Exploring the Existence: Imagination vs Intellect

1. ¶1 – Review • So now: do material things exist? • They’re definitely capable of existing. • As long as there’s no contradiction in my perceiving something directly, then God can create it. • [Remember his insight into the essence of material things from the Fifth Meditation] • And the faculty of imagination gets me thinking maybe. • It sure seems like “an application of the cognitive faculty to a body which is intimately present to it, and which therefore exists“

2. ¶2 – The difference betweenthe imagination and the intellect • Triangle, chiliagon • A triangle I can both understand and imagine. But a chiliagon I cannot imagine, I can only understand. • Any mental image I come up with for a chiliagon will be (i) indistinguishable from a myriagon or any figure with lots of sides, and (ii) useless for discovering its geometric properties. • Imagination involves an “effort of mind” that isn’t involved in understanding.

3. ¶3 – A probabilistic argument • The imagination (unlike the intellect) is not part of my essence. • I could lack it and still be me. • Hence it depends on something distinct from myself. • [If it depended on me, it would have to be part of my essence] • Here’s one promising account of the imagination: I also have a body. • It’s what enables me to imagine corporeal things. • Understanding has the mind examining its own ideas, whereas imagining has the mind examining something in the body. • But this is just a probable conjecture. • I don’t know how to go from this idea of corporeal nature [i.e., of the essence of material things] to the conclusion that material things really exist.

4. ¶4, 5 – Back to the senses • Leaving extension aside, I also imagine colors, sounds, and the like. • I perceive them much better with the senses than with the imagination. • So I’ll focus on these things perceived by sense perception. • Strategy: • Review what I used to think I perceived with the senses, and my reasons for thinking this. • Review my reasons for doubt. • Figure out what to believe now.

5. ¶6 – Review: My old opinions • I have a body (head, limbs, etc.) • This body is situated among other bodies. • My body can be affected by other bodies, measured in pleasure and pain. • I also have appetites and emotions. • I have sensations of tactile qualities, light, color, smell, etc.

6. ¶6 – Review: My old opinions • ‘Resemblance thesis’: I thought my ideas resembled bodies that produced the ideas. • The ideas came to me without my consent. • [Remember the 3rd Meditation discussion of the resemblance thesis] • Vividness and external origin • The sensory ideas were much more vivid than the ideas of thought or memory. • So I figured they couldn’t have come from me, they must have come from other things. • And it was only natural to think these other things resembled my ideas.

7. ¶6 – Review: My old opinions • Nothing in the intellect not previously had in sensation. • [Aristotelian empiricism] • I remembered that I had sense experience before reason. • And I noticed how the ideas I formed myself were less vivid than sensory ideas. • And I noticed how my ideas were mainly made up of elements from my sensory ideas.

8. ¶6 – Review: My old opinions • Connection to my body (and not other bodies) • I thought I was inseparable from this body. • All my appetites and emotions were felt in, and on account of, this body. • I felt pains and tickles in body parts. • The connection between feelings in my body and my reactions was inexplicable. • Pain → distress • Tickles → delight • Hunger → ‘I should eat’ • Thirst → ‘I should drink’ • Nature must have taught me all this; I thought it was true, without any arguments.

9. ¶7 – Reasons for doubt • [These points mirror the three reasons for doubt given back in the First Meditation] • Sensory illusions • visual: towers, statues • internal: phantom pain in amputees • Dreaming • Every waking experience could be had while asleep. Dreaming doesn’t require external causes that really exist, and likewise for waking experience. • Deceptive God • My very natural constitution might be prone to error, even in matters that seem obvious.

10. ¶7, 8 – Refutation reprise,What to think now? • Refuting arguments for confidence • [cf. the Third Meditation] • Natural impulses might lead me astray. • Even if sensory ideas aren’t dependent on the will, they still might come from within me (from some other faculty). • What now? • With knowledge of myself and of God, sensory ideas deserve neither total confidence nor total doubt.

