Attacking Methodological Doubt

[Aranfan]

Descartes used Methodological Doubt to show it was possible to doubt everything save the mind. If one could provide a way to doubt that the mind exists, then it would show Methodological Doubt to be bunk. Please note that I don't actually endorse what follows, it is merely my attempt to provide a way to doubt the mind:

Consider the being with Infinite Intelligence (Call him God).
Consider that God's Imagination would thusly be infinitely detailed.
Consider that as we are not perfect, and that as for things to be distinguishable they must be distinct, we must therefore be each a collection of imperfections in specific proportion.
An infinitely intelligent being could simulate what it would be like to be such a creature of any given proportion by simply imagining it.
As his imagination is infinitely detailed, there would be no way for the imagined lesser intelligence to discern reality form God's imagination.
Thus, for the figment the Imagination of God is reality.
In such a way it is possible for one's own mind to be but a figment of God's Imagination.
Thus Methodological Doubt leaves us with nothing.


Please point out any errors in my reasoning, I'm going to use this in Philosophy class. And again, note that I don't actually believe the above to be the way things are.

[Forum Troll]

As his imagination is infinitely detailed, there would be no way for the imagined lesser intelligence to discern reality form God's imagination.
Thus, for the figment the Imagination of God is reality.
In such a way it is possible for one's own mind to be but a figment of God's Imagination.
Thus Methodological Doubt leaves us with nothing.

So, if God is assumed to exist, you assume God's imagination corresponds to the equivalent of a simulation like the Matrix, like imagining and running through the whole universe at once from past time until now or the future?

Hmmm. Not sure that follows. Yet, if it did: A mind existing in the Matrix, in such a simulation of the universe, might still be considered real and shouldn't be called nothing even if the neurons of its brain aren't real matter but virtual, simulated matter. Maybe even regular matter is just formed of energy in some way at a deep enough level, but that doesn't make it less real from our perspective.

Whatever the true term for what we are made of ("quarks," "simulated virtual quarks," whatever), we can think either way. Maybe our mind, our thoughts, are technically predictable if the universe is a Matrix-like simulation not subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle if viewed from outside the simulation itself, but that's not the same as nothingness, not the same as being non-existent entirely, not unless the definition of non-existence gets redefined with lack of a clear meaning and gets hopelessly mired in odd semantics.

This probably isn't up to the standards of a philosophy class, but one's own mind is the most real thing in existence. Descartes's I think, therefore I am. You don't directly know you aren't living in a computer simulation or virtual reality (though Occam's Razor makes it not the default assumption), nor how much of the outside world or history could be faked by space aliens, a God, or anything else (though again unlikely, Occam's Razor). Yet your mind is what you know best.

If you had an individual like a human level artificial intelligence, removed his body, and temporarily put him in a virtual world before later giving him back control of a physical body, I would still consider him a being with a form of existence even while his mind existed solely in the simulation.

[Forum Troll]

Neglecting their unlikelihood under Occam's Razor, I think you can say your assumptions would imply the most basic substrate for our existence was whatever God was made of.

Like if God was a supercomputer running a Matrix simulation as his imagination with our minds existing in that simulation, in a way our minds would be subroutines running on that supercomputer.

In a way our minds would be part of that supercomputer's "mind," not merely nothing but made of part of the mind of the imagined God. We would be part of God then.

If God was made from a material or something that we'll call a random name like Tritanium, then Tritanium would be the basic substrate of our minds at the most fundamental level, the "hardware" upon which the "software" simulating the fake "hardware" (the fake simulated matter of our neurons) ran on.

If the terminology breaks convention for the substance composing an imagined God, we can replace "Tritanium" with "traditional undefined vague spiritual energy."

[Surlethe]

Consider the being with Infinite Intelligence (Call him God).
Consider that God's Imagination would thusly be infinitely detailed.

Why does this follow?

[Marcus Aurelius]

Consider the being with Infinite Intelligence (Call him God).
Consider that God's Imagination would thusly be infinitely detailed.

Why does this follow?

This whole thing banks on "intelligence" actually meaning something well-defined. As Wittgenstein noted, most philosophical problems are simply linguistic "problems" or artifacts created by language. This is a very simple and clear cut case of a poorly defined premise, so we don't actually even have to invoke good old Ludwig W. to see that nothing can come out of this without further clarification; even any 19th century student of philosophy would immediatelly ask about the definition of "intelligence".

The most common definition of "intelligence" would be logical thought or mathematical reasoning skills. So infinite intelligence would perhaps mean faultless logic. Good imagination does not follow from that.

[Teleros]

I've thought along similar lines myself, but used a computer simulation instead. If everything we perceive is part of that simulation, then we can also be a part of it - eg a program written in such a way that it thinks it is thinking (if that makes any sense) but in fact is merely following pre-programmed code.

That said, you could argue that you would be alive & thinking (especially if you think of the human mind as just a very complex computer), just made of whatever the rest of the simulation is made of, as Forum Troll notes.


My own position is that whilst it may technically be right (all this might be a deception), it's:

1. Incredibly unlikely, so why worry when there are so many more likely things to worry about?
2. Meaningless - if it's true, how does that help you in your deception-filled world?
3. Harmful if you do worry about it, because it cuts to the heart of things like science and rational thinking. How can you trust that E=MC^2 works if you doubt that everything bar your own thought processes are real?

Rather like a belief in God I suppoes - he may, possibly, be up there, but it's not worth losing any sleep over.

