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It is not enough to have a good mind.
The
main thing is to use it well.
If you would be a real seeker after truth,
it
is necessary that at least once in your life you
doubt,
as far as possible,
all things.
"The rational, analytical, objective
worldview implicit in the
discrete Cartesian self, separate and distinct from all other selves and their
environment, is a necessary and proper phase of human development. It is a
phase, however, that sets the stage for
a further phase, one that we
typically no longer experience. We remain therefore stuck in a perpetual
adolescence, waiting our whole lives for some momentous happening that never
happens. That our development remains arrested in the
analytic ego phase is necessary for
the continuation of society as we know it, for the perpetuation of
the World Under Control." -
Charles
Eisenstein
A method for
discovery of truth consists
of four rules:
Accept
nothing as true unless one has no doubt.
Divide up each problem into
as many parts as possible and resolve each in the best manner
possible.
Carry on reflections beginning with the most simple and
proceed little by little, to
knowledge of the most
complex.
Make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that
one can be certain of omitting nothing.
Common sense is, of all things
among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so
abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to
satisfy in everything else, do
not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already
possess.
It is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction it is
rather to be held as testifying that
the power of judging aright
and of distinguishing truth from
error, which is properly what is called common sense or
reason, is by nature equal in all men;
and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some
being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this,
that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and
do not fix our attention on the same
objects.
For to be possessed of
a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is to rightly apply it.
He truly engages in battle who
endeavors to surmount all the difficulties and errors which prevent him from
reaching the knowledge of truth.
I, Rene Descartes, hold in esteem
the studies of the schools.
I was aware that
the languages taught in them are
necessary to the understanding of
the writings of the ancients; that
the grace of narrative stirs the
mind; that the memorable deeds of
history elevate it; and, if read
with discretion, aid in forming the judgement; that the perusal of
all excellent books is to interview
with the noblest men of past ages and in which are
discovered only their
highest thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable force and beauty; that
poetry has its ravishing graces and
delights; that in the mathematics there are many refined
discoveries eminently suited
to gratify the inquisitive, as well as further all the arts an lessen the labor
of man; that numerous highly
useful precepts and exhortations to virtue are contained in treatises on
morals; that theology points out the path
to heaven; that philosophy
affords the means of discoursing with an appearance of truth on all
matters, and commands the
admiration of the simple; that jurisprudence,
medicine, and the other sciences,
secure for their cultivators
honors and bestow some attention upon all, even upon those abounding the
most in superstition
and error, that we may be in a position to
determine their real value, and
guard against being
deceived.
I, Rene Descartes, am not at all
astonished at
the extravagances attributed to
those ancient philosophers whose own writings we do not possess; whose
thoughts, however, I do not on that account suppose to have been really absurd,
seeing they were among the ablest men of their times, but only that these have
been falsely represented to us.
I am quite sure that the most devoted of
the followers of
Aristotle would think
themselves happy if they had the knowledge of nature he
possessed.
I, Rene Descartes, never accepted anything for true which
I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid
precipitancy and prejudice, and to
comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to
my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all
doubt.
I divide each of
the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might
be necessary for its adequate solution.
I
resolved to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects
the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and
little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more
complex; in accustoming my mind to the
compassion and
nourishment of truth, and to a distaste
for all such reasoning as were false.
The long chains of simple and easy reasoning by means of which
geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult
demonstrations, had led me to envision that all things, to the knowledge of
which man is competent, are mutually connected in the same way, and that there
is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that
we cannot discover it,
provided only we abstain from accepting the false for the true, and always
preserve in our thoughts the order necessary for the
deduction of one truth from
another.
Each truth discovered was a rule available
in the discovery of
subsequent ones.
Expediency seemed to dictate
that I should regulate my practice conformably to the opinions of those with whom
I should have to live; and it appeared
to me that, in order to ascertain the real opinions of such, I ought rather to
take cognizance of what they
practiced rather than of what they said, not only because, in
the corruption of our
manners, there are few disposed to
speak exactly as they believe,
but also because very many are not aware of what it is that they
really believe.