11. ¶9 – I am distinct from my body • A: Insight and real separation • God can create anything I clearly and distinctly understand. • Hence, if I can clearly and distinctly understand x and y apart, then God can create x and y apart. • So if I can c/d understand x and y apart, then x and y really are distinct. • B: Knowledge of my essence • I know that I exist, and that nothing belongs to my essence except thought. • Hence my essence contains nothing except thought (nothing except that I am a thinking thing).

12. ¶9 – I am distinct from my body • C: Exclusive ideas • I have a clear and distinct idea of myself as a thinking, non-extended thing. • I have a clear and distinct idea of body as an extended, non-thinking thing. • Hence I am distinct from my body. • Hence I can exist apart from my body.

13. ¶10 – Proving material things • Imagination and senses as modes of intellect/me: • I can c/d understand myself without imagination and senses. • But I can’t c/d understand imagination and senses without me. • After all, each includes “an intellectual act” in their essence. • [That is, imagination and sense perception both in some way require the intellect, are intellectual modes.] • Contrast: other modes of substances. • Changing position and taking on shapes are modes which require a substance to inhere in [i.e., they can’t exist on their own]. • But these require corporeal substance, not intellectual substance; the clear and distinct conception of them includes extension, but no intellectual act.

14. ¶10 – Proving material things • Sense perception not in me • Sense perception (passively receiving sensory ideas) requires an active faculty (generating sensory ideas). • That active faculty is not in me, because it doesn’t involve any act of the intellect, or of the will. • [i.e., I’m not the one generating these ideas]. • So it must be in some other substance distinct from me (with enough reality to account for the objective reality in sensory ideas). • Other candidate substances • It’s either in a body, or God, or “some creature more noble than a body” [like, say, an angel].

15. ¶10 – Proving material things • Sense perception must be in a body • But I have no faculty for recognizing that these ideas come from God or an angel. • Instead, I have a strong propensity to think they come from bodies. • So if they came from God or an angel, then God would be a deceiver. • So they must come from bodies. • Characterizing these bodies • They needn’t perfectly resemble my ideas (many of which are confused and obscure). • But they at least have extension: “all those [properties] which... are comprised within the subject-matter of pure mathematics”

16. ¶11 – Trusting what nature teaches • As for specific modes of extension, or color and the rest, I can attain truth. • Since God is not a deceiver, it follows that any falsehood in my opinions can be corrected by use of my faculties. • “[E]verything that I am taught by nature contains some truth” • ‘Nature’ here is just God or all of his creation. • My ‘nature’ is just what God bestowed on me.

17. ¶12, 13 – Nature’s teachings • I have a body and my bodily feelings indicate the situation of the body. • There must be some truth in this. • My body and I are closely connected. • Pilot analogy: It’s not like I’m a pilot who must inspect his vessel to see if it’s okay. • I don’t perceive the state of my body (damage, needing food, etc.) by pure use of the intellect. • Instead, I have confused sensations (hunger, pain, etc.) arising from the “union” and “intermingling” of the mind and the body.

18. ¶14 – Nature’s teachings • My body is surrounded by other bodies, some to seek and some to avoid. • Differences in perceived color, etc. correspond to some differences in the bodies. • Of course, the differences in the bodies need not resemble the differences in sense perceptions [so color might not be real]. • I can be affected for better or worse by these other bodies. • This is indicated by the pleasant or painful sensations they occasion in me.

19. ¶15 – Unconsidered habit,clarifying nature’s teaching • Some opinions look like nature’s teaching, but actually stem from unconsidered habit. • space without sensible body is empty • my idea of heat resembles heat in a body • green bodies have the same greenness that I perceive • bitter bodies actually contain a taste • distant bodies are as they appear • ‘Nature’ in this context • only what relates to the combination of mind and body • not including what belongs to the mind alone, or the body alone, or anything else

