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Oops I missed door's earlier post.
Door- I can see where you are coming from, but I would like to make one little criticism. The context of Descartes meditations is very important to understanding what he was saying. When he made the declaration "I think therefore I am" he was approaching the problem of existence from a completely internal perspective. (He completely isolated himself while writing his meditations to eliminate any biased or prejudices...easier said than done.)
Regardless of what the rest of the universe perceives, you still perceive it too no matter how you choose to define yourself. Existence is self evident. I think the real problem with reading someone else's thoughts on philosophy is that definitions and implied meanings are often perceived in different ways. To Descartes "think" probably had a much broader definition than the one you seem to be attributing to it. Likewise, I don't define thought and perception as mutually exclusive.
Additionally, simply because a thought doesn't originate in our own physical brain doesn't mean that we didn't have it. This is where the problem of a definition of self comes into play. If I define my "self" as a physical body, and a spirit/mind, and nothing else then it is entirely possible that a thought originating elsewhere could be seen as not my own. However, if my "self" is taken a step further to include that thing from which my thoughts are sent it ceases to be an issue. Like i said in my earlier post, even if you are part of a whole, the part still exists.
It seems to me that there are 2 absolute truths at least: 1) I exist(due to perception, thought, what have you) and 2)something else exists (cause of my perception, or thoughts if you prefer)\
even if those 2 things are part of the same whole the parts are immediately distinguishable and therefore exist separately.
As always I may be wrong, if you can tell me what I'm missing I really would like to hear about it. Also sorry about running on.
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