And yet, do I think, and, therefore exist, or vice versa?

If we recall the maxim of Descartes: “I think, therefore I exist”, which he attributed to a person, then he clearly unfairly neglected the rest of living beings, because they also think, because once they get into existence, they, feeling own existence and therefore wanting to prolong it, are forced to figure out how to adapt to what is, in order to stay in it, without which a person cannot also do, which indicates for them the priority of existence and the secondary nature of thinking. However, the separateness of a person from the animal world, which happened, also indicates another directionality of his thinking.


Undoubtedly, receiving, processing and transmitting of information is common for an artificial intellect, a person and other living beings, since they all have sensors for receiving information, a center or centers for processing information and devices or organs for transmitting information.
But do they all understand the fact of their own existence, and if they do, how does this understanding differ?
If we assume that an artificial intellect (AI) thinks, then its thinking is enclosed in the framework of a formal logic, which is nothing more than a consequence of the programs embedded in it, and it is able to solve tasks that are set in front of it externally, after connecting it to work, in a list, limited to those same programs.
That is, AI functions like a common calculator, operating with symbols that do not turn into sensations, since it does not need them due to its lack of independence, since it works for a certain user and this user uses the results obtained by it for his own needs, and AI does not select this user, but the user selects it.
This means that AI, existing in reality, but focusing on an external consumer, solves the tasks of an external user of information, without having its own needs. Therefore, the concept of "existence" is absent for it.
Then AI does not think, but functions within the framework of the tasks assigned to it from the outside according to certain programs without understanding the target nature of these tasks, functioning mechanically, and only when it is connected by someone to an external energy source.
From this we can conclude: such complex and ordered procedure for processing information by an artificial intellect does not provide it with the opportunity to think independently, and it can only serve as means to facilitate the thought process of an external user of AI to solve his own tasks.
Now let's see how an object, possessing energy, will react to the uncontrollable influence of the environment on itself, if it is able to receive, process and transmit information to interact with this environment, thus being a consumer and source of information to solve mainly the task of holding oneself in this environment.
Such object can be not only a person, but also all other living beings, since they correspond to all the mentioned features.
Living beings, like AI, process information in their centers to solve tasks, arising from their interaction with the external environment, but being, unlike AI, independent users of the results of this processing are forced to represent this environment not in the form of symbols, and essentially as phenomena and objects for one's own understanding, for example, representing oscillations of one frequency as heat, other frequencies as light, third as sound, etc.
This kind of representation of the environment allows to sense it and exist in it applying to changes in these sensations - from pleasant to useful or disastrous.
This adaptation to the useful and pleasant, as well as the avoidance of deadly sensations, inevitably leads to the formation in living beings of considerations of what can be done and what is undesirable to do, and this is nothing more than a thought process - more or less primitive, depending on the development of the being, which enables them to retain the ability to perceive sensations in all spectrum possible for them, and among them pleasant ones.
Therefore, not a single living being wants to abandon this process, and in this respect perfectly understands the fact of its own existence, which indicates the primacy of the influence of the environment, which causes living beings to respond to it in the form of considerations based on the analysis of sensations, how to preserve oneself in this environment.
In other words, living beings realize the fact of their existence by converting arbitrarily changing external and internal information influences and signals into sensations, which are the product of automatic decoding of frequency type data entering their senses, and they get the opportunity to find the most pleasant sensations and avoid unpleasant ones. or fatal sensations, thinking how to do it in this process of adaptation to the environment, and this process is existence for them.
This means that for all living beings, who are the only independent consumers of information from all objects of beingness, the results of automatic processing of incoming data in the form of sensations allow them to navigate in the environment in order to at least stay in it, in contrast to an artificial intellect, which is not an independent consumer of information. In addition, due to his lack of sensations, it doesn't have to save anything.
That is, living beings process incoming data, mainly of a frequency type, only to convert them into their own sensations, thanks to which they are able to draw conclusions about ways to keep themselves in the environment in order to obtain pleasant sensations, which constitutes for them the process of thinking, which, therefore, it is a derivative product of the information processing process in the corresponding centers of living beings and relies on the results of this processing in the form of sensations.
