I stink therefore I am

Hi,

There was a Rexona deodorant ad I saw some months ago. It is in a cowboy kind of setting. Two guys are escaping from those bad guys carrying guns over their shoulders. When they approach their hut, the two guys will lie down and act as if they are dead. The bad guys smell them and take away the guy who doesn't use Rexona deodorant because they infer from his sweat smell that he is not yet dead. I thought an apt caption for the ad can be "I stink therefore I am (alive)".

Now coming to business, lots of guys actually don't know what "I think therefore I am" means. Many think it means - it is thought that keeps us alive. One of our professors (one of those spiritual kind) gave us the same interpretation. But the actual statement - cogito ergo sum - made by Des Cartes means something else. It actually means "I doubt therefore I know". Des Cartes came up with two basic questions - "Can I feign that the world does not exist?", "Can I feign that I do not exist?" The answer to the first question is - yes you can - because, the world around you maybe your imagination or something is making you believe that this world exists as you know. Now in both the possibilities, you are accepting there is a thing called "I" that thinks. In the first, you assumed "I am imagining", in the second, you assumed "I am thinking". And both the questions arose from "doubt" which is also thought. So, I am accepting only one fact - that 'I think'. Now this would mean I am accepting that something called "I" exists. Hence the statement "I think therefore I am". So, this is the only statement you can say with 100% confidence, according to Des Cartes.

Too philosophical...aah....