Consciousness, Descartes, and That Dastard Demon

Perhaps the most famous, all encompassing words from philosophy are Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." 

That statement has been heralded as the only irrefutable truth. I'm reading a book by someone who takes that statement to its farthest implications, and while I agree in principle, I think there are things which need to be said and others which need to be emphasized as not necessarily true. Descartes' claim is not a bulldozer crushing everything in its path, it's a delicate piece of art which must be interpreted and elaborated upon in order to convey the essence of what Descartes himself was thinking when he first composed that thought.

We begin the journey he set out on by asking, "What do I really know for certain?"

It seems like that list could grow very rapidly as we look out at the world and say things like, "There's a tree over there... and I am over here; and that chocolate cake looks tasty." And while those statements seem reasonable, they aren't in reality. For, how do we know that a tree is "over there"? Indeed, how do we know anything at all?

We can answer that question by working backwards from the things we think we know to the ways we came to know them. It seems everything we know has entered our mind through our senses, so we are completely at the mercy of those senses. We can't actually say that we know something for certain about the external world, then, and that's where Descartes comes in with his mantra; he would tell us that the only thing we can be certain of when we say "that tree is over there." Is what it feels like to us for there to be a thing which we call a tree in a location that we call over there. That, the only thing we can be certain of is the fact that we exist. In other words, there may or may not be a place called Earth giving us our perceptions. We cannot be sure.

The author of the book I'm reading takes that view for a hundred yard field goal (American sports vernacular). He claims that everything in the universe is explained, that everything makes sense once we give up our idea that there is, in fact, an external world apart from our senses. But of course, once you accept that everything we observe must fit into our senses and then again into our conscious awareness, it's no mystery that everything will already be 'explained'. The problem is that kind of explanation is meaningless; that explanation tells us nothing. Just like a dream, crazy, well, s**t can happen and it's not at all crazy to the dreamer, it can still seem real. Once we wake up we can explain all the madness by merely saying "Oh, it was just a dream." But have we really 'explained' anything?

That said, that's one of the author's arguments in his book "A Theory of Everything". He says that nothing needs to be explained because the only thing we can be sure actually exists is our own consciousness, so nothing is mysterious because our consciousness has a limitless imagination. But no, I believe that while he makes some interesting points, he is wrong in his assumptions. 

The problem is the assumption that there can only be one "truth" in the universe, and since the only truth we really know is that we exist, that must be the only true fact. Maybe it's true that only one truth must underlie everything, but why should we take that for granted? It is only because of our experience with the real world that we think that somehow the underlying reality must converge on a single theory, but our experience, as the author would argue, is just a dream and everything we learn from it is just a belief. He's using knowledge found within reality to explain that reality does not exist. 

That brings us to a more subtle objection to the claims that our world must ultimately come back to consciousness. The problem with "I think, therefore I am." Is that none of those words have meaning apart from our experience with the real world. So we cannot say we think; we cannot say what we are; we we cannot say anything.

Descartes wasn't always in possession of his observation that his awareness was all that he could be certain of. One day he woke up without knowing that fact, and then, that night he went to sleep thinking, "I think, therefore I am." That realization occurred to him in a particular moment. What that means, if we follow the same degree of logic as Descartes, is that not only do I think, but also, my thoughts are dynamic. Alas, that's the very definition of thinking. A mind residually stuck with the concept "I think, therefore I am." On its mind, and nothing more, wouldn't really be thinking. Could that entity say it exists? No, because it's stuck in a permanent cycle of repeating something else. So what Descartes is really proving isn't a particular state or property, it's a process. 

But there, Descartes' demon is lurking in the shadows. Descartes wondered if an evil demon could be feeding his mind his entire reality, if his thoughts were even his own. He concluded that the only thing he could be certain of, even if everything was a fabrication, was his own existence. The demon could make up lies about everything but he couldn't fool Descartes of his very existence. But Descartes knew that he couldn't even be sure that he didn't exist ten seconds ago, maybe all of his memories were also faked by that dastard demon. Talking about a 'process' occurring over time, then, puts our 'certainty' in the clutches of the demon.

