Do you think therefore you are?

Question

Was Pyrro right when he decided nothing could be known?
What is your take upon sceptical philosophy?

Answer 1

The mind is not automatically a human entity. It can be alien in its contents as it often is in its function. If we do not make the mind into an inhabitable place, it can be a very unfriendly place. We can think and often do all sorts of things. Why for example we do much interested in alien life forms and awesome possibility of space exploration when we are unable to manage what we have got in our grasp – the planet Earth and this life. We think in wonder, as we are never certain what we are going to find in the end.

The fact of the matter is that all that we know is placed in the middle of a great unknown all around us. If I speak poetically then our knowledge is like a boat upon the surface of an endless and bottomless ocean without an end or a beginning to its journey. Does it know how deep is the ocean beneath and how high is the sky above? Can a boat find an answer to its question if it thinks? A boat does have to think to be what it is. It simply is. It is an entity in its being, a symbol faith not an answer to a question or knowledge. The knowledge belongs to the one who is on board to that boat and that know is exclusive, limited and objective, never complete and definitive

In reality, nothing can be known with a hundred percent certainty. This world I fact is a singularity where everything includes in its uniqueness every other thing as unique set characteristics. I am for example a single person but I have an undeniable realisation in my mind that there are about seven million others like me on this planet, and this knowledge is what makes me think what I think am. If I just think then I am all people, and therefore all things. I am at the same time unique and therefore indispensable in this world.

Then if I think too much about something I will become more of that something than anything else in characteristic. A seed will eventually become a flower or a fruit that again will turn into a seed. Can a seed say that it is a seed because this is what it thinks it is? How long a seed will stay a seed? Even when a seed is a seed it is potentially a tree, and many a number of fruit that that three will bring forth. I believe therefore I am. I am not sure what I will be the next moment but I hope I will still be me, and my hope does not come from what I know or think but from what I do not know but I believe.

Answer 2

i am therefore i think :)

if you feel that you completely know something... then it cannot be succeptable to change (be it for better or worse) - I personally see this in a martial arts perspective, as i do practice various styles etc.
I see that if you completely know a certain technique/style/way of fighting etc. then that is what you know, and you cannot change it (usually for the better) because you are bound by what you know, you accept it for hte gospel truth and cannot possibly change it.

Whether Pyyro was right when he decided nothing could be known is a different thing, some things can be known but they are only known to you, as everything each person knows appears different to them and they percieve it differently, for example you may see the shirt im wearing as a certain dark shade of blue , but i may see it as a light purple. However some thing cannot possibly be known due to different factors etc. like how the world progressed to the current stage it is at now, we have ideas, usually very accurate ideas but still that is not COMPLETELY KNOWING,

I do agree with what Pyyro says about nothing can be completely known, but i tend to think that nopthin should be completely known, as it limits what you can do, as i said before i see this from a martial arts perspective and this is the way i choose to apply it :)

hope it helps, if not hope it was an interesting 45 seconds read :)

im thinking of studying philosophy when I go to college, this may provide you with an indication to my age hehe, email me if you study philosophy at college level because imreally interested in it :)

Answer 3

Yes, I think so.
I can deny or doubt anything: Everyone says 1+1 is 2, but what is everyone has been lying to you all thins time? How do you know that the moon is there, when you are not looking at it? How can you tell that you are not just a lonely thought, that doesn't even have a body, but imagined all this things like your body, your family, your friends, the world, etc?
But no matter how hard I try, I can't deny that I am thinking, and I have thoughts. Suppose since I can not deny that, that is what I am.

Answer 4

Yes to an extent that some things cannot be fully known , Mc Donald's or Coke might take up the challenge on this .
From your brief description I think that it allows one to explore ones own view on the subject , like many other philosophies, the buck stops with each reader.Sceptics is the philosohphy of exploration, show me the data!

Answer 5

I thought "cognito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) was taken from Descartes? Have to confess I've not heard of Pyrro.

However I think it's unfair to call Cognito ergo sum skeptical, in my opinion it's simply very pragmatic approach to philosophy, the essence being that, in terms of theorising about who, or what we are, or the purpose of humanity, or the existance of god(s), there's very little that can be proved or disproved. It's far easier to to start from the one certainty "I can think, therefore I know that I exist" (at any level of existance and within any theory). Having this approach doesn't preclude theorising the big philosphical questions (in fact for Descartes it was his starting point for subsequent theory) it just sets a ground point which admits that ultimately we'll never know the answers and as such should be content to live our part in life.

As such I tend to agree.

Answer 6

no, because physical pain is real. if somebody smacked pyrro on the nose, he would realise we are real enough lol.

Answer 7

I often think "therefore you are...", but more often than not I keep the completion of the sentence to myself - except when I'm in my car, when my inner narrative frequently spills over into caustic ejaculations!

Answer 8

its true the more we know the less we understand

something can be known but i guess the world we live in is such a complicated place we cant know eveyrything

i try to focus on my own life

Answer 9

I think therefore I am. I see, taste, feel, interpret conversations, etc. the way I want to. I'm free. Life is percieved they way you want it to be as if it is a dream.

Answer 10

I agree that nothing can be known outside of our mind, but the thing is that our mind is our universe, and we know everything in our mind, so we know everything in our universe.