In the Johnny Quest episode, The Robot Spy, there are elements that can relate back to Descartes. Distinguishing between a “res cogitan” and a “res extensa” Descartes creates the idea of a thinking thing while the second refers to a thing extended. In the episode, the robot spy appears to be a technological version of a thinking thing. Thus, it has few attachments to its body. The eye provides a main focus point, from which the body is an extension of. One of Descartes’ main principles is his “inspection on the part of the mind alone” (68). Leading to Descartes’ belief “Knowing the contents of consciousness as opposed to knowing” a single thing outside the mind, and an emphasis that one must think from the inside out by understanding quantitative …show more content…
Zinn and Dr. Quest show the different ways to possess nature. Just recognizing the differences in their names: “Dr. Zinn” sounds remarkably similar to sin, and “Dr. Quest” could elude to the idea of a vision quest. Building the robot spy, Dr. Zinn intended to collect information from the Para Power Ray Gun, for nefarious deeds. But Dr. Quest, originally, created the gun with the power to “disable but will not kill” to preserve life. Regardless of this respite of a bit of nature, Dr. Quest buys in completely to science, even willing to pick up a rifle for science. Also, he has little compunction about shooting down the robot spy’s vessel and having it crash, probably hurting the area where it crashes. Displaying a level of scientific optimism, Dr. Quest yells “it’s got to work ... More power!” he believes that science will work as he believes that it has to work. The characters are unconcerned on the damage to the area after the vessel crash-lands, only concerned with their next face-off with Dr. Zinn stating “and we’ll be ready” to handle Dr. Zinn next time. In addition to Dr. Quest’s disregard for nature, Descartes encourages his readers to work to become masters and possessors of nature. Descartes could not care less about nature and wanted people to control and use nature to their advantage discounting any care of nature …show more content…
The tangible characteristics are no longer present, and the wax melts. The melting, replaces the honey flavor with nothing, the flower scent with no scent, the cold and hard become the hot and liquid, the wax becomes too hot to touch let alone make a noise when rapped upon, the color changes, the shape shifts, and the size increases. Thus, everything Descartes thought to note about the wax had changed or disappeared. In his original description, he relied only upon his sense to explain the wax. But after that has failed him, Descartes calls into doubt his senses and decides to define the wax without the use of his senses. The problem Descartes runs into with this line of thinking is he now is trusting his senses to discount what his sense told him a first time. Therefore, Descartes must neglect to use his senses for the new description of the wax. Leaving his only knowledge of the wax to be its condition to change, Descartes’ new description of the wax states “only that it is something extended, flexible, and mutable … rather, I perceive it through the mind alone” (67-68). Descartes limits his knowledge from qualitative descriptions and only uses quantitative measures from his
7 - What is the point of Descartes ' discussion of the piece of wax? That is, why does he talk about it?
This same line of reasoning is used to describe the body and mind’s essences and necessary properties. A thinking thing can exist with it’s sole essence being thought and other modifications(modes) of thought such as affirming and denying, willing and unwilling. According to Descartes the mind is conscious and non-extended, whereas the body is extended but not conscious. Descartes uses these essences as evidence that the mind and body are two completely different things that essentially have nothing in
In conjunction with this theory, any matter is known through the mind. This reasoning was used as a basis toward the dualism of the mind and body. The mind is a thinking entity. It has the ability to imagine, dream, and ultimately encompass the aspects that are not fundamentally matter. The body exists outside the mind. It is the connection to the external world based on the scientific properties of mass, size, shape, and motion. Descartes argues that the mind is distinct from the body. The mind thinks and does not have scientific properties. One’s body is a non-thinking thing. This distinction leads Descartes to conclude that the mind is not the same as the body. There is no characteristic that is categorized as both mind and body; the body can be changed, the mind cannot. In continuation, the mind can exist without the body and the body can exist without the mind since each thing is distinct. Descartes later explains how the brain is not the same as the mind. The brain is the connection between the mind and body in a human being. Descartes argues that matter cannot be the same as anything mental. The mind is affected by the brain, providing one with insight into the external world. Also, the mind can influence the brain, hence one’s body being controlled by the mind. However, it is possible for the brain to cease functionally and the mind to still operate. Essentially, one can conclude that the
Claiming that the different senses have perceived in him the way once was before it came in contact with the heat, but still remains the same, although being perceived in a different way, but with the same senses as before except for it being liquid after the heat but remains with the same other traits he mentioned. Therefore, this is how he establishes his claim of the Aristotelian intellect and Cogito inference by rejecting everything and doubting its existence and separating the nature of the body and mind as the body being a non-extended thinking thing such as the senses, and the mind being a thinking thing that can extend. Descartes states that he perceives the wax through the mind alone and says that perception is not an imagination, touching or seeing but it is an inspection of the mind
According to Descartes, the essence of material substance is simply extension, the property of filling up space. (Med. V) So solid geometry, which describes the possibility of dividing an otherwise uniform space into distinct parts, is a complete guide to the essence of body. It follows that there can be in reality only one extended substance, comprising all matter in a single spatial whole. From this, Descartes concluded that individual bodies are merely modes of the one extended being, that there can be no space void of extension, and that all motion must proceed by circular vortex. Thus, again, the true nature of bodies is understood by pure thought, without any information from the senses.
