What can we say really exists?

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I can almost validate my own existence quite simply: I choose to defined the "existence" of my "self" to be my very thought processes. Therefore, to peruse the question of my own existence at all would make it self-evident that I do in fact exist. On the other hand, what Descartes did not take into account was the question of whether his own thoughts were actually occurring.

Well, if I am not really having thoughts at all, it is ostensibly harmless to pretend for the moment that I am indeed having thoughts. Therefore, I venture to state that I am indeed having thoughts. Even if I were mistaken in this assumption, it would be entirely inconsequential.

Now, since I have taken the liberty of making the simple assumption of the reality of my own thoughts, I can then proceed to the claim that my own existence is therefore validated by the simple maneuver of self-identifying as these very thought processes. The sticking point here is that I have established here as a basic tenant that I consider my existence to be defined, at the most essential, irreducible level, as pure cognition.

Consequentially, it would seem that I am led to conclude, according to this reasoning, that my actual self and my physical body are not the same thing. It would seem that this would lead me to the conclusion that my being is composed of two parts, one being the substance of my flesh and the other being something insubstantial and irreducible.

However, this would imply that I have verified the existence of my physical body to my satisfaction, and indeed I have not. I have completely failed so far to even explore my basic utilities for making any such determination. As a result of this, it really isn't valid yet for me to divide my existence into the physical and the non-physical, not yet having validated the physical.

Seemingly, I very well could simply skip several steps of reasoning and simply state that my empirical senses inform me of my physical existence, and I could use this as a springboard to stating that both I and my physical body exist, but the simple problem with this is that it was doubt of my empirical senses that started me questioning my very existence in the first place. I have no grounds at this point for assuming my empirical senses to be truly informative.

Here, I am left with a delimma: should I trust my empirical senses, or should I go on doubting them? What if they are wrong? What if I am truly a madman, and all of my senses are giving me false information? However, I can resolve my dilemma here with the proposal that my empirical senses are a subset of my thought processes and therefore a subset of me, ergo my claim is not that my empirical senses have a separate reality from myself but simply that they constitute a subset of what I have already made the adventurous assumption is real, being my thought processes.

Thereafter, I can simply treat my empirical senses pragmatically. If I find what I am looking at or tasting not to my liking, I simply exert an effort to avoid feeling that sensation again unless, for some reason, I am convinced that something more satisfying can be gained from tolerating it. Without interfering with the monist outlook, which is that my true being is made up entirely of my cognitive thought processes, I appear to have dismissed the importance of deciding whether or not anything else is real.

On the other hand, the exertion of effort suddenly appears to be another aspect of my being, and it appears to interact with my empirical senses. With this new organ, I can cause the inputs of my empirical senses to change. I will call this "volition."

Continuing on that stream, when the inputs of my empirical senses change, I may be beset with a medley of different feelings about that change. I may find that I have a desire to experience those feelings again, or I may have the desire to avoid experiencing those feelings again. I will call this "desire," the basic organ, which is that which volition refers to.

I observe that, when volition succeeds in satisfying my desire, the general interaction between volition and desire seems to slowly increase. When my empirical senses provide me with information that I desire to avoid, I may exert an effort to avoid it. If this succeeds consistently, I will know that I am therefore capable of avoidance. If I find that a particular effort consistently results in information from my empirical senses that I desire, I know then that I am capable of getting what I desire. This appears to stabilize the relationship between volition and desire.

On the other hand, if I find no such cause-and-effect relationship, the direct interaction between volition and desire is reduced. This seems to have a negative impact on the predictability of either desire or volition. Although this effect is sometimes desirable, I think that I can reasonably regard this new aspect of my thought processes as "satisfaction."

Finally, I am conducting this entire soliloquy with yet another aspect of my thought processes. It is involved in winnowing fact from fiction, truth from falsehood, and friend from enemy. When I get down to the raw sense of whether or not the information I am receiving from my empirical senses is actually trustworthy, they are all similar. This aspect of my thought is "reason."

As such, I can divide my being into several subgroupings, including my sense of self, my empirical senses, my volition, my desires, my sense of satisfaction, and my capacity for reasoning. There is no need for me to assume the existence of anything new but merely to analyze and describe various aspects what I have already decided, for the sake of argument, exists, by which I mean my very thoughts and therefore myself.

From there, I can take off in a new direction and ask whether I should or should not accept the existence of the universe at large rather than just my subjective experience of it. The nature of ontology is to question thoroughly and completely the very nature of existence. The question ontology would ask is what right I have to assume that the universe at large has any true substance to it.

I feel that other ontological thinkers are on the wrong track in allowing the discussion to revolve around the empirical senses. Instead, I would examine my internal hierarchy: clearly, my entire self is not just one indivisible thing but a thing of many working parts. The stream of my thoughts is not something that is located in just one place, but it seems to consist of many entities communicating with each other. Well, if my inner world can be sub-divided, it could very well follow that I am ultimately a subdivision of a larger cosmos, and perhaps the cosmos itself is a mere facet of a greater gestalt.

Therefore, the inherent fallacy in dualism is the unexamined assumption that our physical bodies and our conscious minds are different things just because we use different senses in order to perceive them. We could just be examining the same thing with different organs. The inherent fallacy in solipsism is the unexamined assumption that consciousness itself is irreducible, and demonstrating the reducibility of the conscious mind creates a precedent for suggesting that the conscious mind itself is part of something that is reducible.

Thanks WilliamWDelaney. Any chance you could summarise?