Many people spend most of their lives contemplating what is actually real as opposed to what they think is real, and how they could ever know the difference. Numerous beliefs were once accepted by society as the absolute truth but are now known to be completely false, such as the shape of the earth or the idea that the earth was the centre of the universe. Some philosophers such as Rene Descartes encourage us to question the existence of almost anything. For instance, when we were children we were told to believe in figures like santa and the tooth fairy, but we, later on, found out that they were simply imaginary. This motivates the question of whether or not there are other things that we still believe to be real but we have yet to figure
…show more content…
As you are marking this unit sitting on a real chair drinking a real espresso, it is just as feasible that you could easily be dreaming about it and wake up any minute. You could actually be cozied up in a bed and what you thought was a real chair is nonexistent. In addition, seeing that we do not know that we are dreaming when we are dreaming, I question how one even knows that they are not dreaming right now. It can be argued that our senses can help us distinguish between the two, but I feel as if our senses are, at times, unreliable. How can we trust our senses if, like Descartes pointed out, our senses fail us and fool us all the time. When we are dreaming, we hear, see, and touch things that we perceive to be real which we later find out is not. As a result, this realization has sparked a considerable amount of skepticism in my mind. Nevertheless, one thing that Descartes assured after compelling me to call most forms of existence into question - Cogito Ergo Sum. Descartes’ theory, “I think, therefore I am”, is his belief that he can doubt anything but his own existence in view of the fact that any thought you have proves that you exist (Warburton, 51). He was sure that he was doubting and because of that, he must exist as a thinking thing. A doubt is a thought and if there is a doubt then there must be a thinker having those thoughts. In conclusion, from the knowledge I have gained so far from the two
As you are marking this unit sitting on a real chair drinking a real espresso, it is just as feasible that you could easily be dreaming about it and wake up any minute. You could actually be cozied up in a bed and what you thought was a real chair is nonexistent. In addition, seeing that we do not know that we are dreaming when we are dreaming, I question how one even knows that they are not dreaming right now. It can be argued that our senses can help us distinguish between the two, but I feel as if our senses are, at times, unreliable. How can we trust our senses if, like Descartes pointed out, our senses fail us and fool us all the time. When we are dreaming, we hear, see, and touch things that we perceive to be real which we later find out is not. As a result, this realization has sparked a considerable amount of skepticism in my mind. Nevertheless, one thing that Descartes assured after compelling me to call most forms of existence into question - Cogito Ergo Sum. Descartes’ theory, “I think, therefore I am”, is his belief that he can doubt anything but his own existence in view of the fact that any thought you have proves that you exist (Warburton, 51). He was sure that he was doubting and because of that, he must exist as a thinking thing. A doubt is a thought and if there is a doubt then there must be a thinker having those thoughts. In conclusion, from the knowledge I have gained so far from the two