Analysis Of Simulation Argument By Descartes

Cannot Trick Us Life is filled with a lot of "I knows" and "I don't know", but is it really possible we really do not know? A scenario is given where the world as we know it is nothing more than a computer simulation or a complex digital video game. Everything around is fake, made out of ones and zeroes, and all the knowledge we have compiled are nothing but deceptions that have been planted for just the purpose of deceiving us. This is considered to be the "Simulation Argument" (Penenberg). A similar argument where the world is a deception, called the "evil genius" argument, was thought of by philosopher Descartes (Descartes 168). In so much deception can we claim we have knowledge? Descartes argues that we have knowledge and that even

If this were the case that means that it follows basic programming laws, which we have knowledge of, where data or information is put through an algorithm to execute a command or product. Descartes says that "arithmetic, geometry, and other such disciplines .. contain something certain and indubitable" which is to us knowledge we understand. Thus things such as numbers 1,2,3 and shapes like triangles, squares and circles are things that we have knowledge of. This follows that simple characteristics such as "shape of extended things, their quantity or size, their number" is knowledge we have along with understanding of systems (Descartes 167). This leads to presume that even in a simulation such concepts can traverse from the so called "real world" to the simulated

Descartes remarks that painters, "even if they concoct something so utterly novel that its likes have never been seen before, certainly at the very minimum the colors from which the painters compose the thing ought to be true" (Descartes 167). The remark that Descartes brings up is that even creations made up from the imagination "simply intermingle" different elements from knowledge (Descartes 167). Take a chair for instance, that the basic concept of a chair is, an object that is used to sit on. The idea itself could easily be an idea from the "real world", as well as many other things we have now. Thus, we can have knowledge of things in the "real world" even if they do not match the appearance of objects we have here, like vehicles and the concept of something that reduces time of travel from one location to another or shelter that protects ones person from the elements. Even the knowledge of a body is also given to us, where the body is the tool for the mind to interact with a physical domain no matter what form it