Descartes is hopeful to prove subsistence of the external world (physical objects located in space), and so he returns to a very basic stage and acknowledges the existence of minds as an immaterial substance and God. He then accepts that matter exists as long as it is not a projection of his own mind or God. As Descartes previously established the existence of God as a perfect being, he therefore has concluded that God is not a deceiver. This very clear concept leads him to accept his clear and distinct sensory experiences are a result of external objects of material nature. Once these corporeal things (objects of a tangible, material nature) can be considered as self-evident ideas, they can no longer be products of the mind or God.
...rity and distinction, but we can conclude what Descartes means. He is saying that we can be sure that these primary qualities exist in bodies in the same way that they do in our ideas of bodies. This cannot be claimed for qualities such as heat, color, taste and smell, of which our ideas are so confused and vague that we must always reserve judgment. This can be seen in the wax example.
How do we know what we know? Ideas reside in the minds of intelligent beings, but a clear perception of where these ideas come from is often the point of debate. It is with this in mind that René Descartes set forth on the daunting task to determine where clear and distinct ideas come from. A particular passage written in Meditations on First Philosophy known as the wax passage shall be examined. Descartes' thought process shall be followed, and the central point of his argument discussed.
Descartes makes a careful examination of what is involved in the recognition of a specific physical object, like a piece of wax. By first describing the wax in a manner such that “everything is present in the wax that appears needed to enable a body to be known as distinctly as possible” (67), he shows how easily our senses help to conceive our perception of the body. But even if such attributes are modified or removed, we still recognize the changed form, as the same piece of wax. This validates Descartes’ claim that “wax itself never really is the sweetness of the honey, nor the fragrance of the flowers, nor the whiteness, nor the shape, nor the sound” (67), and the only certain knowledge we gain of the wax is that “it is something extended, flexible, and mutable” (67). This conclusion forces us to realize that it is difficult to understand the true nature of the wax, and its identity is indistinguishable from other things that have the same qualities as the wax. After confirming the nature of a human mind is “a thinking thing” (65), Descartes continues that the nature of human mind is better known than the nature of the body.
René Descartes was the 17th century, French philosopher responsible for many well-known philosophical arguments, such as Cartesian dualism. Briefly discussed previously, according to dualism, brains and the bodies are physical things; the mind, which is a nonphysical object, is distinct from both the brain and from all other body parts (Sober 204). Sober makes a point to note Descartes never denied that there are causal interactions between mental and physical aspects (such as medication healing ailments), and this recognition di...
Unlike one of empiricism’s major tenets, Tabula Rasa, or blank slate, Descartes believed that the mind was not a blank slate, but actually came pre-loaded, if you will, with ideas, which are part of our rational nature and that our rational nature allows us to grasp . Descartes begins his journey deep within his own mind by claiming that all truths can be conceived by thinking about them. He calls his method cogito or pure reasoning. His famous words “I think, therefore I am,” describes the way that he thinks the mind is the true reality with the rest of reality being an extension. His example to prove thi...
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing”. [1] The concept that the mind is an intangible, thinking entity while the body is a tangible entity not capable of thought is known as Cartesian Dualism. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Descartes tries to prove that the mind or soul is, in its essential nature, entirely distinct from the
But his habitual ideas and opinions are still present no matter how hard he tries not to present them, to solve this problem he decides that all of his opinions are false. Descartes finds himself certain about one thing that nothing is certain. Resorting back to the idea that his senses are the only way he is able to obtain the truth in life, he believes that his senses are apart of his mind and body. He uses a honeycomb to examine this topic that the body and mind are one. The wax changes shape therefore he uses imagination to understand it
Descartes is a very well-known philosopher and has influenced much of modern philosophy. He is also commonly held as the father of the mind-body problem, thus any paper covering the major answers of the problem would not be complete without covering his argument. It is in Descartes’ most famous work, Meditations, that he gives his view for dualism. Descartes holds that mind and body are com...
...nclude, Ryle is correct in his challenge of Descartes’ Cartesian dualism, the mind and body are not two separate parts as dictated by dualist, rather the working of the mind are not distinct from the body. As a result, an observer can understand the mind of another through the actions of the body. It is the combination that makes up a human, human, as they are one and the same.