I think, now what

Cogito ergo sum, (I think, therefore I am) is the first conclusion that Descartes came to after careful and extensive deliberation on what it is that he (or anyone else, for that matter) could really "know." I noticed, however, that Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" suggests that the finiteness of human language limits people's ability to convey relevant thoughts in other than internal discourse. Nothing about one's thought process proves one's existence to the outside world.

Reading Wittgenstein and Descartes simultaneously leads one to wonder if one can think, much less "know" anything. It seems that people are programmed to react in certain ways from their past experiences, and current surroundings. It also seems that everything one does is merely the reaction to some kind of stimuli.

These are not necessarily responses one would say one "thinks" about. Does one really have the ability to think freely about one's behavior, or is it all part of a script, and only masked as the result of one's contemplation? What is thinking anyway? Is it a conscious act? If so, what is dreaming? Is not the thought process the same, though people dream unconsciously? If thinking really occurs can one articulate one's thinking experience?

If humans are unable to articulate their thinking experience, yet they think, do not other animals, and computers think also? One is apt to say that computers do not think at all, and that animals think at a level inferior to that of humans.

Consider that a computer program spells out every computer function. My computer's spell check just corrected my last error. How am I thinking and it is not? And if other animals think on a level inferior to that of humans, why are humans equally unable to explain their thoughts?

In conclusion, if we cannot explain the phenomenon we call "thinking," how can we be sure that we even do it? If one's existence can be known at some basic level, one cannot logically purport that one knows what that basic level is. Now this is not to say that I don't exist or that I don't think, it is only to make the point that I can't prove that I think. Therefore, I cannot conclude that I exist based on that premise. Instead of quoting Descartes' "I think, therefore I am," it might be best to say that the process of thinking exists (though I may not be doing it), therefore something exists.