Descartes' Second Meditation

Plus de détails

Setting Goals and Ob

par Benn Lynch

The role of Mind mapping in education

par Mindomo Team

Six Thinking Hats

par Dr. William Yip

Chapter_5__Names_Bindings_and_Scopes_2

par Levi George

Wax increases if it melts increases again if it boils, it is capable of being expanded in many ways past my imagination

There may be a deceiver deceiving me but this also proves my existence I must exist to be deceived

When I am consciously thinking it the statement I am I exist is true

My awareness of my own self is much truer and more distinct than my awareness of a "body"

If I judge the "Body" exists becvause I see it then it does even if it is not itself or if I do not have eyes to see it

When I think I see I am thinking and am something

If it judge that it exists from the fact I imagine it the same logic follows

This result can be applied to everything around me

Now everyhthing I think proves my own thought and existence

I now Know that bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses but are percieved by the intelect alone.

this perception derives not from the senses but from their being understood

I know that I can achieve the greatest perception of my own mind than of anything else

When I look out the window and see men I say they are men

They could very well be automatons

Something I thought I saw is only based on the judgment of what I saw in my own mind

There is no certainty in the initial pereption of a "body"

When you strip it down and consider the "body" from its outward forms, though you may still contain error it is the product of a human mind ( not the evil demon)

People think they understand the "bodies" we touch and see best.

For example this piece of wax

It has certain attributes, a smell a texture etc

If I put it by the fire the wax changes and develops completely different attributes , different smell texture etc

We believe that the wax is still the same wax even when all its attributes have changed

Evidently what makes the wax itself is not the attributes I had observed

The wax is a body that presented itself one way and now exibits itself in a different way

If I concentrate on the wax I see it merely as something extended flexible and changeable

I don't mean what I picture in my imagination that this wax is able to change geometric shapes

Yes the wax is capable of numerous shapes but there are too many for my imagination

Therefore it is not my imagination that allows me to graps the concept of the wax as flexable and changeable

The wax is perceived by my mind alone, the only thing I know it is is the perception I have of it

The "body" perceived by my mind alone, the only thing I know it is is the perception I have of it

No matter what I think the corporeal things which I perceive and believe based on my senses are known better than the elusive "I"

It is surpirising that I should better understand things which are doubtful than what I know is true : myself

it seems my mind enjoys wandering and does not enjoy the bounds of truth

I know that I am thing that thinks

I know that I am not what we call the body

I am not some whispy essence that permeates my limbs

I think that I am something

It is possible what I consider to be nothing is actually what I am

Knowledge of the I does not depend on things I don't know so it can't depend on things I invent in my imagination

I cannot be imagining that I am something or over because to imagine I must be imagining a real corporeal shape

So I know that I am something and that everything else could be dreams

I must be wary as to the definition of I

I formerly believed I was a man

I can't just say man is a rational animal as then I would have to define all those things and I would get lost in it

I think I have a face, hands arms and the moving corpse I call my body

I move this body and engage in actions I atrributed to my soul

I don't understand the nature of the soul

I though I understood the nature of the body

I understood the body as having a determinable shape, definable location and occupies a space that excludes other bodies.

I understood the body as being perceived by the senses and can be moved but not by it's self

Not all bodies can move, there needs to be a seperate power that moves it

I don't know wether I posses any of the attributes I assigned to the body

many of the abilities I assigned to the soul also require a body

The one thing a soul can do without a body is think

For as long as I am thinking I exist

All I know is that I am a thing that thinks

So I know I am a thing that thinks

I believed that means a thing that doubts, understands, denies imagines has sensory percerptions etc.

I don't know that everything in that list is true

I have done all those things even if I were "asleep"

I cannot distinguish these activities from my thinking

Even if my senses are wrong the experience of sensory perception cannot be denied

Even if everyhthing is false the power of imagining them is real