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April 11, 2013 3:12 pm at 3:12 pm
#944957
just my hapence
Participant
Yekke2 – It’s a thought experiment variously called the ‘brain in a jar’ experiment or ‘Descarte’s evil genie’. Both are really different set-ups of the same idea: how would you know if you were nothing more than the dream of an evil genie/brain in a jar. From this Descartes essentially drew the same conclusion as you – cogite ergo sum (I think therefore I am), or in your case ‘wake me up’. In other words, the knowledge of your own awareness that you are aware means that you must exist to have that awareness. I know that previous sentence sounds a bit hinky but it’s easy enough to get your head round with a bit of thought.