A Conversation About Life, Knowledge, and God Philosophically with Descarte' and Plato

          Renée Descartes’ was a seventeenth century rationalist philosopher who, if alive today, would still have the bragging rights to being the father of modern philosophy. Descartes’ made major contributions in many disciplines. More importantly however, Descartes’ spent his days attempting to set up a framework to establish the most fundamental truths about the universe. He worked to ascertain how we could separate what is absolute truth from everything else. To achieve this Descartes’ came up with a method of philosophical inquiry called methodological skepticism. It was a system of doubt set up as an experiment and not for the purposes of everyday life. All of the so-called knowledge that Descartes’ had acquired in his life up until that point was subject to doubt. He metaphorically cleared his table of knowledge and vowed to only place back on that which he could replace with absolute certainty. After examining what Descartes’ thought he knew he came to one troubling conclusion; there was nothing that he could prove with complete surety. Like fellow rationalist Plato, Renée Descartes’ believed that the senses were fallible and could not be relied upon for true knowledge and because we experience the world in which we live through the senses nothing can be truly known. Descartes’ purposed that everything we think we know is actually varying levels of belief. Nevertheless, Descartes’ kept at it and after a while he finally came up with a single solitary fact that he could unapologetically announce without any room for the slightest bit of doubt and that was that he existed. He defended this conclusion with the argument that for him to be questioning the nature of his existence there must exist something to ask of in the first place. This theory highlights his famous saying “I think, therefore I am”.

     Descartes’ did manage to add several more things to his table of knowledge. He believed in the existence of various axioms of geometry for example; a square always has four sides; a triangle always has three sides, and so on. Also, it was through this theory that Descartes’ believed that he could prove the existence of god and put yet another truth on his table. The French philosopher believed that just as the definition of a square necessitates the existence of a square, the definition of God necessitates the existence of God. This was Renée Descartes ontological argument. This argument also lined up his belief with Plato’s in terms of innate ideas. Descartes’ also put forth that the universe is primarily made up of two categories: the matter that you see every day and the non material substance of the mind and spirit. Much of this is similar to Plato’s approach to dualism. Plato taught that reality is comprised of two realms. The first of the two is the natural world, the world that we can observe with our senses and second, there is a world made of eternal ideal “Forms” or flawless templates that are present somewhere in another dimension. These forms are the definitive position points for all objects we observe in the natural world. The term “Forms” is the key difference. The two philosophers seem to agree in regards to the first domain, but Plato’s “Forms” are unchanging and seem to have no location. On the other hand, Descartes’ believed that metaphysical concepts such as souls were subject to science and even believed that he had located the soul within the pineal gland. Though biology and medicine have advanced quite a bit since the seventeenth century, much of what we are taught in school can be traced back to Descartes’ which is ironic considering that his central philosophy is that everything you’ve been taught could be wrong.

     Do you believe that God gave us his definition or is it more of a man made idea? It seems to me that many philosophers would have been much more liberal with their arguments on God had it not been for fear of punishment by the church. What do you think? Weigh in…. what would your ontological argument be?

Your Memory Palace: Method of Loci

Brain Science: An Amazing Memory Enhancing Technique!
Can visualizing a familiar place really help you remember important things?

The method of loci, also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman rhetorical treatises. It relies on memorized spatial  relationships to establish order and recollect memorial content. The term is most often found in specialized works on psychology, neurology, and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic, and philosophy.

Method of loci is also commonly called the mental walk. It is a method of memory enrichment which uses visualization to organize and recall information. Various memory contest champions claim to use this technique in order to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions’ successes have to do more with brain structure than intelligence. The technique of using regions of their brain that have to do with spatial learning are the source of the success. These techniques can be learned and utilized by anyone and the younger the learner the more they have an opportunity to develop this skill into a habit.

To use the method of loci bring to mind a familiar building, such as your house. Take a moment to conduct a mental walk through the rooms in your house. Pay particular attention to the details, noticing anything particularly pleasing that make your mental images more vivid. Make sure you can move easily from one room to another.

Along your route create a list of "loci”:i.e. well defined parts of the room that you can use later to memorize things. A locus should be the pleasing things previously mentioned, but can be anything that stands out, a door, a bed, an oven, etc. Be sure that you can easily go from locus to locus as you visit the house.

Now, when you are faced with a list of words or ideas to be memorized, you must form visual images for each of the words and place them, in order, on the loci in your route. To recall the words or ideas you take a mental walk throughout your house, asking yourself, "What is on the living-room door? What's on the bed? What's in the oven?"  assign everthing on your list to a locus.

Don’t believe that it will work? Let’s try! The list that I am about to give you has seven items on it. Before reading the list I want you to choose a place (like suggested above) that is very familiar to you.

 Got the place?

 Now imagine at least seven very distinct locations within your familiar place. 

Got it all? 

 Once you read the list, assign the first item to the first location, the second item to the second location, and so on. Take a few moments to really visualize each item in each place.

1. Oranges

2. Bread

3. Chicken

4. Corn

5. Milk

6. Eggs

7. Pop

Now that you have each item assigned to a particular place do a final “walk trough” while vividly picturing your items and location. I’ll wait…………… 

Think well, you will be asked to recall....

Got it?

 Ok, now grab pen and paper (you will need it later), continue reading, and at the end we will see how well you remember!

The method of loci can be used for much more than simple single concept lists. It can also be used as something of a navigational map through more complex ideas which will come in handy for college students or those studying to give their current career a boost. You basically follow the same steps that I have listed, but instead of assigning single concept words to each location you will assign key words or phrases that are relatable to whatever it is that you are trying to learn.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the method for memory described in this article is just one method. To fully develop your brain"s potential it is important to research all methods, find what works for you and use a combination of several methods.

Ready for recall? Without looking at the list given, picture your house or building and begin your mental walk again.

 Can you remember?

 With your pen and paper, recall all that you can from the list of items. Order is relevant since you wanted to match the items in order with the locations. However, to start just remembering all or most of the items is most important. When your list is complete reference it to the list above. Good Luck!
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