    Then I was just surfing tonight and I came across this ---> http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13070896/ <----

    Ooooh I think my brain is hurting...

    Maybe I'll write about this....
    ~ThorneHope
Sign In or Register to comment.