Descartes study notes

materials

background & overview

takeaways

Wow, incredible first chapter.

first meditation

I knew I had false beliefs that underpinned everything, and now I have the time to reconsider all of them.

I will disprove them all by disproving underlying principles that they’re all based on.

Senses can’t be trusted because they have been false before.

We never know whether we’re dreaming.

In dreams or reality, there are universals that we accept, like colour, magnitude, time, etc.

How do we know that god actually made those things real?

It might be good for him to deceive me.

Even if god is good, I should figure this stuff out.

I have to take care about using my beliefs.

Suppose some evil powerful spirit is tricking me.

It’s scary to consider, and I’m drawn back to my beliefs.

second meditation

I’m scared, but I just need one foundation to build everything on.

Maybe nothing is certain.

I can’t be convinced that I don’t exist, so I must.

I can’t be sure of what this “I” is.

I have a mind and a body, the body is bounded by senses.

A demon could trick me into believing anything except that I’m thinking - which is part of my soul.

I can’t imagine what I am, because imaginations are illusions.

I am a thinking, perceiving thing.

That I perceive things, seems to be part of me, even if those perceptions are false.

Bodily things are easier to bound as a thing, but they’re more likely to be false.

The before and after of melting wax makes it different across all senses, but we say it’s the same thing.

Perception is beyond senses, and its what we use to identify the body of a thing.

Our senses don’t identity things - it’s perception from inspecting the senses.

Something about humans and animals…?

My mind perceives things, and I know my mind exists, so I have some evidence about those things.

third meditation

I know that I think and perceive.

Everything that I can clearly and distinctly perceive must be true.

I was perceiving something else when I observed a thing, before my first meditation.

For there to be a deceitful god, god must be a possibility.

Categorizing things, there is ideas and judgements.

Ideas can’t be false, but the judgement that an idea accurately models reality can be false.

I don’t know the true source of the ideas in my mind.

The things outside don’t seem to depend on me, they seem to transmit their own likeness.

“Taught by nature” is more spontaneous than a guiding light.

Maybe those external ideas come from something separate inside of me.

The idea of the sun from the senses seems to be less “like it” than the idea of the sun from notions of astronomic reasoning.

All these ideas are a result of some mechanisms inside of me, not through pure judgement.

There’s three levels of objective reality of ideas: less, some, infinite.

Something of objective reality must be caused by something of equal or greater reality.

The objective reality of an idea greater than me must not be me, so that thing must exist outside of me.

Different points on the same spectrum (ex hot vs cold) don’t seem to be very real.

These unclear, unreal things seem to derive from me.

Substances seem to have the same level of reality.

I can think of an infinitely powerful substance, but I am not at that level, therefore god.

An infinite substance must come before a finite one.

God seems to be the clearest and most distinct.

Maybe I’m proceeding incrementally to becoming god.

Continually incrementing doesn’t bring you to becoming god.

48 How can I exist and think of a perfect being?

I can only derive from myself or God.

If I was derived from myself, how could I have this idea of God?

If I was so powerful, I should be able to know that I will exist in the future. Since I don’t, I must depend on something else that has that ability.

50 cause must the as powerful as effect. The thing that causes the idea of god must be god or something that is caused by god a few recursive steps back.

I could not have been built as godlike, pieced together by the pieces of actual god.

My parents made me, but not my mind.

I didn’t get the idea of god from any senses, it must have been innate within me.

The being that I depend on needs to have all the attributes, infinitely and indefinitely, and that being must be god.

meditation 4

53 from god we can establish all the other things

God can’t be deceptive because he is good.

God gave me a faculty of judgement that can’t lead me astray.

54 When I think about god, all my thoughts are correct and clear, but when I think about myself, they aren’t. The faculty of judgement is not infinite, so I can make mistakes.

Why have I been made imperfect and deceivable?

I can’t hope to comprehend gods purposes.

56 to judge something as imperfect, you have to take into account the whole universe of context it exists in

58 My mistakes depend on my knowledge and free will. My range of will is greater than my intellect, and my will can act in places where I lack intellect, which is how I make mistakes.

59 lack of knowing happens about things that are not known or not sufficiently known.

60 the error comes from my incorrect use of will, not from god, who gave will to me.

I shouldn’t complain about having imperfect will because I don’t yet know how it’s actually the right thing to have.

62 I have found the source of error

fifth meditation

63 I will review the certainty of material things.

I will consider ideas and decide which are clear.

Some ideas are so clear that distinguishing them is like remembering something I knew before.

64 even if those ideas do not exist outside of me, they aren’t necessarily nothing. Things like triangles have persistent properties, even though I never thought about those properties, so part of them must exist outside of me.

65 there are innumerable shapes out there that I’ve never thought about, that I know some properties of them.

66 god is as real as a number. Existence is inseparable from god. Therefore in reality, he exists.

69 nothing convinces me fully except what I clearly and distinctly perceive. I have both for god.

70 I can perceive something to be true when staring at the truth, then when I look away, can convince myself that nature deceived me.

71 god is no deceiver and everything else depends on him, and I have distinct and clear perception of this. All the things I was unsure of before, I didn’t have a clear and distinct understanding of them.

I can now know even mathematical things with certainty.

sixth meditation

72 the objects of pure math exist since I perceive them clearly and distinctly. Contradictions are the only thing god doesn’t do.

73 I will examine the difference between imagination and intellection. There’s a difference in the kind of mental effort you need to do, between imagine and understand.

Intellection, understanding, turns the mind towards itself and gazes at the ideas within. Imagination turns the mind toward the body and considers something corresponding to already understood ideas or senses.

The body must exist to explain imagination.

74 less distinct things derive from sensation. Now I will inspect them.

75 I developed a lot of faith in my senses.

77 my senses could still be coming from within me

78

79 Some things exist against my will. Those things must be god or a body outside of me. They might not be as they appear, but the properties in them are as clear and distinct as math.

80

81 I am more like a pilot of the ship that is my body. Bodily necessities arise from the body.

If I’m a compound of mind and body, then the independent bodies around can affect me.

86 mind is inseparable, but body is. Mind is only affected by the brain.

87 mistakes like a person appearing and disappearing I would attribute to my brain. But mistakes of the mind don’t happen - I don’t have entire memories of a person come and go.

88

discourse on the method

part 1

Everyone is satisfied with the amount of sense of “what’s good” that they have. Growth in that sense comes from experience.

To be better or worse at it is an accident.

I got better with this method.

It might suck, but I’ll describe it anyways.

I thought studying was great, then I came to doubt everything I’d learned.

I still respect all the books out there.

If you don’t travel or travel too much, you’ll have a incorrect view of reality.

I liked people who spoke rationally.

I liked the precision of math.

I didn’t apply rationality to theology, out of respect.

There’s not a single matter in philosophy that’s not still in dispute.

I decided to explore and gain experience instead of degrees.

After I absorbed experiences of the world, I studied myself.

part 2

Creations made by one mind are designed better than those made of many compromising minds.

The flaws of communal design are worth expensive refactors. The flaws are often smoothed out over time.

Not everyone should be someone who decides how things are done. Especially not those who prefer to be told what to do.

I would have been that kind of person under some circumstances.

I followed four logical precepts:

  1. Don’t accept anything for true that I didn’t clearly know to be such.
  2. Divide difficulties into as many pieces as necessary to solve.
  3. Start with simplest thoughts and build them up to more complex.
  4. Be comprehensive with fleshing things out and getting reviews.

I thought all things could be logically reasoned. I built up simple structures.

I was able to solve difficult problems with this strategy.

The strategy also made my thinking clearer.

part 3

I have some maxims to live by.

  1. Follow the laws of the land
  2. Keep a steady resolve with the reasonable decisions I’ve made.
  3. Overcome myself instead of the world.

With these maxims, I traveled a lot.

part 4

I think therefore I am. It was so unshakable that I used it as the grounds for all my other thoughts.

I thought I had no body, and came up with dualism.

I decided that things I clearly and distinctly perceive are true.

God exists because there’s perfection.

God exists like triangles exist.

Without god, everything is much less certain.

We should use our clear reasoning. It’s obvious in retrospect, the times when our reasoning is more or less clear.

part 5

God exists and the soul exists.

I can’t put all my ideas in this treatise. The actions by which god created existence are the same by which he sustains it.

Man is different than animals.

Ranting about blood and circulatory system.

part 6

The mind is so dependant on the condition of the body that advancements in medicine are important.

More or fewer experiments make for more or less understanding of nature.

I pursue truth. Some truths I’ve found can’t be published or my freedom will be inhibited.

Discovering a thing for yourself lets you understand it better than understanding someone else’s thing.

25 Jan 2024