tations discusses the nature of the human mind. According to the Bible, on the second day of creation, God made the firmament, and divided the waters from the waters. God called the firmament Heaven. (Bible Gen. 1:6) Descartes demonstrates his belief that the mind is free. This meditation is my favorite. In the beginning of it, Descartes seems so confused and lost. He questions every little thing around him and within himself. I recall a time in my own life when I felt like that. It was scary when I read this, for it brought back some very terrible memories of my time going through menopause! I, too, had questioned some of the exact same things he was questioning. My doctor informed me that I had a chemical imbalance in my brain due to the lack of estrogen my body was used to. Given my own personal experience, I see Descartes meditation in two ways. Perhaps Descartes also had some mental disorders, or else my doctor was wrong and I had reason to feel the way I felt. Perhaps the lack of estrogen in my system made me see things more clearly. I seriously doubt the latter explanation. However, in this meditation, Descartes is separating the mind from the brain, just as God had separated the waters and sky, and created Heaven. I think this meditation was, in almost every way, similar to day two in Genesis. In Genesis the waters and sky were separated. Both the waters and the sky are within the world. Unlike the waters or the sky, Heaven is an abstract thing. In Descartes analogy, the mind and the brain are both a part of a human being and they, too, are being separated. Unlike the physicality of the brain, the mind is abstract. Meditation Three in Meditations is Descartes opinion of whether or not God exists. Although he claims that he believes in God, he states that, I do not yet sufficiently know whether there even is a God. (Descartes 358) He also states, I understand what a thing is, what truth is, what thought...
