full transcript

From the Ted Talk by James Zucker: How do you know you exist?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


How do you know you're real? It's an obvious question until you try to answer it, but let's take it seriously. How do you really know you exist? In his "Meditations on First pophhilsoy," René Descartes tried to answer that very question, diioeslnmhg all his preconceived notions and opinions to begin again from the foundations. All his knowledge had come from his sensory perceptions of the world. Same as you, right? You know you're watching this video with your eyes, henraig it with your ears. Your senses show you the world as it is. They aren't deceiving you, but sometimes they do. You might mistake a person far away for someone else, or you're sure you're about to catch a flyball, and it hits the ground in front of you. But come on, right here and now, you know what's right in front of you is real. Your eyes, your hands, your body: that's you. Only crazy people would deny that, and you know you're not crazy. Anyone who'd doubt that must be dreaming. Oh no, what if you're dreaming? deamrs feel real. You can believe you're swimming, fyilng or fighting off monsters with your bare hdans, when your real body is lying in bed. No, no, no. When you're aawke, you know you're awake. Ah! But when you aren't, you don't know you aren't, so you can't prove you aren't dreaming. Maybe the body you prvieece yourself to have isn't really there. Maybe all of reality, even its abstract concepts, like time, shpae, color and number are false, all just deceptions concocted by an evil genius! No, seriously. Descartes asks if you can disprove the idea that an evil gniues demon has tricked you into beneilivg reality is real. Perhaps this dioicbalal deceiver has dpeud you. The world, your pneiceports of it, your very body. You can't drospive that they're all just made up, and how could you exist without them? You couldn't! So, you don't. Life is but a dream, and I bet you aren't row, row, rowing the boat mrilery at all, are you? No, you're rowing it wearily like the duped, nonexistent doof you are/aren't. Do you find that convincing? Are you persuaded? If you aren't, good; if you are, even better, because by being peesudrad, you would prove that you're a persuaded being. You can't be nothing if you think you're something, even if you think that something is nothing because no matter what you think, you're a thinking thing, or as Descartes put it, "I think, therefore I am," and so are you, really. (Airplane ennige)

Open Cloze


How do you know you're real? It's an obvious question until you try to answer it, but let's take it seriously. How do you really know you exist? In his "Meditations on First __________," René Descartes tried to answer that very question, ___________ all his preconceived notions and opinions to begin again from the foundations. All his knowledge had come from his sensory perceptions of the world. Same as you, right? You know you're watching this video with your eyes, _______ it with your ears. Your senses show you the world as it is. They aren't deceiving you, but sometimes they do. You might mistake a person far away for someone else, or you're sure you're about to catch a flyball, and it hits the ground in front of you. But come on, right here and now, you know what's right in front of you is real. Your eyes, your hands, your body: that's you. Only crazy people would deny that, and you know you're not crazy. Anyone who'd doubt that must be dreaming. Oh no, what if you're dreaming? ______ feel real. You can believe you're swimming, ______ or fighting off monsters with your bare _____, when your real body is lying in bed. No, no, no. When you're _____, you know you're awake. Ah! But when you aren't, you don't know you aren't, so you can't prove you aren't dreaming. Maybe the body you ________ yourself to have isn't really there. Maybe all of reality, even its abstract concepts, like time, _____, color and number are false, all just deceptions concocted by an evil genius! No, seriously. Descartes asks if you can disprove the idea that an evil ______ demon has tricked you into _________ reality is real. Perhaps this __________ deceiver has _____ you. The world, your ___________ of it, your very body. You can't ________ that they're all just made up, and how could you exist without them? You couldn't! So, you don't. Life is but a dream, and I bet you aren't row, row, rowing the boat _______ at all, are you? No, you're rowing it wearily like the duped, nonexistent doof you are/aren't. Do you find that convincing? Are you persuaded? If you aren't, good; if you are, even better, because by being _________, you would prove that you're a persuaded being. You can't be nothing if you think you're something, even if you think that something is nothing because no matter what you think, you're a thinking thing, or as Descartes put it, "I think, therefore I am," and so are you, really. (Airplane ______)

