Thinking and Un-thinking [Part 1]

This is the first part of an essay I've been working on that's purely just a bunch of ramblings on various matters!

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I always liked Descartes. As a seventh-grader with a passion for math, you cannot help liking the guy who thought of the rectangular coordinates…And for a period of time, I actually thought about the whole cogito, ergo sum thing. On first read, the exotic Latin words that literally translate to, ‘I think, therefore I exist’ are so hugely interesting that you cannot help but accept them as fact. You are enchanted by their simplicity and their beauty and the way they seem to circulate around themselves to bring you to the ultimate conclusion that perhaps the world is not so futile, after all. Maybe we really do exist. When I first read the cogito, ergo sum argument; I thought: This is it! This is the peak of philosophy…Of course; I realized later that I was just scratching the surface. Not to mention, very far from what the idea of cogito, ergo sum really stood for.

I’m not a philosopher…I cannot look at things and try to think of hidden and simple meanings behind them. I have never read a novel and thought deeper than the events embedded within it; and I don’t read your average, page-turner, thrillers either. I yawn while reading criticism of other people’s work and I am easily bored by philosophical evaluations of anything I ever write. I never write to exemplify philosophy or my method of thinking…I write because writing is a knack. I have come to a point where I had given up on really ever thinking philosophically about anything and therefore have adapted a much more comfortable position: to say my opinion in what other people claim is philosophy. Ignorant and surrendering as it is; I think that’s one way you can think productively without getting a headache.

Perhaps the cornerstone of all Western philosophy is the argument we’re facing now: I think, therefore I exist. A common misunderstanding that you will get from most people is this: So cogito, ergo sum just means that you most definitely exist in your current way and form if you’re thinking about your own existence. No, that’s not it. You think in your dreams, does that mean your dreams, in their entirety, exist outside of your own mind? No. Similarly, the fact that you’re thinking now simply means that your own conscious mind exists; and nothing else. It does not say your physical existence is a certainty. Your mind is the part of you concerned with thinking; to Descartes it is the ultimate fact that it does exist. He is, given just the cogito, ergo sum approach, unsure about anything else. To put it in simpler terms: Given that a ‘part of you’ exists, cannot, be used as proper evidence that ‘you’ exist… This is as illogical as generalizing that an entire class knows Spanish because one student can speak the language.

But, to me, the deep question was never whether my mind existed or not; but that (provided that it does exist) what is the nature of its existence? What is so special about my own mind that it has no problem in understanding the mathematical concept of infinity when it is, as it stands, bounded to an end one day or the other? And if all things are bounded to an end, why is it impossible for my mind (as it exists) to perceive its own end? The true paradox, to me, was this: Within finite time and space, my own mind (the one sure element of my existence, as Descartes would put it) is subject to an infinite number of possibilities of learning, achievement and thought. Hauntingly similar to the dichotomy problem that the Greek philosopher Zeno presented thousands of years ago; the thought was a little interesting.

And if we argue that my mind is infinite since the ‘mind’, as we perceive it, is a purely conceptual idea then how can one tackle the fact that my mind (given its infinite possibilities and assumed infinite existence) is also bound by bounds of irreversibility? In the same way that an irreversible chemical reaction can never be reversed; my mind can have an infinite number of possible things to think about yet it is unable to do the expected opposing natural process; that is to consciously un-think anything. In fact, my mind cannot easily define such an activity and if you ask anyone (including yourself) what they can tell you about ‘un-thinking’, they will usually just say they have no idea what you’re talking about. This means that not only is my mind bound on the axes of space and time, but that it is also bound in the conception of its most fundamental process: thinking. It, thus, goes without saying that your mind cannot be infinite.

To be continued inshAllah...

Until then,
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God bless!