Yet another ‘dubious battle’…

Wisdom comes from thinking. From putting your mind to work in a considerate manner.
Doubting everything will only get you so far. And leave you in ‘limbo’.
In a quick-sand kind of limbo…
Descartes must be one of the most misquoted thinkers.
‘Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum’.
‘I wonder hence I think. I think hence I am’. Meaning that ‘by wondering I’ve set in motion the process which has led me to become aware of my own existence’.
No reference to ‘wisdom’…

LE

Words have a life of their own. Given by us but still theirs.

Dubito used to describe a state of ‘uneasiness’. You weren’t sure and you gave it more consideration. You thought about it.

Contemporary doubting is more like an aggressively pursued hair-splitting. We actively search for reasons to disbelieve.

Even if both words share the same root, the concepts have grown apart.

Starting from dubito, Descartes had replaced religious faith with a newly found trust in human reason.

Through doubting we’ve destroyed Descartes’ legacy. Trust is almost dead and we’ve entered the realm of ‘alternative facts’. Quite the opposite of what Descartes had in mind.

So yes, dubito might lead to wisdom. If the thinking is right, of course.

Doubting, specially as we do it now,…

Something more. Some people are convinced that doubting everything is the ‘scientific attitude’. I vehemently disagree.

Science, the scientific attitude, is about keeping an open mind. About being aware of one’s limitations. AND about trusting your peers! Not exactly their expertise but their good will.

If I accept that I might be wrong, then my peers might be wrong also. Hence I’m not going to accept, prima facie, any opinion from anybody. But I’m going to reexamine my conclusions if someone tells me they are wrong. If, and this is a big if, that person is NOT a professional naysayer.

Skepticism is OK. More than OK. It serves as a safety net/harness. Makes it harder for us to do really stupid things.

Negativism, on the other hand, is bad. Very bad. Destroys everything. Starting with our ability to do things together. To work as a team.

Existence. Is it enough?

Is it enough for something to exist in order for that something to become real?

Existence = “The fact or state of living or having objective reality.”
Real = “Actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.”

Ooops!

Do I sense a conundrum haunting these premises?

Which came first? Reality or ‘mere’ existence?

Descartes was the first who had introduced a ‘pecking order’ into this mess.

Dubito ergo cogito.
Cogito ergo sum.

You’re free to translate this any way you want.
Mine goes like this:

My existence is certified only by my doubts.

My existence as a human being, of course.
As a conscious human!

The ‘pecking order’ being, as far as I figure it out:

I need to exist, as an animal, in order to become conscious.
And I need to gain consciousness in order to learn about my existence.

Complicated?
Let me elaborate.

Our understanding of the world is incomplete.
First of all, there are so many things we don’t know about.

For example, we have no idea what goes on between Mars and Jupiter.
We think we know that there’s no major planet hidden in between those two orbits. No object with an important enough mass to disturb either Mars or Jupiter and no object with an albedo big enough to be noticed. To be noticed by us…
Other than that… we have no clue about what’s going on there.
In fact, we don’t know much about what’s going on in the middle of our own planet… or on the floor of ‘our’ oceans…

But the fact that we don’t know about their existence doesn’t preclude the actual existence of whatever ‘objects’ and/or organisms might happen to be there.

Secondly, there are so many things we don’t fully understand. Not yet, anyway. We are aware of their existence – because we’ve been confronted with some ‘consequences’ of the aforementioned things, but we haven’t yet figured out, exactly, how those consequences have been produced.
For example, we’re still learning about viruses. About their ability to bypass our defenses. About how they infect us. About how we might improve our chances of avoiding/surviving infection.

But the fact that we don’t fully understand them doesn’t preclude us – well, some of us, from believing those viruses to be real.

My point being that ‘existence’ is far wider than ‘reality’.
There’s no need for us to know about it for something to exist.
But for something to be considered ‘real’, by us, that something needs to exist first.

‘But aren’t you contradicting yourself?
In a previous post, you argued that ‘the Flat Earth’ was real?!?’

Confusing, isn’t it?
I’m sorry if I misled you.
All I was trying to say was that ‘the Flat Earth’, as a concept, is ‘real’. In the sense that so many people discussing it – either for or against, make it real. Those very discussions, a direct consequence of the concept’s very existence – albeit only in the virtual space, give consistency to its reality.
Don’t get me wrong. The Earth – as I ‘know’ it, continues to be round. The Earth – that we live on, is not ‘Flat’. The Earth doesn’t exist as a flat object.

We are confronted with two facts here.
1. All that we’ve so far learned about it leads us to the conclusion that the Earth is, more or less, round.
2. There still are people who believe – or pretend to, that the Earth is flat.

The second fact exists.
The belief which made it possible is false. As far as we know. As far as the scientific community is convinced.
Yet the fact still remains.
Those people believing in it provide it with ‘existence’.
Those people believing in it make it ‘real’.

