Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (5)‏

by richibi

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 10:01:30 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog
From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment]  “Ennead I” by Plotinus.
 

Let’s go through it point by point.

1. When someone says, “I think”, he is obviously thinking of something, i.e., thoughts. I’m aware and conscious of my thoughts.

2. “I think” necessarily means there are thoughts.

3. The difference between the statements “I think” and “there are thoughts” is that the latter does not presuppose the existence of the “I”.

4. To prove the existence of the “I”, we cannot presuppose its existence. Therefore, we cannot use the statement “I think” or anything with a subject “I”.

5. We are left with the statement, “There are thoughts”.

Which of the above arguments do you disagree with and why?

 
first of all, Nemo, let me say that I haven’t had as
much fun since a couple of weeks ago when a
friend and I were trying to come to a conclusion
about the meaning of memory, is memory all of
one’s memories, or is it the process of
remembering
 
I thought the process set the thing in motion
after which the memories themselves took
hold
 
but for the process to take hold you need at
least two memories, my friend more or less  
retorted, I paraphrase 
 
where does that leave us
 
I’m still thinking about it 
 
perhaps we’ll end up at the same place,
loggerheads, but let’s try 
 
I object to your second proposition, ““I
think” necessarily means there are thoughts“,
I believe “I think” to mean only “I think”,
nothing more, nothing less, these two
words are our speculative arena   
 
but I admit you have a point, to think
presupposes a thought, and perhaps
not as peripherally as I’d thought
previously, if I refer to my earlier,
memory, model 
 
but before you jump up and down in
apparent victory remember that the
thought cannot be thought without
the thinker, who initiates the thought 
 
an apparent paradox, much like the
relation between energy and matter,
which came first 
 
I believe the consciousness of my
consciousness came first, and from
there I evolved the process that gives
order to my world, memory, and then
its development into reason
 
but that’s just what I think, and, of
course, I could be wrong 
 
essentially I, of course, must be wrong
somewhere, but I’ll never know where
 
nor will I know where I’m right, ever
 
on questions of philosophical speculation, 
of course, without the advantage of
mathematics, the closest thing I can think
of, incidentally, to what we think of as God,
or is that, to what I think of, me, no one else,
what do I know of what others are thinking
of, as God, there goes He, She, It, out the
window, as a Jungian idea of collective
unified consciousness, or as a frozen
Platonic, universally conceded, ideal   
 
what I do know is that I exist  
 
that’s also, I think, all you know 
 
the rest is entirely speculation
 
thank you Descartes 
 
 
Richard 
 
psst: all that speculation, note, is what has,
           to my mind, made a paradise, for some,
           of our world, for others a work of always
           fascinating and wondrous invention  
 
           read Proust