Something believed is different
from something known.
When it is not in our power to
determine what is true, we ought to
act according to what is most probable.
I, Rene
Descartes, have always endeavored to conquer
myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than
the order of the Earth, and in
general, accustom myself to the
persuasion
that, except our own thoughts,
there is nothing absolutely in our power.
If we consider all real objects as equally beyond our power,
we shall no more regret the absence of such real objects as appear due at birth, when
deprived of them without any fault of
our own.
I may state that it was my conviction that I could not do
better than continue in that in which I was engaged, viz., in devoting my whole
life to the culture of my reason, and
in making the greatest progress I was able in the knowledge of truth.
I, Rene Descartes, attentively examined
what I was.
I observed that I could envision that
I had no body, and that there
was no Earth nor any place in
which I might be, but I could not
envision that I was not; for I still was and that, on the contrary, from
the very circumstance that
I thought to doubt the
truth of other things,
it most clearly and certainly
followed that I was.
I, Rene Descartes, thence concluded that
I was a substance whose whole
essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist,
has no need of place, nor is dependent on anything real.
I, that is to say, the
mind by which
I am what I am,
is wholly distinct from the body, and
is even more easily known than
the body, and is such, that although the body were not, it would still
continue to be all that it is.
I think, therefore
I
am.
Although I, Rene
Descartes, might think that I was
dreaming, and that all which I saw or
imagined was false, I could not, nevertheless, deny that
the ideas were in reality in my
thoughts.
I was disposed straightway to search for other truths.
I, Rene Descartes, perceived that there was nothing at all in these
demonstrations which could assure me of the existence of their object: thus,
for example, supposing a triangle to be given, I distinctly perceived that its
three angles were necessarily equal to two right angles, but I did not on that
account perceive anything which
could assure me that any triangle existed.
The reason which leads many to persuade theirselves that there is a
difficulty in knowing this truth,
and even also in knowing what their mind really
is, is that they never raise their thoughts above
real objects, and are so accustomed to
consider nothing except by way of imagination, which is a mode of thinking
limited to real objects, that all that
is not imaginable appears to them not
intelligible.
The truth of
this is sufficiently manifest from the single
circumstance, that
the philosophers of the schools
accept as a maxim that there is nothing in the understanding which was not
previously in the senses, in which however it is certain that the ideas of
God and of the Soul have never been; and it appears to me that they who make
use of their imagination to
comprehend these ideas do
exactly the same thing as if, in order to hear sounds or
smell odors, they strove to avail
themselves of their eyes; unless indeed that there is this difference, that the
sense of sight does not afford us an inferior assurance to those of smell or
hearing; in place of which, neither
our imagination nor our senses can give
us assurance of anything unless our understanding intervene.
God is or exists because all that we possess is
derived from God.
Whence it follows that our ideas or notions,
which to the extent of their clearness and distinctness are real, and proceed
from God, must to that extent be true.
Whereas we not
infrequently have ideas or
notions in which some falsity is contained, this can only be the case when we
proceed from lack of knowledge.
After the knowledge
of God and of the soul has rendered us certain,
we can easily understand
that the truth of reason we experience when
awake, ought not in the
slightest degree to be called in question on account of the illusions of our
dreams.
we know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming occur within
a false reality.
Whether
awake or asleep, we ought never
to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the
evidence of our reason.
It must be noted that I, Rene Descartes, say of
our reason, and not of our imagination.
It is not a dictate of reason that what we thus see or
imagine is in reality existent.
I have also observed certain laws established in
nature by God, that after we
have reflected sufficiently upon these, we can not
doubt that they are accurately
observed in all that exists or takes place on the Earth and farther, by
considering the concatenation of these laws, it appears to me that I have
discovered many truths more
useful and more important than all I had before
learned, or even had expected to
learn.
