Need Help! Rene Descartes' Meditations!!!

[Ghengis Chron]

Can anyone help me out with meditations 1-5?? I have a Philosophy final tomorrow afternoon and am having a little trouble figuring out his meditations, namely 3 and above. Here is what I am under the impression of, let me know if it needs changing, or please add on.

Meditation I deals with Descartes' Deductive Reasoning, saying whatever we cannot prove absolutely must be false. He uses Deductive Reasoning to obtain Absolute Certainty.
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Descartes applies his Deductive Reasoning to three scenarios. "Could our senses be deceiving us", we are deceived by our sense all the time (pencil in water looks bent), however for the most part, our senses are reliable.

Meditation II - Descartes comes to his famous "I think therefore I am" claim in which he discovers that the mind and body are two seperate substances, the thinking mind (thinking substance), and the body, since the body cannot think (Material Substance). Descartes is attempting to prove his existence in Meditation II

Can anyone ellaborate on 1 and 2, and 3 and beyond? Thanks.
GC

[serenity45]

ah shit man- i woulda helped you out... just joined a couple days ago though.

[Ghengis Chron]

No problem, I got an A in the class...somehow. Didn't think it was mathematically possible going into the final. funny stuff.

[Coelho]

Man... i only cant help you because i have arguments that shows that this Descartes reasonings may be wrong/incomplete. And it would only confuse you instead help you... anyway, after you get this test, tell us, so i can say what this arguments are.

[Ghengis Chron]

I started this thread back in December. I've taken it a long time ago. In fact, it was kind of funny. I was taking my exam, and I got up to flip my jacket on and didn't realize i had my bowl with me. well when i flipped my jacket over my head, my bowl flew out, bounced on a couple chairs, and cmae to rest nearly 5 feet from my professir. I calmly picked it up and rushed the hell out of there.

[Coelho]

Meditation I deals with Descartes' Deductive Reasoning, saying whatever we cannot prove absolutely must be false. He uses Deductive Reasoning to obtain Absolute Certainty.

Well... its not true. Kurt Godel, a mathematician who studied logic, showed that there is logical propositions that cannot be proven to be false or true. Since logic is the most rigorous way of thinking, and even in the logic there is un-provable propositions, surely there is still more un-provable propositions is less rigorous systems of thinking, like philosophy, for example.


Descartes applies his Deductive Reasoning to three scenarios. "Could our senses be deceiving us", we are deceived by our sense all the time (pencil in water looks bent), however for the most part, our senses are reliable.

We are being "deceived" by our senses all the time. We dont see the world as it actually is, but only as our senses "tell" us how it is. For example, there is not what we call "white light". The white is in fact all colors superposed. If we could see the world as it actually is, instead white we would see all colors at the same time. But, our senses and brain interfere, and creates the "white", which seems a pure color. But it is not. Its only a "simplification".
And the same goes for all our senses. What we call the "outside world" which is percieved by our senses is just a representation, a description of the actual world. Very much the white is only a representation of "all the colors together".

But now im left wondering... What would your teacher think if you wrote things like that in your test? :stoned:

[Ghengis Chron]

Well... its not true. Kurt Godel, a mathematician who studied logic, showed that there is logical propositions that cannot be proven to be false or true. Since logic is the most rigorous way of thinking, and even in the logic there is un-provable propositions, surely there is still more un-provable propositions is less rigorous systems of thinking, like philosophy, for example.



We are being "deceived" by our senses all the time. We dont see the world as it actually is, but only as our senses "tell" us how it is. For example, there is not what we call "white light". The white is in fact all colors superposed. If we could see the world as it actually is, instead white we would see all colors at the same time. But, our senses and brain interfere, and creates the "white", which seems a pure color. But it is not. Its only a "simplification".
And the same goes for all our senses. What we call the "outside world" which is percieved by our senses is just a representation, a description of the actual world. Very much the white is only a representation of "all the colors together".

But now im left wondering... What would your teacher think if you wrote things like that in your test? :stoned:

I would've failed. im glad u didn't respond till 3 months after my final....