Yet another Descartes’ error

"Indeed, the underlying premise of neural science is that mind is a product of the brain and its neural activity."

"Is it a little solipsistic in here, or is it just me?"

Could it be the case that this experience is part of a Fantastic Theatre or a Universal Farce as in the movie The Matrix where an artificial intelligence creates and maintains an artificial world that is reproduced in the mind of all human prisoners? The french philosopher René Descartes doubting of everything that he perceived and of everything that there is in the world claimed that at least he was certain about his thinking, and it was by virtue of such a claim that he was sure of his own existence inferring a statement that is summarised in the maxim cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). But whoever meditates deeply into the question will find such statement void, not to say non-sensical.

The aforementioned philosopher doubts about the world, as his senses present it, and about everything contained in it. He doubts about the sensation that water does when it runs out of this hands. He doubts about the sensation of cold that experiences during mornings on the military camp. He doubts about the Dutch landscapes that he observes from his room. He doubts about everything that he could experience, but in a somewhat tricky way he makes two clear exceptions: he does not doubt about a notion called thought nor about a notion called existence. Two notions that it is worth saying, he learned in the world that he is denying, better said, that he is doubting about. Not satisfied with this trap, he tied together both concepts through a casual relationship that says: that who thinks, exists. So that, he is able to conclude: I think, therefore I am. A useless assertion that nonetheless served as entertainment to the minds of his time.

The fact that everything that the senses can perceive resides at every time in the mind could make us doubt of its independent and authentic existence, that is, that outside which is produced in the mind these objects actually are something in themselves; in Kantian terms, these are called noumena. The doubt, therefore, is not only to know if the senses do not tell us more or less about the world outside, but to know if they say anything at all.

Are we pure mind as if to say that the objects that we see, listen and feel only exist within it without possessing existence outside it? The objects that I truly perceive exert an impression over the senses or these latter are not used at all? Do we possess any way to determine whether we live in The Matrix or in the Singularity? Are we pure mind as to reject the existence of the objects that we perceive?

Once again the question about existence is solved ab initio, because if we consider the existence of an object as the possibility of being perceived, then it is clear that everything that we perceive exists, but such a definition is incomplete because it rejects the existence of objects such as the prime numbers, the atom, emotions, the pegassus, and the kwyjibo, among others. Now, if this concept is amplified by making a distinction between reified existences (real, effective, physical) and non-reified existences (unreal, intellectual), then the above issues are solved, although here what is under discussion is not whether things that are perceived exist or not (solved issue), but whether that that is being perceived is truly the reflection of a noumenic object.

In the previous image, for us who contemplate is evident that the elements in the landscape exist, but we cannot say anything about what is behind such a view. In other words, we are not capable of claiming whether such a view is the product of the impression of a noumenon acting upon the senses, or if it is the work of a daemon that we encountered in a previous post, which made us wonder about the authenticity of memory, and now once again makes us wonder whether we are something else more than just pure mind. If that was the case and we claimed that we are pure mind, we would be committing an act of injustice, because we are disbelieving of all the worlds that we observe in the world but one, to wit, the mind; in a similar way that led Descartes claim his popular maxim¹. In other words, we doubt about the existence outside our own vision, outside our own touch, and so on; we doubt about the existence of apples and dogs, et cetera; however we do not doubt about the existences of the concept mind. Thus, to be fair we should doubt equally about that concept too but then a question arises: what is left? Once again, the answer is that nothing remains at all, except the empty and dark scepticism through which we cannot either know nor affirm anything. It would be as Giordano Bruno said: the Return of the Triumphant Beast[2]. What are we if we cannot even admit that we are pure mind? We would be entities different to all those rejected and doubted objects, a something outside beyond this reality and beyond any subjectivity, an undefined entity, unclassified and unnamed. This is a statement that does not lead anywhere, and thus it becomes necessary that we believe in something, that we believe in believing, and in our capacity to elaborate these thoughts and even believing that these possess a cause, and thus they are conditioned. And through this belief we start assembling and building a philosophical edifice of postulates and consequences.

There is more. It is not possible to deny the noumenic existence of the objects that we perceive beyond the control of volition without denying also some of our own self given that we possess as well something of noumenic nature. We cannot deny the noumenic existence of objects beyond the dura mater without at the same time denying our very own, because their existence as objects in themselves is in fact strictly linked to our very own. So much that, I state the following: I exist if and only if they exist. Or following mathematical notation: I exist ←→ they exist, where it is useful to remember that the existence that we are referring to here is the existence that assures that there is an effective impression of an object upon the senses, that is to say, a noumenic existence.

How a statement such as I exist ←→ they exist is possible? I cannot doubt about the keys that I feel in my fingertips nor about the screen in front of my eyes without doubting as well of my own hands striking each key, and of the rest of my body that is displayed on the window of my own sight (these hands and their arms, these legs, this torso, this belly), and similarly I would be doubting about the sensations that occur in my own body which I notice via propioception, e.g. my breathing, the beating of my heart and a slight indigestion. But if we admit that at least the objects that give rise to these perceptions exist legitimately as noumenta that impinge their nature on the senses, the existence of the rest of the world, which is susceptible of being perceived, is admitted immediately (I exist → they exist). But on the contrary, if the legitimate existence of the objects beyond the dura mater is admitted as objects that exert their influence on the senses, then my own existence is admitted automatically in a trivial fashion (I exist ← they exist). But if there is some ansiogenic stubbornness still around, which proclaims the nonexistence of everything but thought and the locus where it takes place, then we are back in the situation where we ask ourselves whether we are only mind as the bishop Berkeley did[3]; an issue that we discussed above and which leads us to deny even the very notion of mind, leaving us once again in a state of absolute ignorance: the Dantesque wilderness, the Returning Beast, and thus, end of the discussion: nothing can be known, nothing can be stated.