Was he for real?
|
The real question is: Is there anything we
can think of which, by the mere fact that we can think of it, is shown
to exist outside of our thought? If yes is the right answer, there is a
bridge from pure thought to things, if not, not.
|
Bertrand Russell, (1872 – 1970)
|
That I am because I think may very well be
the only
instance where it seems possible to assert the existence of something –
me – by merely thinking of it. An assertion that only the thinker
himself
can establish. His wife, tossing the thinker’s smelly socks into the
washer,
will go by different criteria.
This still
leaves the thinker with a problem. Before Rene Descartes (1596 –
1650) came to
announce his "in dubito, in
cogito, ergo sum," he considered the
possibility that his thoughts could be the dream in the mind of a
demon. If so,
how are we to tell the difference whether the demon or we is thinking? “Existence” is a tricky subject. Grammar,
logic and syntax know of no difference between a lion and a unicorn;
they only
know of the order of words and how words relate to each other. Whether
a
unicorn can be as real as a lion, whether such lovely beast exists at
all, is
not to be decided by merely talking about it, nor can it be resolved in
a
syllogism. Even an algorithm cannot prove existence. What is needed is
trustworthy testimony; whether by witnesses or by some kind of
recording device.
With this
out of the way, Descartes moved on to a valid ontological observation: "I perceived
that there was nothing at all in these demonstrations which could
assure me of
the existence of their object: 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." In other words there is a purely
intellectual sphere underpinning all things, unconcerned, transcendent,
and
resting secured in quiet eternity, a place where the value of the
number pi will always be 3.1415926535897 and
counting, even in a Universe lacking curves and circles or containing
nothing
at all.
Arcane as this may seem, in the 17th
century, this could get you into serious trouble. It was still an age
of
thumbscrews and auto-da-fés, a time where begging to differ in
matters of
religious doctrine was a sure way of courting death. The runaway friar,
Giordano Bruno (1548 –
1600), stated his
case for an infinite universe with "an infinite number of worlds
like
the Earth, on each a Garden of Eden. In all these Gardens of Eden, half
the
Adams and Eves will not eat the fruit of knowledge, and half will. But
half of
infinity is infinity, so an infinite number of worlds will fall from
grace and
there will be an infinite number of crucifixions" (Giordano
Bruno,
On the Cause, Principle, and Unity, 5th dialogue). On May 22, 1592, Bruno was charged with
blasphemy, with holding
heretic opinions about the trinity and the incarnation of Christ, with
writing
libel against the Catholic clergy and being in error about
transubstantiation
and liturgy, with claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and
their
eternity, with belief in metempsychosis and the transmigration of the
human
soul into brutes and with denying the virginity of Mary. After seven
years on
death row he ran out of renounceable recantations and they burned Bruno
alive when
Descartes was just five years old, a bundle of gargling pain with a gag
in his
mouth, to prevent memorable last words. In 1619, Descartes was serving
in the
army of the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria when the executioner cut out the
tongue
of Lucilio Vanini and strangled him as an atheist. It was the beginning
of the
Thirty-Year-War. Descartes resigned his commission and returned to
France. He witnessed
Richelieu’s campaign against La Rochelle, sold his possessions,
invested wisely
in bonds and sought refuge in the Dutch Republic, while in Rome Galileo was
made to “recant” on his knees for looking through a telescope. Holland was a Protestant country, but
Protestantism
was no safe haven either. In Geneva, the “reformer” Calvin, with
serene self-righteousness
condemned Michael Servetus (1509 –
1553), a fellow refugee from the
Inquisition, to burn at the stake for his
opinions on the Holy Trinity. Servetus
was a physician and the first European to
describe the pulmonary circulation. Most of the ayatollahs of
Protestantism, Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Huss signed up to
express their
support. Not for the victim, but for Calvin. At the University of
Utrecht, the
Rector cashiered Henri de Roy (1598
– 1679) for teaching the
physics of Descartes. This
was no joke!
Descartes
felt he had to keep his head down. So in the very next paragraph
following his explanation
of the ontology of triangles, Descartes proceeded like this: "Examining
the idea of a Perfect Being, I found that the existence of such Being
was
comprised in the idea in the same way
as the equality of three angles to two right angles is comprised in the
idea of
a triangle. And now the slight of hand: Consequently it is at least as certain as
any demonstration of geometry can be, that God, who is this Perfect
Being,
exists."
It seems
Descartes didn't fool the pundits. He corresponded with some of the
finest
minds, men like Martin Mersenne (1588 –
1648), Christiaan Huygens (1629
– 1695) and Thomas Hobbes
(1588
– 1679); they all looked
right through the ruse. But only the tactless Hobbes would say so,
forcing
Descartes to avoid unwanted attention with contorted denials. Queen
Christina
of Sweden invited Descartes to Stockholm for a few private lessons. It
was
winter; he caught a chill and died there of pneumonia. As Roman
Catholic in a
Protestant country, he was interred in a graveyard for un-baptized
infants.
©
– 2/28/2009 – by michael sympson, 1,000 words,
all rights reserved
