Mystery

[Mitera Nikkou]

There are some things that just aren't supposed to be known, or comprehended. What do you think falls under the category of eternal mystery, even if we know and/or comprehend it already? Doesn't have to be anything serious.

For instance, the Man of Mystery should remain a mystery.

[Alissa of Someday]

Well...My philosophy class, the other day, was discussing Descartes's quest to try and, as he put it in Meditations on First Philosophy 'demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations'--that is, to try and put doubt into everything that he had previously believed, and then try to work, for there, to see what he could establish in certainty from the ground up, as it were. To avoid needless time-wasting, he started with something fairly fundamental--that is, the senses themselves. Everyone, or nearly so, has been apparently betrayed before, by one sense or another...so what's to say for absolutely certain, that anything that one could get from the sense would in fact....be fact?

After some meditation on the idea, he came up with the concept of Cogito Ergo Sum--"I think, therefore, I am". He claimed that, although he could not necessarily trust anything that the senses were telling him, he could, however, still be sure that he--at least his mind, that is--existed, because, in order for the thought that he was thinking to exist, then he must logically, exist, other wise the thought would not...

On the other side of things though, another philosopher named Lichtenburg, argued that this was in fact, not necessarily the case, and that Descartes had been to quick to jump to it, when claiming to doubt everything, as he had. It's an odd idea, but he put forward the idea, that all that the existence of the thought proved was in fact, the existence of the thought itself, and did not necessarily call for a thinker--an 'I', that Descartes had taken for granted.

Up until then--though I had long since realized that I couldn't really prove that anything I perceived was really real for an absolute certainty, I hadn't been ever given a convincing argument on the idea that I myself may not exist, and this one I found fascinating indeed...I think, however, that it should and will remain a mystery...If all that really existed were thoughts, and somehow, through some bizarre way, this was proven, (it's beyond my comprehension how this could be, but...), then I'm not remotely sure of what would happen--nothing perhaps, of course, if thoughts were all there was, but still...It's interesting.[/ramble]

Sorry if someone reading this already knew about Descartes and whatnot--I felt the need t'outline what I was talking about.
...
Oh yes--and Waiting for Godot should remain a mystery as well--'twould ruin the mystique, otherwise.

[Mitera Nikkou]

Well, consider this: what we see isn't the object, but the light that reflects off of it. You could say that our senses don't give us first-party experience. In the instance of sight, photons tell us what we should see, which is no guarantee of what something really is, if it really is. Beyond that the brain has to make its own interpretation and, while there's certainly a trend with many people, the fact that not everyone perceives something in the same way means that, not only is the incoming information dubious, but the interpretation of it is relative. Otherwise there wouldn't be masochists, who derive pleasure from pain. And it's further demonstrated by those who have their wires crossed, and end up seeing sounds and tasting sight.

For me, I believe it's more like: "I think, therefor I am this thought." Because I would assume that "you" would consist of the sum of all of your thoughts, but we are only able to think a few thoughts at a time. At the very least "I" would be fleeting, for with every passing of one thought there is a new thought to take its place. One moment "you" could be "nice", and in another "you" could be "mean." But you'd never be able to be express you "you" except over the course of time. Which is paralleled by the fact that we aren't even aware of everything around us, and each person's attention will catch certain details that others may not.

It is certainly a great mystery, but one which I intend to demystify. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa~!