- Cogito, ergo sum (Wikipedia)
The Latin cogito, ergo sum, usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am”, is the “first principle” of René Descartes’s philosophy. He originally published it in French as je pense, donc je suis in his 1637 Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. It later appeared in Latin in his Principles of Philosophy, and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito. As Descartes explained in a margin note, “we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt.” In the posthumously published The Search for Truth by Natural Light, he expressed this insight as dubito, ergo sum, vel, quod idem est, cogito, ergo sum (“I doubt, therefore I am — or what is the same — I think, therefore I am”). Antoine Léonard Thomas, in a 1765 essay in honor of Descartes presented it as dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum (“I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am”).
- How Animals See the World (artsandculture.google.com)
Each type of animal on Earth has evolved a range of senses and skills which allow it to live successfully in its environment. Many of these adaptations are very different from how humans have evolved, and compared to humans some of these adaptations feel like they belong in a superhero comic. Senses such as ultraviolet vision, extra color receptors, and echolocation are very hard for humans to imagine, yet are part of the everyday life of hundreds of species of animals.