Examples Of Descartes Mind Body Dualism

Descartes has made a very interesting argument for the Mind Body Dualism theory. His theory brings the existence of God, the way our minds are the only thing that we can truly know, and the existence of innate ideas. Throughout the Meditations Descartes continues to question his own understanding of whatever consciousness really means and how the mind and body are two distinct concepts.

Descartes states that he can only be sure of one thing in his existence. He can be sure that he is a thinking entity. You cannot deny that you are thinking because to think that you cannot think is basically just circular nonsense. He summarizes this train of thought in this passage. “Here I make my discovery: thought exists; it alone cannot be separated

Could God be sending these impulses to our souls to simulate our existence or is this all real and part of his intelligent design. He argues later that he cannot argue with the fact that whatever we are experiencing is true. He concludes that God would not deceive us like this, so physical laws are real and so is God. God by his very nature is not provable so I do not understand this logic, but Descartes wants to make this connection. Once he makes the physical world and God, he can finally conclude that this all exists. His main takeaway is that God exists because of the physical laws and physical laws exist because of God. With Gods existence he can in his mind prove that the clear and distinct perspective of the

Trying to rationalize a religion that by its very nature is irrational and unprovable is not strong justification for his conclusions. As I have mentioned in my second one pager it is impossible to link the existence of God to the physical laws and theories of the modern day or even Euclidean geometry of his day. His linking of God to physical properties can be summarized in the following passage. “Nor can it be said that this idea of God is perhaps materially false and thus can originate from nothing…" (Descartes Meditation 31) Unfortunately, as a Christian he should know that the existence of God is not a physical phenomenon and is a faith-based system that relies on not having proof of God. I still find it curious that his clear and distinct ideas deduction was based on God being a non-deceiver. If you have read the Bible, you will clearly see that God is not a non-deceiver and routinely deceived his disciples to test their faith especially throughout the Old Testament. This circular reasoning that uses the physical world to explain God and vice-versa is not a logically viable argument since it really involves no real deductive reasoning and focuses on flawed induction from other philosophers’ and I’s