The aforementioned comparison of living beings with an artificial intellect has shown that receiving and processing of data using certain programs is not directly related to thinking, since both a living being and an artificial intellect or a computer do not understand, how does the process of processing the signals coming through the sensors, which proceeds by doing so automatically. Then an artificial intellect transmits the results of information processing, also without understanding them, to some user, whether it is a weather report or a translation from one language to another, whereas a living being, receiving these results in the form of sensations, perfectly understands them, uses them and does not want to lose them, thinking inevitably to about how to do it in the best way.
This fact itself means that it is not thinking that determines the recognition of its own existence by any living being, but, on the contrary, the desire to exist in the form of perception of sensations causes, willy-nilly, considerations about ways to preserve sensations.
This desire to exist is realized by living beings in the following way.
The centers that process incoming information give commands to both cells and all organs of the body, including it as a whole, as a result of which this organism is constantly applied to a changing environment in order to preserve the sensations received from the senses and, if possible, improve their quality. i.e. to make them more enjoyable. And all these living beings do not want to lose the sensations they receive and, accordingly, the desires for the sake of empty nothingness, with which they are familiar from sleep, fainting or falling into hibernation. The sensations themselves not only provide them experience of life with all its diversity, but also give them an impetus to preserve these sensations in posterity.
Thus, every living being, first of all, wants to stay in the information flow, which it is able to perceive at the level of its sensations and comprehend the ways of acting in the environment arising on the basis of sensations, i.e. every living being differs from things that understand nothing, including an artificial intellect or a computer, the fact that it uses the data processed in the management bodies for its own benefit, preservation and reproduction, competing in this with other living beings.
Therefore, all common living beings are active, that is, they consciously, but mostly on the instinctive-reflex level, use the environment to maintain themselves in action (nutrition and metabolism), trying to push competitors away from food (dominance), in contrast to a person whose activity is not limited only by instincts. and reflexes on a hormonal background.
The finiteness of their own existence, which all organisms, except humans, do not understand, but feel by the deterioration in the functioning of certain parts of the body, they overcome by procreation (transfer of their own genome) in all possible ways, up to budding, which requires a special program of growth and development as individual, and general (generic). This program is already at conception laid in every cell of the organism.
For the most developed beings - mammals - the current reality is reflected directly in the feelings, images and considerations of any animal at every moment of the present, constituting a circuit in which it can act most effectively, feeling that, what are able to recognize the existing sense organs; imagining something, that can reflect the shape and some components of the surrounding objects in accordance with the signals from the senses, as well as the available memory; thinking about what and how to do (be) in the current situation, applying to it.
Thus, the displacement of the user of information, as it were, inside the object, more precisely, its coincidence with the object for the consumption of incoming information, after its processing turns this object into a subject of action, capable of being aware of own presence in the environment, that is, own existence, with help of reacting to changes in its sensations by developing the considerations of how to be in order to continue to be. So, willy-nilly, one has to recognize this reaction as thinking, albeit forced, produced solely for adaptation to the environment.
In other words, the process of creation by already this subject of considerations “how to be in order to be” is stimulated only by possible actions in the existing environment, represented by the whole gamut of available sensations, and for sufficiently developed beings it can be designated as the most complex type of adaptive thinking, giving this term a broad concept, because in addition to feeling, these beings are able to create virtual, that is, mental images of real objects, feel disgust for some of them and sympathy for others, deciding inwardly how to avoid some objects and bring others closer to themselves.
This means that the flow of considerations (thoughts) interconnected in one sequence or another has only one basis - awareness of one's own existence through sensations.
Therefore, even the most primitive living being, starting to perceive information at birth, realizes itself as existing, and losing the ability to perceive it, for example, in a dream, during a swoon or hibernation, receives a void of non-existence, in which calls to action, that is, thoughts about the immediate arranging oneself in the environment become irrelevant and therefore absent, appearing again only upon returning to reality in the form of making decisions for certain actions in order to preserve sensations.