There's nothing wrong with saying that our existence is the only thing we can be sure of, so long as we don't claim to know what that thing is that we're sure of or what it means to be sure in the first place. There are several possibilities which could contain the reality we observe, though. Our consciousness really might be all that the universe is made of (though consciousness wouldn't be a good name for that kind of universe because, clearly, "there are more things in heaven and Earth than exist in your philosophy": either the definition of our own consciousness needs to change, or the definition of this new consciousness must be broader and therefore not equal to just our experience�"this means that we're back to square one and we have to conclude that we are clueless to what reality is); or, we might be byproducts of some underlying reality; or there's the possibility that we're wrong about the whole idea of reality and it's meaningless to say that we think, and therefore that we "exist". This last option just brushes off "or there's everything we haven't thought of" as though it were a single possibility. 

To me, the latter two possibilities seem to be the only ones which could hold water-err, consciousness. 

Being honest with our question so to find an honest answer, we should begin by being perfectly clear.

In our experience of the real world, it makes sense to talk about things being there or not, existing or not, showing up on time or being a dead-beat parent. It's perfectly natural for us to talk about there being two states inherent in everything: on or off, full or empty, dead or alive. So when we begin our question by asking "what is without a doubt, absolutely certain?" It's already a matter of existence, we're already talking about certain things and uncertain things. However, we do right to phrase the question like this. "What is... certain?" We recognize from the start that we cannot merely ask "what is?" because we are mortals and we understand that "what is?" must be with respect to something else. Namely, "What is certain to me?" My bluish-green might be your greenish-blue�"the color we're looking at is identical, only our perceptions make it different and so neither of us is really more correct than the other, we can each call it whatever we like without changing the objective color itself.

We begin, then, by being honest with the fact that whatever the universe might be, we may or may not make up a substantial piece of it so our questions will only ever encompass the part which is accessible to us. And since we do not know how much of the universe we occupy or can observe or affect, we air to make the safest assumption so we assume we're no substantial part. 

We continue while remembering that our answer is only scoped within our personal experience, so we aren't trying to answer a universal truth, it might be universal, but we don't know more than, you know, what we know. That's all we really can say, and it's important to make note of that before we make any conclusions. Every conclusion has its limits, we should be clear about them.

Now we can begin. We ask, "What do I know for certain? What must be true?"

"I think, therefore I am." Echoes from the walls. 

"Hmm, that appears to be true. But how can I be certain that I am, too?" The curious thoughts continued.

"Do you think?"

"I think so... But then, I don't really know. It may be that you are and you think, while I am only but a thought."

"But a thought could never know it is a thought."

"No, that is true... But the thinker could think a thought thought a thought, and thus outsmart himself. Maybe you just don't know."

"That's silly, 'I think, therefore I am.' And so do you." The reply began to fill with disdain.

"But how do I know?"

"You realized a truth all on your own, you thought and were aware of your thoughts." 

"Maybe, but I just repeated what you said, I wouldn't say I realized anything. And every time I try to pay attention to my thoughts, they change, so I don't really know that, either."

"Ah, but you know that they changed!" 

"Maybe... Maybe that's just how I always feel."

"But then you feel?"

"Never thought about it. Sometimes I wonder what this "I" thing is that we're trying to figure out. This conversation is just happening and it seems I should say I'm aware of it but I'm still not sure what 'I' actually means."

"But YOU are aware of it. There is some being with limited intelligence uttering your phrases. I can see you jack rabbits!"

"How do you know you can see me?"

"I think... Erm, I think..."

"How do you know 'I think, therefore I am' must be true?"

"I-uh.. Someone told me once."

"So, you don't even know if YOU think?"

"Of course I do. I am having a conversation with you now, and I had a conversation with the guy who told me the whole 'thinking therefore I am' thing."