If God were now to create
somewhere in the imaginary
spaces matter sufficient to compose a universe
and were to agitate variously and confusedly the different parts of this
matter, so that there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets
ever feigned, and after that did nothing more than lend ordinary concurrence to
nature, and allow nature to act in accordance with the
laws of nature which God had
established, the result, by necessity, would be as our reality is.
I, Rene Descartes, have pointed out what are the
laws of nature; and, with no other
principle upon which to found my reasoning except the
infinite perfection of God, I
endeavored to demonstrate all those about which there could be any room for
doubt, and to prove that they are
such, that even if God had created more worlds, there could have been none in
which these laws were not observed.
An opinion commonly received among
theologians, that
the action by which God now
sustains the universe is the same with that by which he originally created
it; so that even although God had from
the beginning given it no other form than that of
chaos, provided only God had
established certain laws of nature, and
had lent it concurrence to enable it to act as it is wont to do, it may be
believed, without discredit to the
miracle of creation, that, in this way alone,
things purely material might, in
course of time, have become such as we observe them at present; and their
nature is much more easily envisioned when they are beheld coming in this
manner gradually into existence, than when they are only considered as produced
at once in a finished and perfect state.
I,
Rene Descartes, perceived it to be
possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life; so
natural to our minds that no one can so
much as imagine himself ignorant of it; and
in light of the speculative
philosophy usually taught in the schools, to
discover a practical means
by which to know the force and action of fire, water, air,
the stars, the
heavens, and all the other bodies
that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various
crafts of our
artisans, we might also apply them in
the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus render
ourselves the lords and possessors of nature.
And this is a result to
be desired, not only in order to the invention of an
infinity of arts, by which we might
be enabled to enjoy without any trouble the fruits of the Earth, and all its
comforts, but also and especially for the preservation of health, which is
without doubt, of all the blessings of this life, the first and fundamental
one.
I examined what were the first and most
ordinary effects that could be deduced from these causes; and it appears to me
that, in this way, I have found knowledge of the heavens and on
Earth knowledge of water, air, fire,
minerals, and other things which of all others are the most common and simple,
and hence the easiest to know.
I, Rene Descartes,
have essayed to find general principles, deducing them from certain germs of truths
naturally existing in our minds.
It is necessary also to confess
that the power of nature is so ample and vast, and these principles so simple
and general, that I have hardly observed a single particular effect which I
cannot at once recognize as capable of being deduced by
mankind.
Thereupon, turning over in my mind, the
real objects that had ever been
presented to my senses I freely venture to state that I have never observed any
which I could not satisfactorily explain by the
laws of nature.
I, Rene Descartes, am confident that there is no one,
even among those whose profession it is, who does not admit that all that is
presently known is almost nothing in comparison of what remains to be
discovered.
I incite men of superior genius to strive to proceed
farther, by contributing, each according to his inclination and ability, to the
necessary experiments, and also by informing the public of all they might
discover, so that, by the
last beginning where those before them had left off, and
thus connecting the lives and
labors of many, we might collectively proceed much farther than each by himself
could do.
I, Rene Descartes, am now in a position to
discern, as I think, with sufficient
clearness what course must be taken to make the
majority of those experiments which
may conduce to this end: but I perceive likewise that they are such
and so numerous, that neither my hands nor my
income, though it were a thousand times larger than it is, would be sufficient
for them all; so that according as henceforward I shall have the means of
making more or fewer experiments, I shall in the same proportion make greater
or less progress in the knowledge of nature.
I had hoped to make known
the treatise I had written, and so clearly to exhibit
the advantage that would thence accrue to mankind, as to induce all who have
the common good of man at heart,
that is, all who are virtuous in truth, and
not merely in appearance, or according to opinion, as well to communicate to me
the experiments they had already made, as to assist me in those that remain to
be made.
I neither have so high an
opinion of myself as to be willing
to make promise of anything
extraordinary, nor feed on imaginations
so vain as to fancy that the public must be much interested in my
designs.
