How can you know that anything is real?
While we are dreaming, we don’t know we are dreaming.
The French philosopher Descartes, often called the father of modern philosophy, stated that:
‘Some years ago I noticed how many false things I had accepted as true in my childhood, and
how doubtful were the things that I subsequently built on them’.
Each of us grows up having many beliefs about who we are, some that serve us and some that limit our potential to be extraordinary.
However, our beliefs about ourselves and about what we can achieve are certainly not fixed. What controls our beliefs is our thinking, and our thinking is malleable – thus are beliefs must also be open to change. In order to regain control of our life, we first must remember that we are thinking creatures and that our thoughts have the capacity to influence the quality of our lives.
Whenever we accept a thought into our life as true, we download it into our brains and it becomes part of our conditioning. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it true. We have the capacity to think but none of our thoughts are absolute truths. Therefore, just as we have the ability to accept certain thoughts and beliefs, we also have the ability to reject certain thoughts and beliefs. We are in full control of our thinking. In fact, thinking is the only thing we can do, and the quality of our thinking dictates the quality of our lives.
Descartes also states that:
‘Everything that I accepted as being most true up to now I acquired from the senses or through the senses. However, I have occasionally found that they deceive me, and it is prudent never to trust those
who have deceived us, even if only once’.
Modern studies and research in the sciences of neurobiology and psychology have proven that our perception creates our reality. The reality that we perceive is created in our mind through our senses- what we see, hear, and feel.
Allow me to shine some light on that thought. Our senses are found on the border of our bodies if you will – they are found between the external world and the interior world of the self.
We know that we use our senses to perceive the world outside of us, but how do our senses really work?
The outside world is basically just meaningless information, and we use our senses to make sense of the world. However, our senses receive a large amount of information, and then our mind gives meaning to this information based on our knowledge and experience.
Our mind receives this information and then the information goes through a process where it is influenced, distorted, and generalized based on such minor factors as our past experiences, our mood that day, our hunger and energy levels, the social group around us, and more.
We then give meaning to what we perceive and create our reality based on what is left after this filtering process. While we are convinced that we experience the world as it really is, this is a naive assumption, as we do not see the world as it is.
This knowledge can also help us to understand each other better and look past our individual differences, as we become aware that everyone perceives the world in a different way based on their own unique experiences and circumstances.
Descartes’ journey
I think, therefore I am.
Descartes decides to go on a journey to discover the fundamental principles of existence that are absolutely true without any doubt.
Descartes begins his meditation with the idea that we cannot know anything to be true beyond all doubt with certainty. He himself has found that many things he believed to be certain were, in fact, false, and thus comes to the conclusion that even his senses are not trustworthy.
This is because we could be dreaming and, in dreams, we are convinced we are awake until we actually wake up. So, Descartes decides to discard all beliefs that cannot be true with absolute certainty.
Descartes then realizes that the one thing he can be certain of is his own existence. He thinks:
Even if nothing else exists, I must exist because if everything is false, who is doing the thinking?
So as long as I am doing the thinking, I exist, because if I am doubting existence, who is doing the doubting? So, if there is doubt there must be thought, and thus a thinker of those thoughts.
So, if I am thinking, I must exist.
Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that anything that is capable of thought must certainly exist, hence the famous quote ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’.