"Meh, it doesn't sound like much proof. What if you're just part of the Think Thereforabin's imagination and I'm just part of yours? What about that?"

"But it... It feels so real. I must exist, I can feel everything around me."

"You sure?"

His words faded into a stretch of resounding echoes which grew more blurred with each reverberation. The boy awoke. The sinister conversation was only just a dream. He realized this but answered anyway, "I am absolutely certain of my existence." And a broad smile filled his face.

Our own existence and experiences are so convincing, but it doesn't matter if we are convinced. What does it say to convince a human mind of something? It says little of anything except humanity.  So it is not a good argument to say it's convincing. Therefore, we should let "convincing" hold little bearing on the destination of our conclusions.

Does that mean observations are worthless? If we throw out observation then we've thrown out everything, and yet time continues to drag us into an unexpected future. We could say experience is worthless, but to what end? What would we discover by doing so? We can attempt to live in this limbo but tomorrow will never favor us for doing so. Or, we could assume that our experiences can tell us something meaningful, and by having done so the future has become a little less capricious. So if anything is to mean anything to us, if we are to live, our own experience is all we have so we must do what we can with what we have.

What can we do with our own personal experience of the world, then, if we assume it has meaning? We can break down the walls of hell and tear Descartes' demon from his throne.

Experience is all we have, just this moment. If it is true that our experience is a simulation or is merely the will of some bored demon, then what is this "I" that we speak of? Where is the line separating my experiences of the world from my personal self? Let's take a closer look.

The very first word of "I think, therefore I am" is "I". It is the heart of the whole conclusion that we exist, but what is it? Getting to the essence of I, we realize that the I we speak of is our experiencing self, it's what allows me to see out of my eyes but not yours. However, if we look even closer we see it's not so simple. Not only am "I" confined to experience my own senses, but "I" am also confined to this moment in time. I cannot experience my past self and I know absolutely nothing of my future self. So, then, the domain of this whole statement that we think and therefore can determine that we exist, is squeezed down to the infinitesimally short moment of right now.

Let's take it further.

If our experience of the current moment is where we must search to find where the "I" resides in each of us, then we're left with a problem. It's a problem that's been there since the beginning though, it's just easier to see now that we've condensed our experience down to a moment. Our entire life has led us up to this moment where we claim our existence, but if our entire life was merely the imagination of a demon, then what are we to really claim?

If we make a deal with the devil to force the demon to take away his influence on our experience right now, the world around us, and all of our senses, what would we have? Our memories? Ah, no, sorry but he wants those back too if we truly want him out of our lives. Now in total darkness, what of our existence? We cannot see anything, but perhaps we can still think and so eventually we can determine again that we think and therefore exist? But no, we cannot do that either, for what are we to think about? The demon took our memories of time and space, so where did we go? If we existed in this moment before, what has "this moment" become now? An eternity. There are no clocks and no thoughts, our instant has become an eternity and we are no where to be seen, we do not know we think because we have no thoughts without remembered experiences, and so we do not exist. If you find that a bit too esoteric and you can't imagine how merely lacking memories would rob you of thought, you don't have to make that deal with the devil to find it out for yourself, try instead to trick him. Think of something that the demon did not put into you head through your senses, a color you haven't seen before, a dimension you haven't experienced, most anything will do. That's too difficult you might say, but that doesn't prove anything, what of your very experience? You might ask. But what experience? I return. What is your experience? You call yourself "I" but only because of your senses that have always pointed back to you; you did not think "I" the moment you were born, it took time to collect enough memories before you could pinpoint yourself and even know you are still in the process of discovering your identity. But that's not fair you might interrupt, "I" just don't remember that moment anymore. And so goes the reliance on memories.

You may begin to get frustrated with me, and rightly so, it seems I'm arguing against your very existence, but no, this is where we turn the demon on his head.

