The Self-Verifying Truth
Joseph Polanik
>Related distantly to the Wittgenstein quote [dreaming] noted elsewhere,
>I have been reading in Foucault about the very devious Descartes ...
>who SEEMS to say in the MEDITATIONS that certainty only comes from the
>ability to doubt, essentially, to think, to use reason - more or less a
>good point - but that if one can doubt one's sanity one cannot
>therefore truly be mad.
>All Descartes says - I think - is:
you may be confusing Descartes with Heidegger who removed the 'ergo'
from Descartes statement and then promised a 'deconstruction' of the
'cogito, sum' which he never delivered.
>Now, as I understand it, all certainty depends [A] upon the ability to
>use self-evidencing logic, and [B] the nature [definition] of God means
>He cannot deceive, so [C] He would not deceive us with the use of our
>senses insofar as they are examined especially as to perception and
>extension.
the initial certainty that I am does not depend on God. God gets dragged
into the inquiry at a later point to justify the conclusion that there
is a physical universe external to the awareness of the experiencer.
>I cannot see how dreaming or insanity cannot be equally 'real' to a
>waking state since all these states exist with and are judged only by
>their internal consistency. But I am sure someone can show me the error
>of my ways.
each of these states is equally evidential as to the reality of the
experiencer. they all support parallel inferences: 'I am dreaming;
therefore, I am', 'I am insane; therefore, I am' or 'I am awake;
therefore, I am'.
it doesn't matter whether the experience of dreaming or being insane is
or is not internally consistent.
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
mec...@sbcglobal.net
I am" appear to be just a little too facile for my tastes.
In order for a person to say "I am dreaming", he or she must engage in
self-reflection. But the very performance of self-reflection can only be
done by a person who is awake; which, thus, constitutes the end of the
dream. To be dreaming is to be completely caught up in the purported reality
of the dream itself; whereas to engage in self-reflection is to separate
oneself from that dream, to recognize that the 'reality' of the dream is not
really real.
But the statement "I am insane; therefore, I am" is even more problematical.
With insanity, there is a complete collapse and loss of the spatiality of
the "self". In addition, there is no continuity of time, which depends upon
the continuity of thought. That is, there is not enough continuity of time
to maintain the spatiality of the "self"--even if there is any certain
spatiality to that "self" in the first place--in the consciousness of the
person who is insane. In other words, it is not possible for the insane
person to separate himself from the experience of insanity to the extent
that he or she could utter the statement "I am insane; therefore I am" any
more than it is possible for the dreamer to separate himself from the dream
in order to utter the statement "I am dreaming; therefore, I am."
Michael Cecil