If I, Rene Descartes,
were to publish the principles of my philosophy: for although they are almost
all so evident that to assent to them no more is needed than simply to
understand them, and although there is not one of them of which I do not expect
to be able to give demonstration, yet, as it is
impossible that they can be
in accordance with all the diverse opinions of others, I foresee that I
should frequently be turned
aside from my grand design, on occasion of
the opposition which they would be sure to
awaken.
I may say that such individuals have an interest in my
refraining from publishing the principles of the my philosophy; for, since
these are of a category the simplest and most evident, I should, by publishing
them, do much the same as if I were to throw open the windows, and allow the
light of day to enter.
I, Rene
Descartes, resolved by no means to consent to their publication during my
lifetime, lest either the oppositions or the controversies to which they might
give rise, or even the reputation, such as it might be, which they would
acquire for me, should be any occasion of my losing the time that I had set apart for my
own inquiries and life.
For though it be true that every one is bound
to promote to the extent of his ability the good of others, and that to be
useful to no one is really to be worthless, yet it is likewise true that our
cares ought to extend beyond the present, and it is good to omit doing what
might perhaps bring some profit to the living, when we have in view the
accomplishment of other ends that will be of much greater advantage to those
yet to be born.
Even superior men have no reason
for any great anxiety to
know these laws of nature, for if what
they desire is to be able to speak of all things, and to acquire
a reputation for learning, they will gain their end more easily by remaining
satisfied with the appearance of truth, which can be found without much
difficulty in all sorts of matters, than by seeking the truth itself which
unfolds itself but slowly and obliges us to freely confess our
ignorance.
I, Rene
Descartes, do not wish to forestall the
judgements of others by
speaking myself of my writings;
but it will gratify me if they be examined, and, to afford the greater
inducement to this I request all who may have any
objections to make them.
I have resolved to devote what time I may
still have to live to no other
endeavor other than acquiring some
knowledge of laws of nature, the
reality of the cause is established by the reality of the effect.
Rene Descartes
It is likely that Rene Descartes died of
arsenic
poisioning while tutoring Queen Cristina of
Sweden.
Enlightenment comes
from brief insights into
the nature of things. Although such
insights are rare and
difficult to sustain they allow us to understand the basis of our desires and
grant us the virtue to control those desires.
Those who have mastery
over their desires will have a healthy regard of others as they see them as
equally capable of a virtuous will. Those who
possess this knowledge of themselves readily come to believe that any other
individual can have the same knowledge about themselves because this knowledge
involves nothing which depends on anything outside of the self.
Those who have mastery over their desires are
self-assured and confident and have mastery over their
fear and anger.
Contentment through virtue is attained
by acceptance of the reality that the only things we actually control are the
only things that we should concern ourselves with.
"The
Scientific Method
relies for its supra-cultural validity on principles that are themselves among
its own assumptions. The logic
of its justification is circular.
A parallel would be an aborigine
insisting, "Okay, let's settle this question of whether scientific experiment
or dreaming is the way to true
knowledge once and for all . . . Let's settle it by entering the
dreamtime and asking the ancestors."
It is hard to imagine, but the principal assumptions of
objectivity and determinism that
lie at the foundation of the
Scientific Method
are by no means shared by all the world's traditions of thought.
A non-objective, non-deterministic, coherent
system of thought is possible.
It is more than possible: it is
necessary given the impending collapse of the world of the discrete and
separate self that we have wrought.
Necessary in light of the new scientific
revolution of the last hundred years.
Our ways of thinking and being are not
working anymore." - Charles Eisenstein |
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This website defines a
new perspective with which to engage reality to which its author adheres. The
author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has
created a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has
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agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race.
Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious
practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This
web site marks the founding of a system of philosophy named The Truth of the
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requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church
buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a
personal relation with the Creator and Sustainer through the pursuit of the
knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has
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crime."
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and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered
behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on
cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a gun.
American
social mores and values have declined precipitously over the last century as
the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more power. This power
rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general through corporate media
by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population
through prior corporate media psychological operations. The results have been
the destruction of the family and the destruction of social structures that do
not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world.
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population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt
international elite that further consolidates their power and which further
their purposes.
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