Sort of, anyway.

The small matter of agency.

Ever-since Descartes –  dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum, the western culture had considered that a person becomes truly human only after they actively start looking for answers. Start thinking about their own persona, in a conscious manner.
Otherwise put, we start existing only after we notice our existence.

The corollary of this concept had been ‘rational thinking’. The belief that it is possible to consider something – to emit a judgement about a subject, only after dispassionately examining all available facts – and only the facts, pertinent to the matter.

While the ‘thinkers’ were coining the concept of rationality, the more practical minded had come up with the scientific approach. Gather as much information as possible about the subject you’re interested in, interpret it and come up with a conclusion. But keep an open mind about any new information which might come up and be prepared for your conclusion to be invalidated – or, at least, ‘nuanced’, at any moment.

At first sight, there isn’t much difference between these two approaches. Only at first sight, of course…
Those who consider themselves to be ‘rational’ have a hard time accepting other people’s conclusions while the bona fide ‘scientists’ are actually happy when they are contradicted. ‘My work has been considered important enough for somebody to check it. I’ll just have to make amends and all will  be fine’.

Now, I’m convinced that you’ve all figured out that I’m joking.
There’s no such thing as a fully rational person who denies the facts which happen to contradict their conclusions just as there’s no such thing as a scientist pure enough to actually enjoy being proven wrong.

But I’m not joking when I observe that there are so many people who consider themselves to be rational and who refuse to accept as fact anything which contradicts their beliefs. Who have a ‘scientific’ approach. Who cherry-pick only the facts which confirm their theory and dismiss – as ‘fake-news’, all the rest. Just as many as the scientists who do the same thing.

I wonder who supervises their thinking processes.
Are they truly aware about what’s going on inside their heads?
Or about the consequences?

“Iluzia rationalitatii politice”?

Vorbeam intr-o postare anterioara despre cum, interpretandu-l ‘entuziast’ pe Descartes, am ajuns la concluzia ca ‘ratiunea il face pe om’.
Iata aici o noua dovada altceva il face pe om si nu ratiunea pura. Aceasta din urma este doar un mecanism, o modalitate de a asambla si folosi in scop propriu informatiile pe care le avem la indemana.
Catre ce scop? Ne putem folosi de ratiune pentru a incerca sa raspundem si la aceasta intrebare. Din pacate vom obtine doar atat, un raspuns. Atunci cind vom alege cu adevarat catre ce scop sa ne indreptam vor intra in joc caracterul nostru, bunul simt, educatia… Adica exact ceea ce am acumulat pina in acel moment din interactiunea cu oamenii de care ne-am ‘lovit’ de-a lungul vietii. Unii ar zice ca din acest moment intervine ‘morala’.
Se poate spune si asa. Eu prefer explicatia lui Humberto Maturana:
‘Oamenii nu sunt singurele fiinte constiente. Si cainele e constient, simte atunci cind este lovit. Spre deosebire de caine insa omul este constient de faptul ca este constient.
Iar aceasta constiinta nu a aparut din intimplare la unul dintre indivizi si apoi s-a raspandit pentru ca a fost folositoare ci a aparut prin interactiunea intensa si repetata intre indivizii societatii, mai ales prin intermediul limbajului. Acesta din urma a aparut tot asa, ‘intre’ indivizi, si impreuna, constiinta de a fi constienti impreuna cu abilitatea de a comunica idei in intreaga lor complexitate, au transformat o grupurile de ‘maimute’ pre-umane in societatile (aproape) umane de astazi.
Sa nu uitam totusi contributia esentiala a lui Descartes. El a inceput rationamentul sau cu ‘Dubito ergo…’
Asa gandesc cu adevarat oamenii: “Ce ar fi daca…” Unii ajung la concluzia “Ce tie nu-ti place altuia nu-i face”, altii la “cum sa fac sa mai castig odata alegerile”.
Poate ca ar fi timpul sa inceapa si alegatorii sa gandeasca: “Ce ar fi daca…?”

Descartes, le malentendu

“Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum”
This was the original.
We have chosen to keep only ‘cogito ergo sum’ and be extremely proud of the fact humans are the only animals able to reason.
Really?
There is a small video that makes me wonder.…(You can enjoy all of it later, for the purpose of this post please watch from 28:01 to 32:00)
The way I see it, the monkey IS able to reason but is unable to refrain itself. When the situation allowed for ‘cold reasoning’ – when only numbers where involved, not real candy – he displayed the same kind of reasoning as the one we’d usually do.

By contrast, it is us, humans, who have the unique ability to think discursively – please see one of my previous posts about this – and hence the possibility to ask ourselves “what if?”
Maybe this is what Descartes wanted to convey to us, that it’s our capacity to ‘dubito’ that makes us humans, after all.

PS. Here you have the full transcription of that video.