If even the "I" which we refer to ourselves as has been acquired through a learning process, i.e., by being entirely reliant on our sensory perceptions, then it seems we disappear if we are to believe our experiences were entirely contrived by a demon. But clearly we do not disappear. Yes there might be a demon who gives us our identities, but then there is no us and him because the thing we are calling us is actually just the demon. If it is one or the other and if the demon is not the one experiencing your thoughts right now, then you are the demon.

Hi, Mom! I made it! And I'm a demon! ... Oh, and you are, too!

We don't need to call ourselves a demon though. This is essentially the same logic Einstein used on the luminiferous aether. If it causes no effect on our measurements of the speed of light, then by invoking it we are making things more complicated than they have to be. 

The same is true of us. Either we are the demon or we throw the demon out altogether and say something more like: I experience, therefore I know myself. It's not as elegant but it shows us how it doesn't matter what we call ourselves, whether it be a demon, a simulation, a human in the real world, we can call ourselves whatever is most useful but it doesn't matter what we label ourselves as, we are the same as whatever gives us our experiences. So I am the demon, the demon is me; I am a simulation, the simulator is me; I am a human on a planet called Earth, the planet called Earth and the human make me. 

But what of our experiences? Who or what is feeding me those experiences? How do I wake up one morning without the thought "I think, therefore I am," and then have a moment of realization where I learn about it? If it wasn't in my mind before, then I am not the source of my experiences. No, but the source of our experiences is where we find "I" so it doesn't matter that it doesn't go both ways. I can pick up a dictionary and search for the word "I" but just because it's a word it doesn't mean that the whole dictionary of words is found at the "I" entry. If I say that the dictionary is the source for all of the definitions, I can say that the definition for "I" exists only because of the dictionary, but I can't say that the whole dictionary exists within "I" just because I found a definition for it. 

Taking that to reality we can see that the problem of this question is in thinking that we are separate from the world around us because the world around us surprises us with new moments and experiences, but a more simple outlook is that some of the experiences in the world have amalgamated together into a structure which began claiming it was separate from the very pieces which made it up. We are those structures and the world is our creator, we are the world; just like "I" is a word and a dictionary is made of words. 

We close this long line of reasoning by placing our feet on firm ground. It might seem like we just spread ourselves thin across space until there's no longer anything distinguishable, that we've lost all certainty and that we can no longer be sure of anything. This is where we scrape the butter back into a cube again.

What are we to believe if we could be just as easily explained by a demon, a simulation, a number of quantum fluctuations within the abyss of space? How should the knowledge we searched for here be implemented in our lives? 

It can all seem a bit confusing and sometimes pointless to wonder things which are so foreign to our actually experiences, but that fact should comfort us, not deter us. Even though the world and our experiences of it could be explained by all of these things as well as countless lists of things we haven't thought of yet, we have the pleasure of knowing that tomorrow the sun will rise, the Earth will hold together when we stand on it, and our pancake will fall back into the pan when we flip it. Sure they might not, there is that possibility, but we can't live our lives wondering if things like that will remain constant, instead we lead far happier and productive lives by trusting that some things won't change. So it doesn't matter if gravity is a simulation, if it is then it has always been so and yet we have still been able to understand it to fantastic degrees of accuracy. It doesn't matter if we are a demon's imagination because of we are then we have always been so and look at how far we've come. So we shouldn't fret and worry of these these things, we should instead allow ourselves to wonder at just how vast and amazing the world might be, but whatever the world might be it will be the same world tomorrow as it was today. Perhaps that assumption is wrong but before we let our picture of the world fall apart, let's let the world make the first move and until then let us believe what it has always shown us. Let's allow our curiosity to wander and let us find pleasure in understanding why the world has behaved the way it did in the past. Let us never halt or hinder our wonder and fascination of discovery, and let us not be afraid of the truth which gives us thought. Keeping our eyes to the sky and our ear close to heart, perhaps we can come to know the mind of God.