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Comment by dfabulich | Hacker News Reader

I note that you keep saying "cogito" without the "ergo."

"I think therefore I am" is invalid, and what's wrong with it is the "therefore," the idea that you knew one thing, and you drew a "logical" conclusion from it, in a "prior to language" environment where words have no meaning, where "true" and "false" are indistinguishable, and logic is impossible.

Logic requires words. "Logical" means "verbal," from the Greek logos (λόγος). You can't have a logical argument (you can't draw a conclusion) from the instantaneous standpoint of someone "experiencing" cogito, where words mean whatever you want, or nothing at all.

The experience you're having is not a logical argument. As a sentence, "cogito ergo sum" is invalidated as soon as you write it down in a shared language.

I'm sure it feels right to you! But you can't actually say anything true about it in English, or Latin, or any other shared language.

Thereof, you simply must remain silent.

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    For, on the one hand, there is the real world, and on the other,
    a whole system of symbols about that world which we have in our minds.
    These are very very useful symbols; all civilization depends on them;
    but like all good things they have their disadvantages, and the
    principle disadvantage of symbols is that we confuse them with reality,
    just as we confuse money with actual wealth; and our names about
    ourselves, our ideas of ourselves, our images of ourselves, *with*
    ourselves.

    Now of course, reality, from a philosopher's point of view, is a
    dangerous word. A philosopher will ask me, what do I mean by reality?
    Am I talking about the physical world of nature, or am I talking about
    a spiritual world, or what?
    
    And to that I have a very simple answer. When we talk about the material
    world, that is actually a philosophical concept - so in the same way, if
    I say that reality is spiritual, that's also a philosophical concept -
    and reality itself is not a concept.

    Reality is - [...]

    ... and we won't give it a name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYp-mWqB1w

See also: "the TAO that can be named is not the true TAO;" or, Crowley in Konx om Pax on the "fools who mistake names for things."

I think we might be on the same page at last.

The last refuge of the Cartesian is always, "My argument is correct in an ineffable way that I couldn't possibly write down."

"Cogito ergo sum" presents itself as a self-evident deduction, the one guaranteed universally agreeable truth, but, when you investigate it a little… oh, well, it's really more of a vibe than an argument, and isn't "logical argument" really a monkey-mind distraction from the indescribable lightness of existence?

Mu, indeed.

This is some impressive sophistry.

If you define "logic" as requiring words, then it's only a model of casuality, which is real irrespective of life entirely.

You're demanding that language perfectly convey an abstract argument, which is obviously unreasonable, and saying that since it can't do that we can't discuss tricky subjects at all, which if you take this line of reasoning seriously is all of them. So how about you "remain silent".

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