Blog 2: Do I exist or Do we exist?

In our last class we talked about René Descartes, father of modern philosophy of self. Descartes standpoint on the idea of self is very mind boggling, for he defines mind as a separate entity from the body. Moreover he argues that having thoughts is the proof of one's existence. This stands as a very reasonable argument. However Descartes complicates it further as Bolter in his essay “ Writing about self” quotes “Descartes takes leave of the world by doubting it all as the deception of evil spirit; that is, he questions the authority of his senses to report to him about the world.” Here Descartes  means that the world his senses perceive might be an illusion created by the mind, hence one cannot rely on one’s senses. Descartes rejects the existence of the network, external surroundings and only concentrates on the self.  His theory is very egocentric, yet it is constructed in such a way that I can find no reasonable argument to disprove that the people around him, the world around him is not a deception but real. At the same time neither can I  believe in his theory nor can I reject it. All I can do is offer the reader an argument in favor and against it.

Argument: I believe that our mind is like a plane canvas. Our interactions with the network or the outside world through Internet or physical meetings add material or paint to it. Then we, with this paint, create our own paintings which can be characterized as our thoughts. Hence our thoughts are outputs made from inputs from the material world, which are developed by our minds. Also we need to ask ourselves can all these languages, people, mathematical proofs and nature be a construction of our imagination. Can our minds be so immensely creative? 

In Favor: I was recently reading Al-Ghazali “Deliverance From Error”. In which a very interesting argument offered by Al-Ghazali to proof that we live in a world of false truth. He draws an analogy and says that when we sleep even the our  dreams appeal to us as real, but it is only when we get up we realize that they were imaginary. Hence, there is a possibility that we might be just be dreaming and this blog is not written by me but might be a figment of your own creation.