So for example this is answered easily. We know say that bananas exist
and we know that they are yellow, edible, and have skin.
We have attributed and collected several things that we know for sure
about bananas.
However! how can we be sure about the existence of bananas? Or the
existence of anything in that matter? Let us break this down, most of
what we understand about say bananas is through our senses. We
understand the color of bananas because we see yellow, we taste the
sweetness of bananas. Descartes argues that maybe our senses are not
the most reliable and he argues for three levels of doubt.
The first is the doubt of illusion People have definently been tricked
by their senses before, as say, a colorblind person can get a color
wrong, or the example Descartes uses is a stick in water that looks
bent, but is straight. However, this theory is easily disproved
because we can use our other senses to bypass illusion most of the
time.
The second level of doubt is dreams. Do you know when you are
dreaming? Do you know if you are dreaming right now? Our consciousness
literally plays with our senses during dreams, so that it is hard to
tell during whether or not we are dreaming. However, Desecartes argues
that because dreams are not anachronistic (not chronilogical), that it
is easy to distinguish dreams as not reality.
The third level, is what he calls the "Malignant Demon", but in modern
day terms sounds like simulation theory. The previous two theories
suggest that there is a way for our senses to be tricked. In his case,
Desecartes argue that a demon may be controlling his experience of the
world, that there may not be a world at all even. It is very possible
in fact, there we could currently be in a simulation, everything we
know currently has the possibility to be a lie.
The one truth we do
know is that we are thinking, that we hold the ability to have these
conversations. So the one truth we do know is quite aptly
I THINK THEREFORE I AM
Souls intertwined influencing thoughts to bounce from one way to
another.
This power is intrinsic to each one of us, to inform, to manipulate,
to manifest.