In his famous treatise Meditation six, Rene Descartes struggles to come to grips with the material world and how we perceive it. He explores the causal relationship between mind and body. Descartes manages to convince himself that he does indeed exist, simply because he is capable of THOUGHT.

He is able to synthesize his hypothesis with one of the most iconic slogans in Western Civilization:

“I think, therefore I am.“

He determines that the act of thinking in itself is essential to our being [our spirit/soul]; whereas occupying a physical body does not necessarily contribute to this process.

Descartes is a Dualist, therefore he believes that the mind and the body both exist as part of a whole individual; but clearly they are two separate – though intimately related – things.

His Meditation is a method of proving in his own mind that God exists. To achieve this, Descartes uses the ontological argument that God necessarily exists simply due to the fact that we have an idea of God. That we are able to perceive ‘Him’ is proof enough.

In Meditation Six, Rene Descartes also tries to make the connection between the physical world and our thoughts and dreams. He is concerned with the interaction that takes place between the Mind, the Brain, and the Body.

Descartes concludes that God is not a deceiver and the physical world which we perceive is not an illusion.

The physical world does in fact exist; however the Earthly body we occupy is not necessarily the essence of our ‘being.’ He contends that we are trapped in this material [holographic?] universe for the time being, and there’s nothing we can do about it until we die and cast off this mortal coil.

Although he can come to terms with some aspects of this physical realm we inhabit, in Meditation Six, Descartes is able to illustrate how very little can actually be proven. He declares that he is his Mind, but his Body is simply an ‘extension’ of his True self.

He concludes that The Mind is connected to the ‘immortal soul,’ reincarnating through an infinite number of lifetimes over the millennia. Crucially, Descartes can imagine himself without a physical body, but he can’t imagine himself without his thoughts, his dreams or his beliefs.

Descartes concludes that his perceptions of reality are essentially true, and that the world we live in is real and not a ‘Matrix’-like illusion. But to what extent and for what purpose remains unknown…and unknowable.

In trying to come to some sort of closure on the matter, Descartes sticks to the most basic and clear-cut concepts. He concludes that his perceptions are not wrong because God is not a deceiver.

Descartes understands that we make mistakes when we base our conclusions on wrong ideas; thus he makes hardly any firm conclusions as to the True Nature of anything except for the fact that:

1. HE EXISTS
2. HE IS PERCEIVING A REALITY THAT IS REAL AND NOT SOME SORT OF ‘COSMIC JOKE’

Rene Descartes begins Meditation Six by doubting everything, but in the end, he is able to come to some reasonable and logical conclusions about the workings of the universe we live in. To his own satisfaction, at least.

Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: “I drink, therefore I am”
-Monty Python, The Philosopher’s Song

He may not have been a drunken fart, but after surviving the last couple of years of Donald Trump, I’m not so sure I agree with item number TWO…

Reality may not be a cosmic joke, but is there still a punchline?