Okay, so yesterday I was scrolling through TikTok and saw this pretentious dude in a turtleneck using Descartes’ quote to sound deep about avocado toast. Annoying. But it got me thinking – what does “I think, therefore I am” actually mean? Like, for real? I vaguely remembered it from high school philosophy class where I mostly daydreamed.
Grabbed my dusty laptop and started digging. First stop? Wikipedia. Big mistake. Paragraphs about “dualism” and “epistemology” made my eyes glaze over faster than week-old donuts. Clicked away fast.
Went practical instead. Shoved my phone away, sat on my crappy IKEA floor chair, and tried doing the Descartes thing myself:
- Closed my eyes and pretended everything was fake – my cat yowling for dinner, the smell of burnt coffee, even my aching back from sleeping wrong. Felt ridiculous at first.
- But then I asked: “Can I fake THIS?” – and by “this” I meant the annoyed voice in my head complaining about pretending everything’s fake. That stubborn little narrator wouldn’t shut up.
- Realized even if I’m hallucinating this whole room, there’s gotta be something hallucinating it. The “me” having thoughts is the one solid thing that can’t be bullshitted. Mind = slightly blown.
Googled simpler explanations after that lightbulb moment. Found a Reddit thread where someone compared it to debugging code: “Even if the output’s glitchy, the fact that there’s an error message PROVES the system’s running.” Finally clicked! Descartes wasn’t trying to be a deep TikTok philosopher – dude was basically doing medieval brain debugging.
Here’s what stuck with me now:
- It’s not about what you think – doesn’t matter if your thoughts are dumb or genius.
- It’s that thinking happens, and that activity needs a “thinker.” Like smoke needing fire.
- The whole thing’s a giant middle finger to radical doubt. Doubting your existence? Congrats – your doubt is the proof you exist.
Weirdly useful when I spilled coffee midway. Instead of spiraling about being a klutz, I laughed thinking: “Well, Descartes would say at least I’m 100% real at failing spectacularly.” Little victories.
