Good morning!

Happy Thursday. Boulder’s almost up. This is our 67th Thought Breakfast. Let’s go.

Today, for our main course, we’re looking toward René Descartes to discuss doubt, certainty, and the self. We’re going to back that up and apply it in our lives with the Certainty Test. To close off, we’ll open up Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy.

We’ve gone over what it means to be, how identity survives change, and why anything exists at all. Descartes asks a new question: What can I be absolutely certain of?

Radical doubt comes into the equation. Descartes doesn’t doubt things because he’s skeptical. He doubts with the intention of finding something indubitable. In other words, he wants to find things that are impossible to doubt. Our senses can deceive us, as we all know.

Fill a glass half full with water and drop a pencil in. The laws of physics seem to us not to work anymore, even though it’s simply refraction.

Our memories can fail us too because we attach our perception to something that occurred outside of us, which may cause us to remember it differently. Even mathematics could be doubted under a deceiving mind.

When everything else is stripped away, only one thing remains. The act of thinking itself. The indubitable thing that Descartes found is that doubt still requires a doubter. And thought still requires a thinker.

This is his cogito: “I think, therefore I am.” Existence is discovered from within. The self becomes the first indubitable certainty. Being is no longer grounded in nature, form, or contingency… but in consciousness.

This creates a metaphysical shift from being in the world to a thinking subject confronting the world. It reshapes identity, knowledge, and the relationship between the mind and reality.

So is the self primarily a thinker? A mind? A consciousness observing reality? Who knows. Descartes secured his certainty, but at a cost. This certainty might create separation, detachment, or a problem with the external world.

For Descartes, it might be an invitation to retreat within yourself, knowing that the only thing you know for sure is that you’re a thinking being.

However, maybe that consciousness can be expanded. Maybe “I think, therefore I am” is the first milestone on the path to “we think, therefore we are.” It’s a pretty thought.

At one quiet moment today, ask yourself:

Then factor in:

What would still remain?

Maybe try writing down one thing that feels undeniably true from the inside.

“But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely
nothing in the world—no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies.
Does it now follow that I too do not exist?
No: if I convinced myself of something, then I certainly existed.”
— René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

This is Descartes’ doubt in motion. He introduces the cogito without yet sloganeering the phrase “I think, therefore I am.”

Munch on that for today. Try not to dissociate too much. But if you do, look around and see what you find. Come back tomorrow as we wrap up this week of Thought Breakfast!

Thank you for reading along with us today! If you enjoy this content, and want to start your days grounded in thought and mindfulness, I suggest you have a seat at our table! Smash that button below to check out more editions and subscribe!

Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast