Nodes from afar..
Names in the Mirror..
Whom are you upon the Course.. is the going and the sewing within the knowing?
ship a slowing The Storm growing?
We'll have to see..A Question I suppose we must all face if not a we but an I then a what..
Indeed but a thought a seed.
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Meditation 1: Skepticism and the Method of Doubt
Descartes begins by reflecting on the unfortunate fact that he has had many false beliefs.[3] He sets out to devise a strategy to not just prevent having false beliefs but, more dramatically, to ensure that scientific research reveals truth, not error.
To avoid any false beliefs, his strategy is to doubt any belief he has that could be false or that he could be mistaken about.
His senses have deceived him before, so they could be deceiving him now, so he rejects all sensory-based beliefs. He reasons that if an alleged source of knowledge is sometimes deceptive, then it could always be deceptive, and so it should be rejected to find beliefs that cannot be false.He realizes that if he were asleep and dreaming, many of his beliefs would be false: e.g., if he were dreaming about walking somewhere, his belief that “he is walking,” would be false. Since he cannot ever tell if he is dreaming or not, this is further reason to doubt any beliefs from his senses: dreams appear the same as genuine experiences: they cannot be distinguished.[4]
He also realizes that he could be mistaken even about beliefs that seem clearly true to him, whether awake or dreaming, e.g., that “bachelors are unmarried.”[5] He could be mistaken, even about such beliefs, because he could be being deceived by some evil genius[6] or even God: this is possible and he cannot show that it is not his actual situation. Since Descartes wishes to reject any belief that could be false, that he could be mistaken about, he rejects even these beliefs.
The sciences, however, rely on beliefs not only about the physical world but also about mathematics, and by the end of Meditation 1, Descartes is tempted to rid himself of the desire to acquire knowledge altogether.[7]