Cogito Ergo Sum

“A man without a soul in not a man at all.”

So Renée Descartes walks into a bar and the barman asks him, “Do you care for a drink, sir?” Descartes then replied, “I think not.” Then he disappeared.

It was an awful joke.

Among many other great things, Descartes was known for the philosophical saying “I think therefore I am,” which, to be honest, is already an awfully overused saying nowadays. But it seems though that not many people are able to grasp what Descartes’ saying really meant. It was right under their noses.

Thinking is what makes a man. It has been one of our defining characteristics as human beings. It is what is believed to be the thing that ultimately separates as a species from the rest of the animals.

Back in the ancient times, there have been countless interpretations as to how man is separated from the rest of the living creatures. In the book of Genesis, man was described to be a living soul with a spirit, considering that all creation which is essentially made from dust bestowed with the breath of life is called a living soul. The term spirit of man was referred to as the man’s will— his capacity to think, feel and decide for himself. And thus this allows him to have dominion over himself and the creation around him.

The great philosophers Plato, Socrates and Aristotle also have interpretations regarding the nature of the soul. Generally, they believed that the soul is an essential part of the human being which causes him to decide how he behaves. The soul is actually viewed as every quality that only a human being has— his consciousness, his emotions and his desires. And since these characteristics of man are metaphysical, they believed that the soul is man’s separate existence from his tangible self.

But whatever differences there may be in the understanding of the human soul, whether it be philosophical or spiritual, whether it come in different names or different parts, there is a common thing that all these interpretations agree upon— that the soul is the embodiment of a man’s being, the sum of his thoughts, emotions, desires and actions. The essence which if taken away, man ceases to be.

The concept of the soul has shaped our definition of humanity. It has helped establish our sense of morality and ethics. It helped us define what we are and what we should be:

beings with souls.

But what is a soul anyway? Though the generalization of the concepts of the soul from different views and perspectives has already been expounded, the concept of the soul was still not concretely defined.

In this age of reason and discovery, the metaphysical concept of the soul slowly becomes a mere shadow of philosophers past. Knowledge has become equivocal to perception. The heart, the mind and the ego are seen as nothing more than metaphors. There is only the brain and its interconnected networks of billions of neurons which allows man to reason, its hormones and neurotransmitters which allow man to feel urges and emotions, its sensory nerves which allow man to perceive, and its ever-changing connections of synapses and nerve impulses which sum up man’s consciousness, subconsciousness and personality.

The empirical soul is nothing more than a metabolic process, no different than any other process in the human body.

The fullness of man is but the sparks in his head.

Though it seems too absurd to view that the essence of man is nothing more than bits of electrical sparks in the brain rather than the romanticized emotive philosophy of how man is and supposed to be, the very perception of absurdity allows one to realize that it was more than what it is. The subjectivity of emotions and perceptions make a person reject what he refuses to believe and makes him decide his own fabric of his own reality.

This is the beauty of it— the beauty of seemingly parallel truths coexisting in one universe.

Now where does this put us? One might wonder.

All these things actually are just mere ponderings as to where we are right now. The nature of man, paradoxical perceptions and the beauty of it were just tools to realize the intricateness of our existence. Sadly in this time, if Descartes’ saying were literal, I would have been one of the nonexistent. Even sadder is that humanity would have decreased tremendously, as they have ceased to exist as well.

How many of us, I wonder, have lost their souls?

How many people have lost their capacity to live?

Perhaps this is the consequence of an already-enlightened society. Since almost everything is already found out, every information already compartmentalized, we have been spared from thinking, making us trust the system that has been existent since before we even came to be. Our lives revolve around passing down information after information, knowing things without seeking them, eating the food we did not harvest. However, there is a big difference between knowing and realizing, information and actualization.

Man has become more interested in the question ‘how’ rather than ‘why’; how they will succeed, how they will earn, how they will survive.

This makes him superficial.

Even if we look in the smaller picture— the classroom— in my personal observation, when it comes with a mathematical concept or scientific law for an instance, most students are more concerned in memorizing the already-derived formulas rather than understanding and analyzing the logic behind it— of why things are. Students have become more concerned in simply having a certain problem solved rather than knowing its essence. One of the reasons I have deduced is because the system has twisted man’s perception of the world. Students prioritize grades rather than their increased understanding of the universe. The society has oversimplified existence— to enter the system, earn and enjoy the spoils of hard work. This notion made people’s lives revolve around frivolity. This made life almost hedonistic for the very reason that the epitome of man’s life— the reason for all man’s endeavors— revolves around attaining his pleasures and desires.

Party every Friday. Beer every pay day. A yacht for retirement. An expensive funeral.

Never even knowing his place in the universe.

Although the system exists with the purest of intentions, through the course of time, it has become a tradition and nothing more than a practice or a custom that must be kept and passed on, never actually knowing why. And so we ask why every younger generation is worse than the other— less skillful, less intelligent than those of the ‘golden days.’ We complain about politicians with no sense of ideals stealing from our pockets. We wonder why enormous enterprises compete for world domination. We are stressed with passionless workers with no regard to anything or anyone. We are threatened by those who are willing to kill for a slice of bread or a glimpse of luxury.

Our definition of life has been clouded. We are burdened with superficial problems. We are driven by primal needs. We wonder why there are no noble men left like the heroes of old, who would serve his country and his people with honor and valor. We wonder why less people are willing to give their lives to others. People who have reached the peak of man’s need, which is self-actualization according to Abraham Maslow, seem to be people of legends and have been branded as saints and heroes, which to me, seems very perplexing since we are all human beings, but only a very significant few are only able to find the paradigm of themselves.

Why is this so? This is because man is fed with egocentrism, his aspirations and dreams defined by the society. Man’s value for law, ideology, morality, truth and beauty had been obscured by the need to feed, rest and mindlessly revel. Man lives for himself in the system. He is, and should, be self-sufficient.

We light candles to those who have taken their lives trying to escape the system. Behind our pity, lies our hidden prejudice— poor deranged mind. People who question their existence and refuse to conform are labeled crazy, as they cannot accept their state, as they cannot find a rational explanation for all that is happening around them. Who is the crazy one? What is the real problem, the need to feed or the need to exist? People know that the answer is the latter, but as they cease reading this, they’ll go back to their lives bearing the opposite truth, changing once more the definition of that poor deranged mind as they ride once more to the momentum of the system.

I do not mean to sound like a conservatist or a liberalist depending on how it is perceived, nor do I mean to say that the system needs to be abolished. The system is an important part of the civilization and it is what anchors it to its very foundations. But if the system were to improve man’s quality of life but not man’s quality of living, then isn’t it opposing to the very reason why we are advancing? Man discovers, learns and increases his knowledge for him to transcend into a higher form of existence and not the other way around, for if we do, we would lose our identity in this world as a species— as a being. We would lose our essence in the universe— the meaning of living and the will to live.

Man needs to pause in the momentum and question himself,  

assure himself he is where he is supposed to be, 

think and doubt, 

and regain his soul,

and know that he lives again.