20. ¶15 – Clarifying nature’s teaching • What nature does and does not teach • it does teach to avoid certain things • it does not teach to make judgments about these things without the intellect • that job is reserved for the mind alone • e.g., if something distant appears small, that doesn’t mean nature is leading you to judge that it really is small—that’s just unconsidered habit • The “proper purpose” of sense perceptions • “to inform the mind of what is beneficial or harmful for the composite”—here they are clear and distinct enough for the job • not “touchstones for immediate judgments about the nature of the bodies located outside us”

21. ¶16 – The problem of error, again • When nature teaches me to seek some things and avoid others, sometimes things go wrong. • Example: Nature tells me to eat some tasty, but poisonous, food • This, in itself, is no problem. • Example: Nature tells you to eat what’s tasty, not to eat the poison—nature is ignorant of the poison. • All this means is that nature doesn’t have complete knowledge of everything—and no surprise there, since humans are limited beings!

22. ¶17 – Dropsy example,‘disordered nature’ reply • But sometimes nature directs to the very thing that will harm us. • E.g., dropsy [edema] makes you want to drink, which is exactly what you shouldn’t do • Reply: But such a person has a disordered nature. • Yes, but it still looks contradictory for someone, even a sick person, to get a deceptive nature from God. • The operations of sick bodies are just as natural as those of healthy bodies • In the same way that a clock that keeps poor time follows the laws of nature just as much a clock that keeps accurate time.

23. ¶17, 18 – Two senses of ‘nature’ • Two senses of ‘nature’: • nature as the thing’s purpose: this is a mere label attached by thought, it doesn’t describe the real workings of the thing. [unreal teleological ‘nature’] • nature as the thing’s operation: this is the way the thing actually behaves. [real mechanical ‘nature’] • Dropsy • a person with dropsy has a disordered nature only in the first sense: “an extraneous label” • the real nature (the second sense) of their mind-body composite involves an error, and so God is still ‘on the hook’ • [So, he thinks, the ‘disordered nature’ reply fails]

24. ¶19 – Justifying God again:indivisibility argument • The body is divisible. • And then you can make another argument for mind-body distinctness: • The body is divisible. • The mind is indivisible. • Cutting off a limb leaves the mind intact. • The different modes of thought are all acts of one and the same mind. • So they are distinct.

25. ¶20, 21 – Justifying God again: anatomy • The mind is immediately affected only by the brain. • All the other parts of the body have to ‘go through’ the brain in order to affect the mind. • The mind receives signals depending on the state of the brain (or of one particular part of the brain). • Chain of influence • Suppose a change in some body part ends up producing a change in the brain. • You could get the same result just by messing with the intermediate points in the chain. • So you’d get the same result, even though nothing actually happened to the body part. • Thus you can induce the feeling of foot pain in the mind without actually hurting the foot. You can simply mess with one of the intermediate points running from the foot to the brain.

26. ¶22, 23 – Justifying God again,designing for typical cases • The best system for producing sensations: have it produce whichever sensation will tend to be advantageous in typical cases. • E.g., it would be a bad idea to have the brain state caused by foot damage set to produce the sensation of hunger. • E.g., it’s better to have the physical condition of throat dryness producing the sensation of thirst than, say, a sensation of ticklish delight. • And so, inevitably, something besides foot damage will put you in the brain state that produces the sensation of foot pain. • This deception is just the inevitable consequence of the best-designed system (given that each brain state produces a single sensation, and given that a brain state can be caused by its typical and remote cause or by an atypical intermediate cause).

27. ¶24 – Conclusion • These conclusions about the senses will help me out. • Not just at noticing potential errors. • But also at correcting them. • I can use one sense to correct another, or I can bring in memory, or the intellect. • So my doubts about the senses were silly; take the dream doubt: • There really is a [surefire?] way of distinguishing between being awake and dreaming. • Dreams are, unlike waking experiences, disconnected from the rest of my life. • If I see someone pop in and out of existence, then I have good reason to think I might be seeing things. • But if things are all connected in the right way, then I am certain that I am awake. • Especially if I bring in all my other faculties as a check, and it passes the test—if I couldn’t be certain after doing that, God would be a deceiver.