Saturday 2 January 2016

(10d. Comment Overflow) (50+)

(10d. Comment Overflow) (50+)

1 comment:

  1. “The contribution of Descartes' celebrated "Cogito" is that I can be absolutely certain that I am cognizing when I am cognizing.”
    Is this so? We can be certain that it feels like we’re cognizing whenever it feels as though we’re cognizing, but is it true that we are cognizing at that moment?
    To take a more illustrative example, since we can’t discern scientifically (yet) when an agent is cognizing, it feels like something to be hurdling through the air. We can be sure that when we feel as though we’re hurdling through the air that we are feeling that very sensation, but need we be hurdling in reality? Surely, we have all awoken suddenly to find that we were not, in fact, falling down a flight of stairs or catapulting off a huge ski jump but really dreaming it. It certainly feels similar to the real thing though, right?
    So when we feel like we’re seeing red, need we be seeing red? Or is the only thing we can say about the feeling of seeing red is that it occurs when it seems as though we’re seeing red, but perhaps it is just the after-image of a green hue or a visual hallucination. We can only be sure that there is feeling. That’s it.

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