[Rye]

Descartes used Methodological Doubt to show it was possible to doubt everything save the mind. If one could provide a way to doubt that the mind exists, then it would show Methodological Doubt to be bunk. Please note that I don't actually endorse what follows, it is merely my attempt to provide a way to doubt the mind:

It's all broken since it requires concepts that one can only grasp with a mind. Your attempt to pass it on to other minds, then, is entirely suspect. It more accurately relies on "misconcepts" since the words you use are unknowable abstracts with very little meaning to tether them to reality. For instance:

Consider the being with Infinite Intelligence (Call him God).
Consider that God's Imagination would thusly be infinitely detailed.

Both are pretty meaningless. "Infinite intelligence" and "infinitely detailed imagination"? What the hell are these things?

Consider that as we are not perfect, and that as for things to be distinguishable they must be distinct, we must therefore be each a collection of imperfections in specific proportion.
An infinitely intelligent being could simulate what it would be like to be such a creature of any given proportion by simply imagining it.
As his imagination is infinitely detailed, there would be no way for the imagined lesser intelligence to discern reality form God's imagination.
Thus, for the figment the Imagination of God is reality.
In such a way it is possible for one's own mind to be but a figment of God's Imagination.
Thus Methodological Doubt leaves us with nothing.

God isn't required for any of this. You're basically just asking how a fictional mind could determine it wasn't a real mind, and it can't because it can't think. If it can think, it is a real mind. "I think therefore I am" does apply to it, it's just erroneous in what it thinks "I" refers to.

[Junghalli]

DesCartes proof of existence relies on your subjective experience of self-awareness, which is self-proving (if you weren't conscious you wouldn't be, well, conscious - note that the method only works on yourself, it can't work on other people). The notion that you're a figment of God's imagination does not disprove your consciousness, it merely means you are a conscious simulation.

Basically, you can't logically prove you're conscious. It's just something you know by definition if you are aware of anything.

Edit: if your assignment is to attack DesCartes, I suggest his proof of God is probably a much better target than his proof of self.

[Stark]

Why are you capitalising a letter in the middle of Rene Descartes' name?

[Kuroneko]

Hyperbolic doubt already leaves one with nothing but 'I exist'--despite Descartes' attempts to pull himself out of his own hole--but if one wants to attack it further, the only possible avenue is its internal coherency. There is something distinctively odd about thinking that one is in a fully illusory world, whether of the designs of an evil genius or the mind of God. If one picks up a flower and doubts its reality, thinking somethings along the lines of "this flower isn't really there, even though I fully experience it", what can that possibly mean, given that one's concept of "flower" is shaped entirely by that (purportedly illusory) world?

If one is purely a product of the imagination of some Godlike being, then in stating something like "the chair I'm sitting on isn't real", one is mistaken because the terms of one's language refer to things internal to that supposed imagination. The above isn't an argument about reality as much as an argument that the issue is not just practically irrelevant, but in a Wittgensteinian sense a purely linguistic puzzle. The imagination hypothesis isn't proven impossible, if that means anything at all; instead, what's questioned is the ability to coherently entertain such notions.

Interestingly, that parallels a portion of Descartes' own argument, as the cogito demonstrates that doubting one's existence is incoherent. In "I think, therefore I am", the conclusion is rendered indubitable not just because the premise is true, but because the premise is thought of. It can be replaced by any other action soever, even ones that happen to be false, and in any case the premise, presupposing a being capable of the action, makes the argument circular in purely deductive terms.

If you're willing to do some digging in the literature, the first of these is a standard reading in many philosophy classes dealing with Descartes:
-- Bouwsma, O. K. 1949. "Descartes' Evil Genius." Philosophical Review 58:141-151.
It is a lively story about an evil genius and a good-natured fellow named Tom--it's fairly short and explores the connection between 'illusory world' and the semantics of terms made from them. You can probably even find it online outside JSTOR. Meanwhile, the logical status of the cogito was initially explored in:
-- Hintikka, Jaakko. 1962. "Cogito ergo sum: Inference or Performance?" Philosophical Review, 71:3-32.

[Marcus Aurelius]

If one is purely a product of the imagination of some Godlike being, then in stating something like "the chair I'm sitting on isn't real", one is mistaken because the terms of one's language refer to things internal to that supposed imagination. The above isn't an argument about reality as much as an argument that the issue is not just practically irrelevant, but in a Wittgensteinian sense a purely linguistic puzzle. The imagination hypothesis isn't proven impossible, if that means anything at all; instead, what's questioned is the ability to coherently entertain such notions.

-- Bouwsma, O. K. 1949. "Descartes' Evil Genius." Philosophical Review 58:141-151.
It is a lively story about an evil genius and a good-natured fellow named Tom--it's fairly short and explores the connection between 'illusory world' and the semantics of terms made from them. You can probably even find it online outside JSTOR. Meanwhile, the logical status of the cogito was initially explored in:
-- Hintikka, Jaakko. 1962. "Cogito ergo sum: Inference or Performance?" Philosophical Review, 71:3-32.

Great stuff, Kuroneko. The only "problem" I have with your contributions to discussions about analytic philosophy or logic on this board is that they leave very little to add, which sometimes kind of kills the thread... But by no means do I imply that you should not continue your contributions, quite the contrary in fact. They display a level of understanding I can only wish for myself. And despite being a relative newcomer on this board, I am not exactly a young buck.

[Junghalli]

Why are you capitalising a letter in the middle of Rene Descartes' name?

Because I forgot how it's spelled.