I don't get something about this statement...

Ok, I think everyone has heard of "I think therefore i exist" right?

But, using that statement you could say plants don't exist, since they don't think right? (as far as we know, bare with me)

Its like that other one, if a tree falls in a forest and no one's near to hear it, did it really fall...

Of course it fell, it started saying it fell... yet you can't prove it

So, anyone could explain this to me? i told someone the plants example and i got treated like an idiot

"I think therefore, I am" refers to self awareness. When Descartes came up with that, he was obsessed with finding a way to prove that he exists; till finally he realizes that just by doubting, by thinking in itself is proof that he exists. Because something that does not exist, cannot think.

There is a name for the logical fallacy of that but I don't know the name for it.

"If A, then B" is true, it does not mean "if B then A" is true.

First one is supposed to be Descartes: "I think therefore I am." Also known in it's native tongue as "Cogito Ergo Sum."

Cartesian logic: Within your mind and my mind we have somehow got inside our minds the idea of God. How did he end up there? Because just how I can come up with mathematical deductions and logical explanations God came up inside my brain because he exists and put it inside my brain when I was a little child. Therefore God must exist. Now what if this idea in my head is not God but an Evil Deceiver who wants to trick me into trusting and believing him by telling me nothing but lies. The only thing that I know for sure is that I'm thinking that I'm being tricked by an Evil Deceiver who would not want me to think about being tricked in the first place. Therefore I know that through my process of thinking I know that I am not being tricked. If I am not being tricked then I know I exist because I am using my thinker.

- Descartes had to deal with the church man. Give him some slack.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_Ergo_Sum

Second one is supposed to be from the philosophical school of British empiricism and prompted by George Berkeley: In response to Locke, he put forth in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) a different, very extreme form of empiricism in which things only exist either as a result of their being perceived, or by virtue of the fact that they are an entity doing the perceiving. (For Berkeley, God fills in for humans by doing the perceiving whenever humans are not around to do it). In his text Alciphron, Berkeley maintained that any order humans may see in nature is the language or handwriting of God.[7] Berkeley's approach to empiricism would later come to be called subjective idealism.[8][9]

Method of Explanation: My gameboy is in another room that I can't see right now because I'm looking at the computer. In fact, the room that my gameboy is in right now is not in my vision at all. How do I know that the room and my gameboy really exist at all times? Maybe they just exist the moment they come into my line of sight. Maybe they exist in some extraterristial dimension that only comes into existence when I want it to. Will I ever know? No. I will never know because it is impossible for me to be omniscient like God and to see everything at the same time. In fact, there must be a God who does all the viewing at the same time and we simply are but a portion in this bigger picture being a part of a greater God. Simply put we partake in a bigger Geist that is synonymous with God. When the tree falls in the forest and no one sees it fall, God saw it fall and brought it to our consciousness when we took a stroll into the forest and saw it in the ground. We don't know if it fell or not. It could have started out that way for all we know. But God gave us the implicit knowledge to know these things.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatise_Co..._Knowledge
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

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Swerve pretty much summed it up.
Also as far as Descartes is concerned- IMO- that is ALL that fucker proved.
The rest of his philosophy springboards off awkward opinions like:
God wouldn't be God if he was a meanie
Or
I can't be constantly tricked because that would make my philosophy suck.
..
But he did prove his own individual existence.

Also as far as Descartes is... he did prove his own individual existence.

Actually Plato postulated the basis of this thought by having his character Socrates state at his trial for heresy, "the unexamined life is not worth living." Which is more or less a dead ringer for the foundational basis of Descartes's statement "I think therefore I am."

Even the execution of the Allegory of the Cave and the basic Cartesian principle often come to very close and interchangeable examples (Matrix, Sophie's World) much like British empiricism often is interchangeable with simplified Hegel and his theories on the Geist.

Whenever our class would get frustrated we would often create our own postulates. I have five fingers, therefore there must be a five-finger overlord who created us inside a factory before we were born. Everyone has five fingers. Therefore a five-finger overlord must have created the Earth. A number of theories that occurred at the foundation of philosophy including Anixamander and others was often parodied by me to Pokemon. Which caused our Philosophy teacher to become infuriated. I still took the class seriously. I just believe that ancient philosophy doesn't follow the same stringent logic algorithms that contemporary philosophy students are expected to learn and follow.

Oh that explains the first statement... self awareness, so it would be wrong to apply it on something else.

I like philosophy, but sometimes its so... confusing...

There is a name for the logical fallacy of that but I don't know the name for it.

"If A, then B" is true, it does not mean "if B then A" is true.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

Also, your conclusion about the first statement is fallacious anyway.

"I think therefore I exist" does not imply "I don't think, therefore I don't exist"
just as
"I am on Southperry, therefore I am on a forum" does not imply "I am not on Southperry, therefore I am not on a forum"

now this is reminding me of someone one of my professors told me about. Took this to the next level, "I think, therefore i am" but since all you can prove to your mind is that you think, because we couldn't tell if reality was some sort of vivid hallucination, you cannot prove to anyone else that you exist, or that anyone else exists to you. Doesn't mean they don't exist, just unproveable if you allow that everything could be a illusion perpetrated by some sort of demon(i think he was pretty religious so, if someone is duping humanity, it'd be a demon). Which more or less plays into the matrix.

now this is reminding me of someone one of my professors told me about. Took this to the next level, "I think, therefore i am" but since all you can prove to your mind is that you think, because we couldn't tell if reality was some sort of vivid hallucination, you cannot prove to anyone else that you exist, or that anyone else exists to you. Doesn't mean they don't exist, just unproveable if you allow that everything could be a illusion perpetrated by some sort of demon(i think he was pretty religious so, if someone is duping humanity, it'd be a demon). Which more or less plays into the matrix.

The highest level of doubt is, speaking from self-experience, about your very own existence, the world can come later. Sure Descartes hasn't proven anything out of his mind yet, but that philosophy at least gives you something, however small that may be, firm and unmovable to believe in, yourself.

I think therefore I am. .. asides from what everyone wrote. it also means that the only thing that you can be sure of is your OWN existence, since the rest is sensory perception.