writing is about the essence of material things and the existence of God. To be honest, I find the next two sections of this work to be almost exactly the same as the first four. The major difference in the last two sections of his work is that he uses different examples to demonstrate the same thing as the first four sections. The fifth meditation relates to the fifth day of creation in the Bible in that they both deal with the essence of material things rather than thoughts, feelings, or ideas. In the Bible, living creatures and plants are created on the fifth day. In Descartes Meditations, he questions the difference between his own thoughts and things that do or do not exist. Finally, Descartes is convinced that the truth and certainty of all science depends upon the knowledge of the true God. By coming to this realization, Descartes now believes he is capable of attaining perfect knowledge about anything. This belief is based upon his understanding of mathematics. The Sixth Meditation concerns the existence of material things and the distinction between mind and body. On the sixth day of creation God created man. Descartes says he is a thinking thing and his essence consists entirely in his being a thinking thing. He also came to the conclusion that he does not need his body to survive. He believes he has a soul and that his soul, being separate from his body, can survive without his body. His findings on this day uphold the story in the Bible. Not only did God create man in the physical sense, but in a spiritual sense as well. In conclusion, there is an excellent quotation Id like to share that I felt really summed up the entire writing. Hence I should no longer fear that those things that are daily shown me by the senses are false. On the contrary, the hyperbolic doubts of the last few days ought to be rejected as ludicrous. (Descartes 377) The thought processes Descartes used and the ideas he came up with were very interesting -...
