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 očigledno dok ne pokušate da odgovorite, ali hajde da ga uzmemo za ozbiljno. Kako zaista znate da postojite? U "Meditacijama o prvoj filozofiji", Rene Dekart je pokušao da odgovori na to, rušeći sve unapred postavljene ideje i mišljenja kako bi krenuo ispočetka. Svo njegovo znanje dolazilo je iz njegove čulne percepcije sveta. Kao i kod vas, zar ne? Znate da gledate ovaj video svojim očima, slušate ga ušima. Vaša čula vam pokazuju svet kakav jeste. Ona vas ne varaju, ali to ipak ponekad i rade. Izdaleka možete za nekog pomisliti da je neko drugi ili ste sigurni da ćete uhvatiti loptu a ona padne na tlo pred vas. Ali hajde, ovde i sada, znate da je ovo ispred vas stvarno. Vaše oči, ruke, telo. To ste vi. Samo ludak bi to poricao, a vi znate da niste ludi. Svako ko bi sumnjao u to mora da sanja. O ne, šta ako vi sanjate? Snovi imaju osećaj stvarnosti. Možete verovati da plivate, letite ili se borite golim rukama s čudovištima, dok vaše stvarno telo leži u krevetu. Ne, ne, ne. Kada ste budni, znate da ste budni. Oh! Ali kada niste, ne znate da niste, tako da ne možete dokazati da ne sanjate. Možda telo koje vi doživljavate zapravo nije tu. Možda je cela stvarnost, čak i njeni apstraktni pojmovi, poput vremena, oblika, boja i brojeva, možda je sve to lažno, možda su sve to prevare koje je smislio zli genije. Ne, stvarno. Dekart pita da li možete dokazati lažnom ideju da vas je zli genije demon zavarao da mislite da je stvarnost stvarna. Možda vas je namagarčio ovaj dijabolični prevarant. Svet, vaša percepcija njega, samo vaše telo. Ne možete dokazati da sve to nije izmišljeno, i kako biste postojali bez toga? Ne biste mogli! Stoga to i ne radite. Život je samo san, i kladim se da vam nije na kraj sela žuta kuća, zar ne? Ne, crvena vam je, kao pravom namagarčenom tupanu koji jeste/niste. Da li vam je to ubedljivo? Jeste li ubeđeni? Ako niste, dobro - ako jeste, još bolje, jer biste time što ste ubeđeni dokazali da ste ubedljivo biće. Ne možete biti ništa ako mislite da ste nešto, čak iako mislite da je nešto ništa, jer bez obzira šta mislite, vi ste misleća stvar, ili kao što bi rekao Dekart: "Mislim, dakle postojim" tako da i vi postojite, zaista.