Sharif

esse est percipi, "To be is to be perceived".

Jet Grind

I always took the phrase "I think therefor I am" to mean "I am concious and self-aware so I know that I exist".

I think your other questions are quite interesting. Is there a "you" other than yor thoughts? The sense of self comes from the brain, so I don't think there is. So the statement "I am my thoughts" is at least not far off the mark. And I don't think you can be free from your thoughts, for not to think is essentially to be dead (nonexistent).

Not that I click "reply" right after I read the opening post. So if someone covered this just ignore me.

Keith Russell

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Originally posted by Keith Russell
John, I always viewed cogito ergo sum as "I think, therefore I know I am".
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But what is it that "knows"?

John, are you looking for a biological answer, a theological answer, a philosophical answer--or something else?

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Originally posted by Keith Russell
You aren't your thoughts, you are quite a bit more than your thoughts. Our individual consciousnesses are each more than even our conscious thoughts.
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Is not consciousness but a collection of self-perceiving, self-aware thought processes? (Therefore I am what's thinking)

Part of you thinks, but there are other parts.

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Originally posted by Keith Russell
But, the only way to know (have awareness of) one's existence, is to have conscious awareness. Before one can 'do' (think), one first has to 'be'.

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Being is thinking. When I am not thinking I am not "being" anymore (dead or asleep).

John, you still exist--you continue to 'be'--when you are asleep.

So, one needs to distinguish between materially "being" as in a rock existing and an intelligent being. (No thought, no intelligence).

To 'be', does not mean to think. Again, the cogito does not refer to one's existence, but to one's awareness of one's existence. Again, I prefer 'I act, therefore I know I am'

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Originally posted by Keith Russell
Thus, if you realize that you are thinking (or walking, or eating, looking, or anything else one might do), one can know that one is.
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"Is" what?

To say that one 'is', is only to say that one exists. It does not describe, nor is it intended to describe. Again, if you wish to know what one is (beyond that fact that one is), then you have the options I listed earlier. (Philosophy, religion, science, etc.)

John Page

An answer that explains what it is that "knows". I do not know whether this is better explained by biology than philosophy. Ideally, I'm looking for a model of "a thing that knows that it is" reduced to only that necessary to achieve this condition.

This, then, could be a starting point for a basic/generic concept of consciousness onto which could be mapped the relevant features for fish consciousness, bat consciousness etc.
What criteria would you set, then, for the border between "you" and "not you"?
...but I have no capability to think "I think therefore I am".
Rocks have actions, but they do not display any symptoms of knowing that they exist.

Cogito refers to itself, its own existence. Ergo sum is a conclusion that stems from cogito.
I want to know what I am, what "is" the is that "am" within me. See my answer to your first question in this post.

Cheers, John

cobrashock

John- What makes you think that your conscience is more than the sum of your experience? I believe your conscience is genetic and tied to our survival instinct, nothing more. Granted, that instinct is higher developed in humans than in animals, I.E. a monkey is self aware but knows not of its impending death, as we do. There is strong evidence that shows a child does not know it's impending death also, if that child has never been exposed to death or not forced to deal with it in any way. To me I reject your premise for the same reasons classic philosophy argued against, then later rejected Descartes thru Hume and others.
Later,,,,,, Ron Shockley

T. E. Lords

"Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment in childhood when it first occurred to you that you didn't go on for ever. It must have been shattering - stamped into one's memory. And yet i can't remember it. It never occurred to me at all. What does one make of that? We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the words for it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and sqalling with the knowledge that for all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is it's only measure." Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

John Page

I think the sum of my experience is something that (can be) available to my consciousness. But what is it that has the experiences, surely these must be held in some kind of framework that processes them?

Cheers, john

cobrashock

John- Good question but no cigar. That framework is a learned response too, near as I can tell. In any rate I see no evidence of it being anything else but a learned response because my monkey wouldn't know what you are talking about when you mention a framework. The burden of proof is back to you.
cobrashock , Ron Shockley.

Keith Russell

John, are you looking for an answer along the lines of a 'soul'?

If so, I cannot help you. The brain is part of the body, and the mind is (IMO) generated by the brain. The mind processes the sensory data provides by the sense organs, the mind generates and sustains (however accurately or inaccurately) memory of that data, and the mind also generates an awareness of its processing of the data--the sum of which we call 'consciousness'.

I would say that the 'I' is my entire individual living body, and all its ongoing processes: circulation, electrical impulses, motion, respiration, healing, and--yes--consciousness, too.

Can there be a definition of 'I' that is not, to a great degree, tautological?

I'm not sure?

Is a non-tautological definition of the 'I' necessary?

I'm inclined to doubt it.

Keith.

John Page

Monkey doesn't understand what you are talking about. Monkey, however, is conscious of experiences of cobrashock learned responses. Sorry, no banana.