Yeah, this clarifies what I thought on the matter—although it touches on anthropic reasoning, so I guess it isn’t a standard answer.
For the record, it would look something like:
“Thinking is happening” entails ” “Thinking is happening” is being observed”.
″ “Thinking is happening” is being observed” entails “observing is happening”.
“Observing is happening” entails the existence of an observer (existential claim, can’t find the symbol, would be “There exists an x such that x is an observer”)
Some further work on the concept of “me” or “I” would define it in terms of observer-property, some argument from denying “me”-ness of observer requires multiple observers, etc.
Putting this in formal logic, it only works if “being observed” is defined from the two-place predicate “x is observing y”. We could also use a one-place predicate, “x is observed”. So it’s still not totally free of assumptions, so to speak.
The point is, Decart was supposedly doubting everything; so this particular argument, while decent, is not so unusually decent as to justify being held up as the one undoubted thing.
I feel like the existence of an observer is a necessary condition for “x is observed” to be true—but that is again anthropics, and so fully fleshing out this argument might take more than a comment,
Yeah, this clarifies what I thought on the matter—although it touches on anthropic reasoning, so I guess it isn’t a standard answer.
For the record, it would look something like:
“Thinking is happening” entails ” “Thinking is happening” is being observed”.
″ “Thinking is happening” is being observed” entails “observing is happening”.
“Observing is happening” entails the existence of an observer (existential claim, can’t find the symbol, would be “There exists an x such that x is an observer”)
Some further work on the concept of “me” or “I” would define it in terms of observer-property, some argument from denying “me”-ness of observer requires multiple observers, etc.
Putting this in formal logic, it only works if “being observed” is defined from the two-place predicate “x is observing y”. We could also use a one-place predicate, “x is observed”. So it’s still not totally free of assumptions, so to speak.
The point is, Decart was supposedly doubting everything; so this particular argument, while decent, is not so unusually decent as to justify being held up as the one undoubted thing.
I feel like the existence of an observer is a necessary condition for “x is observed” to be true—but that is again anthropics, and so fully fleshing out this argument might take more than a comment,