Thus, for all living beings, including humans, thinking is found only as a derivative of the being's ability to perceive information that introduces it through sensations into existence, which provokes the emergence of thinking of different levels.
Nevertheless, no living being, except man, strains himself with the thought that it exists, constantly feeling this.
However, over time, among living beings, there were those who did not limit themselves to the fact of feeling their own existence using thinking only in order to live in a cloud of these sensations, but also have understood the fact of own existence for the reason, that they felt the need not only, like everyone else, feeling themselves in the world through adaptation to it, but also have experienced the need to solve the inverse problem - to try adapting the environment for themselves by any available means, up to conscious destruction of fragments of this environment, including creatures like them, not only to satisfy urgent needs, but also to satisfy their interests, dreams and even fantasies in all conceivable areas that life gives.
Apparently, this new feature of the human consciousness was reflected by Rene Descartes in his "Principles of Philosophy" in the section "On the Foundations of Human Knowledge".
He speaks thus of the sign of a person's existence: "... we cannot but believe that the conclusion I think, therefore, I exist truly… ... we exist only because we think... ... we still doubt whether there are bodies in the world, but we know with certainty that we think" (see, for example, "Anthology of World Philosophy". Volume 2. P. 239. "Thought." Moscow. 1970).
Descartes further explains what he means by thinking: "Without a doubt, all kinds of the thought activity that we note in ourselves can be attributed to two main ones: one of them consists in perception by the mind, the other - in determination by the will. So, to feel, to imagine, even to comprehend purely intellectual things are all just different kinds of perception, whereas to desire, to be disgusted, to affirm, to deny, to doubt are different kinds of volition..." (ibid., p. 246).
Thus, Descartes believes that the totality of the types of the thought activity indicated by him is a true sign of a person's recognition of his own existence.
Of course, this is not so, since all the properties of consciousness indicated by him are also present in the consciousness of the highest mammals.
The difference between them and a person, presumably, lies not in thinking as such, but in the directionality of thinking.
As mentioned above, the same highest mammals, for example, primates, do not think about high matters, such as knowledge of the surrounding world, self-improvement, but only about how to survive and better settle in their own environment, adapting to it, with the transfer to own offspring of the property to experience pleasant sensations. Nothing else interests them, while human thinking is directed not only to adaptive reactions in relation to the environment, but also to its possible subordination to oneself.
For a more effective solution of the latter problem, hominids gradually developed, in addition to adaptive thinking, expressed mainly in the form of instincts and reflexes, the ability to think logically, which they later strengthened by the invention of artificial intelligence already in the guise of a technologically advanced person.
The person who came out of a hominid also concluded that the combination of known things and processes in other ways can make an even more significant contribution to improving his comfort, make him stronger and more significant, especially since all new achievements can be recorded in writing and thereby create an extensive database data, expanding it from generation to generation.
This kind of combinatorics requires only ingenuity and a desire to change something, that is, a manifestation of interest, which is characteristic of any person.
Combinatorics in combination with formal logic, of course, significantly accelerates technical and cultural progress, but this combination does not give drastic turn of events due to the relatively insignificant increase in new information to the existing database of mankind.
However, an additional program embedded in the genome of each person expands the potential of his thinking almost indefinitely, allowing the initiation of arbitrary, or illogical thinking, which is called creative, in track with goal setting.
This type of thinking, with the help of techniques found over time, generally denoted by intuition, is able to pull a person out of the circle of the known into the space of acquiring non-obvious knowledge, further accelerating the development of his material and cultural base and his own self-consciousness, and an increase in the level of the latter affects more turning to oneself. and not on improving external comfort for oneself.
Apparently, all these types of thinking, and especially creativity, prompted Descartes to formulate the maxim: “I think, therefore I exist”, the validity of which is undeniable only in one case, if by it he meant the ability, that has developed in a person, to change the existing reality, revealing the secrets of one's own existence within the framework of goals possible at a particular level of development, what other natural beings are not capable of, satisfied with what is.