I Think, Therefore I Am

The quote "I think, therefore I am" is Rene Descartes' famous cogito argument, and it is extremely important in epistemology. Using his own Method of Doubt, Descartes doubted everything that was provided by the fallible senses, as well as anything that could be part of a dream or an illusion created by an evil genius. This left him with one thing that he could be sure of— his existence. He reasoned that even if everything around him was an illusion, his mind must exist because otherwise he would never have been fooled. This quote is an extremely important argument in rationalism— as it is purely based on reason— and it is also relevant to solipsism. It illustrates Descartes' method of doubt, which is to doubt anything that comes from our senses or anything that could be an illusion.

Not A Priority

A lot of things have happened last month. I dropped one of my courses, I started following a new television show, and I have encountered many thought-provoking things.

However, clearly I didn't take the time to document any of these onto this blog or anywhere else. Even when I had spare time, I would always choose another activity over writing a blog post.

Why? I think one reason is my preference for thoroughness. Whenever I thought of updating the blog, I would want to make a super-long post that would outline my thoughts with great detail; I would never allow myself to write a 2-sentence blog post. But thoroughness is costly— it takes time. I have time to make a post, but obviously not enough to spend 2-3 hours in a single session. And since I do not have the habit of writing a post chunk by chunk, I just never wrote anything.

Also, I have started to think that perhaps it's not always necessary to write everything down. Why can't I just go through everything in my head?

Besides, school really is busier than last year, and also a lot more important. In my final year, almost all my marks matter, and I have to spend a lot of time and effort to prepare for tests and to go over assignments.

So unfortunately, this trend probably wouldn't change until sometime next year. Blogging isn't a priority right now.