Meditation One in Meditations coincides with day one of God's creation of the world. In the Bible, "God divided the light from the darkness." (Bible Gen. 1:3) In Descartes' work, day one consisted of separating our senses from reality. "[T]here are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep." (Descartes 352) Descartes is actually questioning whether or not the bodies we reside in actually exist or if we are in a continual dream state. I feel that Descartes' intent in his first entry was

Meditation Two in Meditations 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 Four in Descartes' writing concerns truth and falsity. On this fourth day, Descartes deals with perception to a large extent. It is as if his perceptions determine what is real and what is not. He seems upset with the fact that God did not create him as a perfect human, incapable of err. God, being perfect in all respects, should have created man perfect as well, but He didn't. Descartes states many times in this section, "I have no cause for complaint on the grounds that God has given me a greater power of understanding, greater light of nature, or a will that has a wider scope...." (Descartes 367) Descartes goes on to state, "I have come to know with certainty only that I and God exist..." (Descartes 365) While reading this, I felt as if Descartes was literally trying to co

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Approximate Word count = 1676
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)