On the purpose of science

[Cato]

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

[Stygian Cellarius]

Stygian Cellarius,

The problem I have with Descartes' Cogito ergo sum / I think, therefore I am, is with the "I".

From my point of view it is very problematic to claim any thoughts to be one's own. I personally believe that the only real truth to come from Cogito ergo sum is simply that thoughts exist.

It's irrelevant whether or not the thoughts are your own. A deity could be thinking for you, but you as an entity are still the medium that percieved the phenomena (thoughts, information). Actually, you don't even really have to think at all, static self-awareness is sufficient. To be aware that you exist is what is important. You are aware that you exist, yes? And you can't say "how do I really know that I exist?" Because you do know that you exist.

But how do you know I (Stygian) exist? Or that your best friend exists? You don't know that with absolute certainty because you cannot prove that you're brain is not in a vat hooked up to a "reality machine". You just can't.

The conclusion is that nothing in reality can be proven to exist. Their existence, in the absolute sense, are based on assumptions. The assumption that the stimuli you experience with your senses are a genuine, accurate translation of reality.
Nothing in reality, except your existence is certain. You are perceiving information, you are conscious, even if all information that your senses detect and process is false, you're still processing it, therefore you at least exist to do that. That is the only certainty.

Your consciousness may be immaterial and suspended in a black void, dreaming this reality, but it still exists. (actually, the more and more I learn about my universe and meditate on such topics, the more I believe it is not real)

Sorry for going off-topic mods. I'll jump back on. I feel guilty already heh.

[Psychonaut]

The problem I have with Descartes' Cogito ergo sum / I think, therefore I am, is with the "I".

Perhaps this problem might emanate from an Enlightenment conception of the self. Is the self necessarily some soul-like monad from which thoughts originate and which, through the medium of the body, experiences extra-mental phenomena? Might not the self be an aggregative node comprised of things like thoughts, physical sensations, etc.? Are we actually able to deduce that there is an ontological distinction between these constituents and the self, or does the self emerge through a difference of the connectedness of the constituents?