What does "Cogito Ergo Sum" mean to you.?

Question

Please don't quote the Philosopher Descartes who coined the phrase. What do YOU think of the meaning. What is your take on it.

Answer 1

I like how Nietzsche flipped it

"Sum ergo cogito..."

and I believe that concept completes the cycle.

He made the statement, in the cycle, in The Gay Science.

"Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum."

Attorneys fighting for living wills might find more use in Descartes' original quote, but Nietzsche's allows for that which can not be measured by machines.


Defining thought is a tricky proposition, but absolutely necessary if you consider only "cogito ergo sum." Me, personally, I do believe it is more a chicken/egg question than one perceives from the exclusively Descartes line.


As an aside, I used to have a beautiful little flyer that said "Consumo ergo sum." It was a statement on U.S. culture mindset, with a fabulous graphic of a person's head filled with all kinds of material items of "status." SUVs, ipods, that kinda thing.

Answer 2

Way of Living. I don't take the meaning of the phrase with the Descartes aspect. If you think you know that you exist with quality in your life. Thinking is the way to solve but also get away of the problems in the real life. When you find the hidden truth in something you feel well. Thought is the sanctuary for you when the materialist world hunts you. Don't take it personally, I don't mean you. Sometimes you feel alone and yourself is the only friend. You may have a girlfriend friends and parents but oyu will be alone sometimes and feel lonely.

Answer 3

My own individual thought processes are what make me who I am. Therefore, my thinking, the way my brain works, is what proves to me that I exist. I am not a part of a whole in terms of thinking. I however am part of a whole in the fact that I am alive at a time that you also happen to be here.

Answer 4

I don't think it has any merit anymore. It was a fanciful way in ancient days to inflate one's sense of ego and purpose in the world, but in this day and age, life itself has defined characteristics which 20 or 30 years ago we never would have expected or even dreamed of, and we've met cultures and societies who think and feel in sometimes vastly different ways than us, yet are still able to contribute to our society, and the global society.
It reminds me of an infant's first moments standing on it's feet. I'm sure it was a proud moment for it, but nothing really spectacular except maybe to its doting parents.

Answer 5

It is a logical fallacy.

If I think therefore I am.
Then, when I don't think I am not.

As one who meditates, I frequently stop thinking. I clearly still existed in all those instances of suspending thought. Since I meditate at least 20 minutes each day then, I daily stop existing for 20 minutes each day.

Buying into these ideas can be dangerous to our health.

Answer 6

I have always taken that branch of western philosophy as that ultimately only ‘I’ can decide the nature of my own existence. Not so much in I create my own reality, but that it is only me who can define my place in it. It is the starting point in which leads to the next question ‘who is this I who thinks?

Answer 7

The meaning, "I think, therefore, I am" is, perhaps, a lovely concept, but I disagree. It could easily extrapolate to nothing in the universe existing at all because *I* am not thinking of it.

I don't buy that.

Answer 8

I think that it represents the confinement of the modern sense of the self and its relation to reality to the mind.

Answer 9

I think that as long as we are thinking about the world around us, then we are truly living, meaning our lives are worthwhile.

Answer 10

thinking can be anything, from thinking wisely to thinking stupidly, and we are granted both options. however, being granted the right to be stupid doesn't mean we have to be