Gray comments on The benefits of madness: A positive account of arationality - Less Wrong

101 Post author: Skatche 22 April 2011 07:43PM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 24 April 2011 04:06:50PM *  5 points [-]

Also, what was your reasoning for doubting that you exist? How was Descartes proof insufficient?

It's essentially circular. It assumes an "I" from the start. If you get rid of that assumption, you have to start with "something is thinking."

That's been acknowledged in philosophical circles for some time now, but I don't think many philosophers regard it as an important problem anymore. It's about as safe an assumption as you can possibly make.

Seconding your main request, I've heard more people than I care to recall claim inspiration from altered states of consciousness, but it would be a first to have anyone present one that's novel and demonstrably true.

Comment author: Gray 24 April 2011 05:03:49PM 1 point [-]

Let the people suppose that knowledge means knowing things entirely; the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, "I think," I find a whole series of daring assertions that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove; for example that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an "ego," and, finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking--that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps "willing" or "feeling"?

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 16

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