cartes mind. At this point he observes that his existence is dependent upon Gods existence, or that only God exists supremely/ultimately, while he and everything else exists contingent upon the existence of God. Descartes again confronts Gods existence in Meditations V. Here, Descartes attempts to fuse existence with essence. He postulates whether God may exist without any essence of Descartes thought. He asks, just because I think of some piece of knowledge that holds to truth and fact inside my head, does that automatically make it true? ...if just because I can draw the idea of something from my thought, it follows that all which I know clearly and distinctly as pertaining to this object (the triangle in Descartes mind) does really belong to it, may I not derive from this an argument demonstrating the existence of God? (171). Descartes first answers this question in the negative, stating that just because his knowledge holds to truth and fact, that does not mean that such a piece of knowledge exists anywhere throughout the world in the form that Descartes holds in his mind. However, upon further analysis, Descartes reverses his answer to the affirmative. He states that, from the fact that I cannot conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that there is any mountain or any valley in existence, but only that the mountain and the valley, whether they exist or do not exist, cannot in any way be separated one from the other, (172). Descartes uses this knowledge to affirm that just because the essence of his God (the God inside of his mind) may or may not exist, does not mean that the essence of God, Himself, does not exist. Consequently, Descartes concludes that the essence of God does exist, just as every mountain that exists is certain to have a valley. In Meditation IV, Descartes sets out to prove that the external world exists. To do this, Descartes first re-acknowledges the existence of the mind as a think...
