Re: OT: Reality (was: Re: Atlantean)

En réponse à John Cowan :


>I've heard of them, but I don't believe the reports!
I, on the other hand, only doubt them, because I know no compelling 
evidence pointing to one direction or another.


>Sure you can.  You can deny the existence of an "I" who doubts; the doubt
>itself might be completely free-standing.  The really dubious part of
>"cogito ergo sum" is the -o and -m endings.  :-)
Sorry, but that is nonsense. Doubt is a behaviour, and as such *needs* 
someone to behave. By definition it cannot have stand-alone existence. 
Behaviours don't exist as such. Behaviour can only exist as the description 
of the behaviour *of* someone. So if there is doubt, there *must* be 
someone to do the doubt. And it's good that I reminded people that "cogito 
ergo sum" is an incorrect statement, that has never been uttered by 
Descartes. I see people are actually reading ;))) . The correct statement 
is "cogito, sum", i.e. a statement of equivalence rather than consequence.


>          After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some
>          time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to
>          prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in
>          the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we
>          are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible
>          to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with
>          which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty
>          force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it --
>          "I refute it *thus*."
>                 --Boswell's _Life of Johnson_
Except that it's no refutation at all. After all, "common sense is what 
tells us the earth is flat".

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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