emon become reality, Bouwsma has severely undermined the validity of Descartes' argument. If the illusions of the evil demon become reality, then they cannot call into doubt all but Descartes' assertion that he is a thinking thing, and thus Descartes' arguments are effectively crippled. Bouwsma believes that if Descartes' supposition about the evil demon in some way violates reason, then the consequence is that he must have doubted what cannot be reasonably called into doubt and thus would not have sufficiently lowered his foundation of knowledge. So has Bouwsma rendered Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy outdated and ineffectual? No, because Bouwsma is mistaken when he argues that the dream world of his second adventure is reality. I am defining an illusion as something that is falsely believed to exist or a false belief about reality. Reality may be considered to be that which exists in the world. The world of the first adventure is an illusion, because it and everything in it are imitations designed to fool Tom. When Tom recognizes that everything is in truth paper, the illusion ceases to have meaning for him. The world of the second adventure is different because while what Tom perceives may be real to him, in actuality it lacks real existence. Tom may be able to reach out and touch the flowers, he may experience them just like they were real flowers, however, the fact remains that real flowers have a separate existence of their own, they are "alive" in a way that fails to be summed up through sight, smell, or touch. A better example of this is Milly, Tom's "friend and dear", who is perceived by Tom as being real in this dream world, and who acts as she would have before the demon destroyed everything but Tom, but who does not exist. A "real" person has their own senses and perception, their own thoughts, yet the evil demon destroyed everything except for Tom and replaced it with illusion. All that exists in ...
