How do you know you're real? It's an obvious question until you try to answer it, but let's take it seriously. How do you really know you exist? In his "Meditations on First Philosophy," René Descartes tried to answer that very question, demolishing all his preconceived notions and opinions to begin again from the foundations. All his knowledge had come from his sensory perceptions of the world. Same as you, right? You know you're watching this video with your eyes, hearing it with your ears. Your senses show you the world as it is. They aren't deceiving you, but sometimes they do. You might mistake a person far away for someone else, or you're sure you're about to catch a flyball, and it hits the ground in front of you. But come on, right here and now, you know what's right in front of you is real. Your eyes, your hands, your body: that's you. Only crazy people would deny that, and you know you're not crazy. Anyone who'd doubt that must be dreaming. Oh no, what if you're dreaming? Dreams feel real. You can believe you're swimming, flying or fighting off monsters with your bare hands, when your real body is lying in bed. No, no, no. When you're awake, you know you're awake. Ah! But when you aren't, you don't know you aren't, so you can't prove you aren't dreaming. Maybe the body you perceive yourself to have isn't really there. Maybe all of reality, even its abstract concepts, like time, shape, color and number are false, all just deceptions concocted by an evil genius! No, seriously. Descartes asks if you can disprove the idea that an evil genius demon has tricked you into believing reality is real. Perhaps this diabolical deceiver has duped you. The world, your perceptions of it, your very body. You can't disprove that they're all just made up, and how could you exist without them? You couldn't! So, you don't. Life is but a dream, and I bet you aren't row, row, rowing the boat merrily at all, are you? No, you're rowing it wearily like the duped, nonexistent doof you are/aren't. Do you find that convincing? Are you persuaded? If you aren't, good; if you are, even better, because by being persuaded, you would prove that you're a persuaded being. You can't be nothing if you think you're something, even if you think that something is nothing because no matter what you think, you're a thinking thing, or as Descartes put it, "I think, therefore I am," and so are you, really. (Airplane engine)
Kako znate da ste stvarni? Pitanje je očito, sve dok ne pokušate odgovoriti na njega, ali, shvatimo ga ozbiljno. Kako, zaista, znate da postojite? U svojim "Meditacijama o prvoj filozofiji", René Descartes je pokušao dati odgovor na upravo to pitanje, rušeći sve svoje prethodno stvorene pojmove i mišljenja, kako bi počeo iznova od temelja. Sve njegovo znanje dobiveno je osjetilnom percepcijom svijeta. Baš kao i vaše, zar ne? Znate da gledate ovaj video svojim očima, slušate ga svojim ušima. Vaša osjetila pokazuju vam kakav je svijet. Ona vas ne varaju, osim ponekad. Možete zamijeniti osobu na velikoj udaljenosti za neku drugu ili biti sigurni da ćete uhvatiti loptu u letu, a onda ona padne na tlo ispred vas. No, hajde, upravo sada i upravo ovdje, znate da je ono što se nalazi pred vama stvarno. Vaše oči, vaše ruke, vaše tijelo: to ste vi. Samo bi luđak to zanijekao, a vi znate da niste ludi. Svatko tko sumnja u to zasigurno sanja. Oh ne, a što ako sanjate? Snovi se čine stvarnima. Možete vjerovati da plivate, letite ili se borite protiv čudovišta svojim golim rukama, dok vaše stvarno tijelo leži na krevetu. Ne, ne, ne. Kada ste budni, znate da ste budni. Ah! Ali kada niste, ne znate da niste, tako da ne možete dokazati da ne sanjate. Možda tijelo koje percipirate kao vlastito ustvari ne postoji. Možda je sva stvarnost, čak i njeni apstraktni pojmovi, poput vremena, oblika, boje i broja, lažna, sve je samo obmana zlog genija! Ne, ozbiljno. Descartes se pita možete li osporiti mogućnost da vas je zli, genijalni demon prevario da mislite da je stvarnost stvarna. Možda vas je ovaj đavolski obmanjivač nasamario. Svijet, vaše percepcije njega, vaše vlastito tijelo. Ne možete dokazati da nisu samo izmišljeni, a bez njih kako možete postojati? Ne možete! Dakle, ne postojite. Život je samo san, a kladim se da vi ne veslate kroz njega veselo, zar ne? Ne, veslate umorno poput nasamarenog, nepostojećeg blesana kakav i jeste/niste. Smatrate li to uvjerljivim? Jeste li uvjereni? Ako niste, dobro; ako jeste, još bolje, jer, bivajući uvjerenima, dokazali biste da ste uvjereno biće. Ne možete biti ništa ako mislite da ste nešto, čak i ako mislite da je to nešto ništa, jer bez obzira što mislite, vi ste stvar koja misli, ili, kako je Descartes to sročio, "mislim, dakle postojim", a tako i vi postojite, zaista. (Zvuk avionskog motora)