Can you show me a flaw in Descartes' "I exist" work?
If you can't find a flaw in Descartes' "I exist" work, please show me what you think is wrong in my follow on to the "I exist" work.
Some separate questions: What does the word "truth" mean to you; and, how does one know truth?
At the short of it, we all 'know' we exist (though, in reality, our existence might be of a far different nature from what we believe it is - as an example, we might be a giant computer simulation running on a gargantuan computer run by some other intelligence). And existence itself, even in physcis, is somewhat undefined! For instance, in quantum mechanics, we learn that we and the whole world are made up of interfering wave functions which cannot be directly shown to exist, and which can be expressed mathematically only with imaginary numbers. Think about that. We cannot directly show that wave functions (which make up everything) actually exist! Again, like Descartes, we assume we exist (though that existence, as in the computer simulation example), might be significantly different than what we suppose (a la the movie Matrix!). Now, assuming that we exist, you are proposing to make existence 'good.' Well, that's a moral axiom. And most moral systems include existence, at least to some degree, as a 'good.' Christianity does, though not as an absolute. But most moral systems have many other moral axioms as well. And truth in the next post!