Equality
Cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am - was where Rene Descartes began his search for undeniable knowledge, the conclusion of an understanding that the mind can never really know that the information received from the senses is real. We've all been deceived by our own senses at some point - optical illusions, hearing things that aren't there, mistaking smells or tastes - and our minds are more than capable of similar deceptions, as we find when we dream.
Rationally, if we can dream and feel as though everything about us were real, then how do we in fact know that what we think of as the real world is not a similar construct of our - or someone else's - imagination? Because the realms of thought and matter - dream and 'reality' if you prefer - are distinct, we can use neither one to guarantee the other. I can't prove I exist by using physical definitions, because the senses that use to perceive that physical nature could be deceived.
Similarly, because my ideas require a physical interaction to manifest themselves in the world, I can't use ideas to prove anything physical really exists.
So the only thing, Descartes contended, he could guarantee was that he existed, because something had to exist to do the thinking. It might be confused about its own nature, but it was. All other thought, he believed, was based upon the physical.
There are thoughts, though, that are independent of the physical world. Abstracts can be inspired by situations, but they can only be defined in terms of other abstracts. They are completely virtual creations, and therefore have a guaranteed reality in a way that the physical world does not. We can know that Justice, for instance, exists, because we have created it completely within a framework of our own thoughts. We may have been inspired by considering our perception of an event in the (possibly illusory) real world, but the event does neither defines nor directly causes the realisation - it can only inspire it.
Those abstracts, however, would seem to have little use if all else is illusion. If I am alone, and everything I perceive beyond myself is false, then I am the architect of all that I know, for I have created this illusion within my own mind. If that is the case, I have done so with curious logic, and a remarkable consistency, supplying an illusion so effective that even I believe that it is real. This illusory world, however, is not real, and therefore I should place no faith in its lessons, save as inspiration for my own mind, and should therefore live according to the abstract concepts that distinguish me from the creations of that illusory world - abstracts such as fairness, Justice and honour.
On the other hand, if the world is real, and the physical evidence of our senses is believable, what then? Everyone else out there interacts with the world as do I, but I have no way of knowing how they percieve what they interact with. It appears consistent, inasmuch as they all percieve what I think to be a chair as a chair, but the inner workings of their mind are unknown to me.
Therefore, I can assume, that since I have no objective evidence that I can't gauge myself against anyone else in terms of the physical world because it may not exist at all, and if it does I cannot be certain that I am seeing it either correctly, or in the same fashion as they.
The only comparisons that can be made directly, then, are those that I know these people to have - by nature if they are real, or by definition if I have created them to be sentient objects in my reality - which are abstract concepts. These concepts are unitary - they either are or they aren't. You cannot have a bigger concept of Justice, or more Fairnesses than someone else. We all have them, and they are all the same.
We therefore have no reason to believe that one person is superior, intrinsically, to another. The fact that we are all manifested differently in the apparency of the real world is uncertain, and we can therefore only judge on the fact that, within the recesses of our own minds, we are all of a similar vein. We are all sentient, we are all of one people because of it, and beyond that we simply are.
Rationally, if we can dream and feel as though everything about us were real, then how do we in fact know that what we think of as the real world is not a similar construct of our - or someone else's - imagination? Because the realms of thought and matter - dream and 'reality' if you prefer - are distinct, we can use neither one to guarantee the other. I can't prove I exist by using physical definitions, because the senses that use to perceive that physical nature could be deceived.
Similarly, because my ideas require a physical interaction to manifest themselves in the world, I can't use ideas to prove anything physical really exists.
So the only thing, Descartes contended, he could guarantee was that he existed, because something had to exist to do the thinking. It might be confused about its own nature, but it was. All other thought, he believed, was based upon the physical.
There are thoughts, though, that are independent of the physical world. Abstracts can be inspired by situations, but they can only be defined in terms of other abstracts. They are completely virtual creations, and therefore have a guaranteed reality in a way that the physical world does not. We can know that Justice, for instance, exists, because we have created it completely within a framework of our own thoughts. We may have been inspired by considering our perception of an event in the (possibly illusory) real world, but the event does neither defines nor directly causes the realisation - it can only inspire it.
Those abstracts, however, would seem to have little use if all else is illusion. If I am alone, and everything I perceive beyond myself is false, then I am the architect of all that I know, for I have created this illusion within my own mind. If that is the case, I have done so with curious logic, and a remarkable consistency, supplying an illusion so effective that even I believe that it is real. This illusory world, however, is not real, and therefore I should place no faith in its lessons, save as inspiration for my own mind, and should therefore live according to the abstract concepts that distinguish me from the creations of that illusory world - abstracts such as fairness, Justice and honour.
On the other hand, if the world is real, and the physical evidence of our senses is believable, what then? Everyone else out there interacts with the world as do I, but I have no way of knowing how they percieve what they interact with. It appears consistent, inasmuch as they all percieve what I think to be a chair as a chair, but the inner workings of their mind are unknown to me.
Therefore, I can assume, that since I have no objective evidence that I can't gauge myself against anyone else in terms of the physical world because it may not exist at all, and if it does I cannot be certain that I am seeing it either correctly, or in the same fashion as they.
The only comparisons that can be made directly, then, are those that I know these people to have - by nature if they are real, or by definition if I have created them to be sentient objects in my reality - which are abstract concepts. These concepts are unitary - they either are or they aren't. You cannot have a bigger concept of Justice, or more Fairnesses than someone else. We all have them, and they are all the same.
We therefore have no reason to believe that one person is superior, intrinsically, to another. The fact that we are all manifested differently in the apparency of the real world is uncertain, and we can therefore only judge on the fact that, within the recesses of our own minds, we are all of a similar vein. We are all sentient, we are all of one people because of it, and beyond that we simply are.
posted by Moghal at
12:37 PM
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