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Originally posted by Owain Hughes
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Larni69 ,
I then considered attentively what i was; and i was that while i could feign that i had no body, that there was no world, and that no place existed for me to be in, i could not fiegn that i was not; on the contrary, from the mere fact that i thought of doubting about other truths it evidentally and certainly followed that i existed. on the other hand, if i had mearly ceased to be conscious, even if everything else that i had ever imagined had been true, i had no reason to belive that i should still have existed. From this i recognized that i was a substance whose whole essence or nature is to be conscious and whose being requires no place and depends on no material thing.
Thus this self, that is to say the soul, by which i am what i am, is entirely distinct from the body, and is even more easily known; and even if the body were not there at all, the soul would be just what it is. After this i considered in general what is requisite to the truth and certainty of a proposition; for since i had just found one that i knew to have this nature, i thought i must also know what this certainty consists in. Observing that there is nothing at all in the statement 'i am thinking, therefore i exist' which assures me i speak the truth, except that i see very clearly that in order to think i must exist, i judged that i could take it as a general rule that whatever we conceive very clearly and very distinctly is true; only there is some difficulty in discerning what conceptions really are distinct. Next, i reflected on the fact that i was doubting, and that consequently my being was not wholly perfect (for i saw clearly that knowledge was a greater perfection than doubt).
I decided to enquire whence i learnt to think of something more perfect than myself, and i recognized it as evident that this idea must come from some nature that was really more perfect. As regard my ideas of many other external things-the sky, the earth, light, heat, and innumerable other subjects- i was not so much concerned to know there source; for i discovered nothing in them that appeared to make them higher than myself.
if they were true, they might depend on my own nature, in so far as it had some degree of perfection; if not, i might have got them from nothingness- they might be in me because i had some defect. But this could not hold good for the idea of an exsistance more perfect than my own; it was manifestly impossible to have got this from nothingness; and since it is no less contradictory that the more perfect should follow from and depend on the less perfect, then that something should proceed from nothing, like wise i could not have got it from myself.
so the only possibility left was to hold that the idea had been put in me by a nature really more perfect than myself and infact possessing all the perfections of which i could have any idea; that is to say, to explain myself in one word, by god. And to this i added that since i knew of some perfections that i did not posses, i was not the only being in exsistance, but that there must needs be some other more perfect being on whom i depended, and from whom i had received all that i had.
this was the original text you commented on, it is the writing of none other than 'Rene Descartes' i'm sure you've heard of him, being home schooled and all!
and this is a link to the thread about who not to trust, but it is largely irrelevant now as a fellow member of this forum has kindly given a balanced argument for what was was said.
the first post here entitled 'A guide to the evolutionist conspiracy'
I then considered attentively what i was; and i was that while i could feign that i had no body, that there was no world, and that no place existed for me to be in, i could not fiegn that i was not; on the contrary, from the mere fact that i thought of doubting about other truths it evidentally and certainly followed that i existed. on the other hand, if i had mearly ceased to be conscious, even if everything else that i had ever imagined had been true, i had no reason to belive that i should still have existed. From this i recognized that i was a substance whose whole essence or nature is to be conscious and whose being requires no place and depends on no material thing.
Thus this self, that is to say the soul, by which i am what i am, is entirely distinct from the body, and is even more easily known; and even if the body were not there at all, the soul would be just what it is. After this i considered in general what is requisite to the truth and certainty of a proposition; for since i had just found one that i knew to have this nature, i thought i must also know what this certainty consists in. Observing that there is nothing at all in the statement 'i am thinking, therefore i exist' which assures me i speak the truth, except that i see very clearly that in order to think i must exist, i judged that i could take it as a general rule that whatever we conceive very clearly and very distinctly is true; only there is some difficulty in discerning what conceptions really are distinct. Next, i reflected on the fact that i was doubting, and that consequently my being was not wholly perfect (for i saw clearly that knowledge was a greater perfection than doubt).
I decided to enquire whence i learnt to think of something more perfect than myself, and i recognized it as evident that this idea must come from some nature that was really more perfect. As regard my ideas of many other external things-the sky, the earth, light, heat, and innumerable other subjects- i was not so much concerned to know there source; for i discovered nothing in them that appeared to make them higher than myself.
if they were true, they might depend on my own nature, in so far as it had some degree of perfection; if not, i might have got them from nothingness- they might be in me because i had some defect. But this could not hold good for the idea of an exsistance more perfect than my own; it was manifestly impossible to have got this from nothingness; and since it is no less contradictory that the more perfect should follow from and depend on the less perfect, then that something should proceed from nothing, like wise i could not have got it from myself.
so the only possibility left was to hold that the idea had been put in me by a nature really more perfect than myself and infact possessing all the perfections of which i could have any idea; that is to say, to explain myself in one word, by god. And to this i added that since i knew of some perfections that i did not posses, i was not the only being in exsistance, but that there must needs be some other more perfect being on whom i depended, and from whom i had received all that i had.
this was the original text you commented on, it is the writing of none other than 'Rene Descartes' i'm sure you've heard of him, being home schooled and all!
and this is a link to the thread about who not to trust, but it is largely irrelevant now as a fellow member of this forum has kindly given a balanced argument for what was was said.
the first post here entitled 'A guide to the evolutionist conspiracy'
I worship Jesus: therefor I am Saved.
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), but can you prove to me why the Interwebs would not be possible without Einstein? 
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