Solution


  1. flying
  2. merrily
  3. hands
  4. awake
  5. disprove
  6. duped
  7. dreams
  8. perceive
  9. diabolical
  10. demolishing
  11. perceptions
  12. persuaded
  13. believing
  14. genius
  15. shape
  16. philosophy
  17. hearing
  18. engine

Original Text


How do you know you're real? It's an obvious question until you try to answer it, but let's take it seriously. How do you really know you exist? In his "Meditations on First Philosophy," René Descartes tried to answer that very question, demolishing all his preconceived notions and opinions to begin again from the foundations. All his knowledge had come from his sensory perceptions of the world. Same as you, right? You know you're watching this video with your eyes, hearing it with your ears. Your senses show you the world as it is. They aren't deceiving you, but sometimes they do. You might mistake a person far away for someone else, or you're sure you're about to catch a flyball, and it hits the ground in front of you. But come on, right here and now, you know what's right in front of you is real. Your eyes, your hands, your body: that's you. Only crazy people would deny that, and you know you're not crazy. Anyone who'd doubt that must be dreaming. Oh no, what if you're dreaming? Dreams feel real. You can believe you're swimming, flying or fighting off monsters with your bare hands, when your real body is lying in bed. No, no, no. When you're awake, you know you're awake. Ah! But when you aren't, you don't know you aren't, so you can't prove you aren't dreaming. Maybe the body you perceive yourself to have isn't really there. Maybe all of reality, even its abstract concepts, like time, shape, color and number are false, all just deceptions concocted by an evil genius! No, seriously. Descartes asks if you can disprove the idea that an evil genius demon has tricked you into believing reality is real. Perhaps this diabolical deceiver has duped you. The world, your perceptions of it, your very body. You can't disprove that they're all just made up, and how could you exist without them? You couldn't! So, you don't. Life is but a dream, and I bet you aren't row, row, rowing the boat merrily at all, are you? No, you're rowing it wearily like the duped, nonexistent doof you are/aren't. Do you find that convincing? Are you persuaded? If you aren't, good; if you are, even better, because by being persuaded, you would prove that you're a persuaded being. You can't be nothing if you think you're something, even if you think that something is nothing because no matter what you think, you're a thinking thing, or as Descartes put it, "I think, therefore I am," and so are you, really. (Airplane engine)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations




Important Words


  1. abstract
  2. airplane
  3. answer
  4. asks
  5. awake
  6. bare
  7. bed
  8. believing
  9. bet
  10. boat
  11. body
  12. catch
  13. color
  14. concepts
  15. concocted
  16. convincing
  17. crazy
  18. deceiver
  19. deceiving
  20. deceptions
  21. demolishing
  22. demon
  23. deny
  24. descartes
  25. diabolical
  26. disprove
  27. doof
  28. doubt
  29. dream
  30. dreaming
  31. dreams
  32. duped
  33. ears
  34. engine
  35. evil
  36. exist
  37. eyes
  38. false
  39. feel
  40. fighting
  41. find
  42. flyball
  43. flying
  44. foundations
  45. front
  46. genius
  47. ground
  48. hands
  49. hearing
  50. hits
  51. idea
  52. knowledge
  53. life
  54. lying
  55. matter
  56. merrily
  57. mistake
  58. monsters
  59. nonexistent
  60. notions
  61. number
  62. obvious
  63. opinions
  64. people
  65. perceive
  66. perceptions
  67. person
  68. persuaded
  69. philosophy
  70. preconceived
  71. prove
  72. put
  73. question
  74. real
  75. reality
  76. rené
  77. row
  78. rowing
  79. senses
  80. sensory
  81. shape
  82. show
  83. swimming
  84. thinking
  85. time
  86. tricked
  87. video
  88. watching
  89. wearily
  90. world