My two cents...

We have given up on the idea of having a body. Sense-perception is only known through the body. Then Descartes states that a thinking thing includes having sensory perceptions (CSM 19). Confusion and discrepancy in the meditations? Not possible! therefore there must be some sort of explanation… I hope.
The meditator states that the “I” has “sensory perceptions, or is aware of bodily things as it were through the senses. For example, I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feeling heat. But I am asleep, so all this is false. Yet I certainly seem to see, to hear, and to be warmed. This cannot be false; what is called ‘having sensory perception is strictly just this, and in this restricted sense o the term it is simply thinking.” (CSM 19). Here Descartes has made a distinction between sense-perception as a literal and real function of the body taking place and the mind’s perceiving of what seem to be the senses, which he equates with just thinking. In this case the senses are not really happening in the physical world, but because we think that the senses are real in our mind and we perceive them to be happening then they cannot be false because it is just our thought.
Hatfield states that this seemingly contradictoriness of not engaging and then engaging in sense-perception is explained by stating that the sense-perception that is true to us is related to “imagining” and is viewed as “a type of experience” (Hatfield 122). Despite the fact that the body no longer exists and there is nothing for the now doubted and false literal and physical senses to sense there is still the mind’s experience of the senses, which are a part of the meditator’s thoughts (Hatfield 122).
Wilson also argues along these same lines making the distinction between sensory-perception and “sensation” (Wilson 75). She states, “sensation can be viewed ass a type of thought, and that hence our experience of sensation can be abstracted form any commitment to what are ordinarily regarded as the necessary physical aspects of sensation… Descartes is concerned to establish the distinction between sensations construed as modes of thought, and sensation construed as modes of matter.” (Wilson 75).

neato mosquito, here goes the cogito

The doubt of the first mediation has left us with spinning heads and suffocating uncertainty about all aspects of reality and existence. Finding some singular, even if simple and small conclusion of truth may act as the lifesaver to which we cling and begin to build a raft on these turbulent waters of doubt. This is the importance of the cogito. Cogito is the immovable point from which all else must rest and from which the truths of the world will be founded for nothing else is certain except on the basis of I. It is, as Hatfield puts it, “the first principle” and is foundationalist (101). For any truth to be found and understood we must first establish a basis from which to build from. A flawed foundation or weak base will crumble and disrepute all that has been built on it. Whether I am being deceived by myself or by some outside force it is still I who am being deceived. To be deceived I have to exist even if nothing else I was once formerly so certain of exists or is real. Then Hatfield also says that the cogito is Descartes’ metaphorical fulcrum because there is also the possibility that one truth is attached to other truths and that discovering one will lead to the discovery of others (101). The second strand of the argument leads me to question if one truth necessarily begets another truth or intrinsically is attached to other truths then is there one reality in which all truths lie?

But I am also led to wonder if there is a distinction between thought and I. I feel as though thought is one thing and I, as born from thought, are not one in the same. When I think of me, I, myself, it clings to an image of my corpulent, physical being. And not only that, but my personality and preferences. Upon the simple base of thought has been built up this image of self, an image based in our relation to all those things that have just been previously jaded by Descartes’ shadowy and pervasive doubt. Are thought, I, and self all distinct entities some real and some not?

So, although only more questions have been the result of the cornerstone cogito, it acts as the antidote to the rather depressing doubt of the first meditation and the most solid place to stand to begin to better see the whole of reality and existence unmasked.

Coo Coo Kachoo

Thought is indubitable. But thought must be separated from the thought of self. For we think of ourselves as one way by love, hate, and the like, but this is not even certain. For it is somewhat superficial based in our experiences, which have already been proven to be a source of doubt for their basis in the senses. So, it is not the thought, that energy behind our eyes, that hum in our ears, that inspiration in our sleep that can ever be doubted for it is all. Even god is nothing if not for its place in our thoughts and mind. Those things that are real that do not even need to be in existence do not matter because without our thought they would have no home and be an empty formula floating in nothingness. It does not matter if we fall victim to the false beliefs produced by either scenario of the dream argument. Hatfield stating that these are the intervening hypothesis or the defective design hypothesis (81). If god has somehow tweaked our mind in such a way that it is fooled by either veiling or turning us from truth or by an inherent and unavoidable malfunction we are still thinking beings. Yes, our thoughts may produce false beliefs, rely on the unreliable, or see nothing as it truly exists we are still thinking. It is this fact that god, except by death, cannot take away from us our thought. Deceive, dupe, dazzle, and defect, but the fact that I have thoughts to be betrayed by shows that they can not be doubted.

Pumpkin with an Earthenware head: asleep or awake? At least you're not dead.

“I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep.” (CSM 13). Descartes makes it clear that although we may never actually be able to tell whether we are indeed awake or asleep, for the marks of wakefulness can be simple imagined and fabricated while we are asleep, there are certain things in this world which cannot be doubted as per their actual existence and reality. Wilson states, “The question Descartes wishes to raise is not whether I can know that this or that sense experience is veridical, but whether I can know with certainty that the senses ever afford us truth at all (apart from the reality of simples)” (Wilson 18).

These ‘reality of simples’ is not completely clear to me. But my estimation of these mysterious small nuggets of truth in an unsure world are Descartes examples of color and certain sciences. He explains that colors cannot have been produced without the aid of their actually being in existence. So, though we may not be able to tell whether these colors are reflections of a true world outside of our own minds and dreams, these colors do indeed exist in reality. He also states that along with colors simple sciences and math are “transparent truths” that remain valid whether awake or asleep. Yet even this idea of math can be so skewed when asleep that we could conceivably convince ourselves that 2 + 3 = Monkey or something such. So, in my view even these supposedly indubitable truths may be called into question, but the reality of color does seem to remain true.

What I did find very interesting, which I had previously not even considered until it was brought up in class is the fact that the emotions we feel in dreams are as true in the make believe world of our minds as they are in the physical world of reality. Emotions transcend the idea that we can simply convince ourselves in a dream that we are lounging in our PJs or whether we actually are. Either way whether real or imagined the feeling of calm is undeniable. But emotions are not solid foundations for discovering something solid, timeless, and space less like the science Descartes is proposing he has set out to discover.

Though we are not mad and no matter how hard I try I have been unsuccessful in turning myself into a squash it seems that whether or not we are mad does not make that much of a difference for the simple fact that I can never be sure of anything, ever, whether I am truly awake or asleep outside of the reality of colors and my own emotions, but even madmen perceive colors and have emotions so sanity doesn’t seem that special anymore.

Death and Taxes

To say whether certainty is necessary begs the question if anything is certain. To me nothing is certain. Nothing can be so known to us that we are free from any sort of doubt about it. I believe this to be true mainly for the reason that certainty implies constancy. For those things we believe to be indubitable are also the things we believe to be absolutely unchanging. The combination of our senses and reason lead us to find certain things indisputable, but truly nothing in this world ever remains permanent or static so the certainty we see is produced by us and us alone. Though the saying is somewhat cliché and perhaps a bit trite, but you can never step in the same river twice. Our minds seem to cling to the stable and seek to quickly identify, label, and file away. Certainty is a cage that we willingly place our minds and movements in. It is easier to take seemingly simple things and judge them by what they are similar to or certain other preconceived notions. We never truly know the thing for itself by peering into its individual spirit and essence, which will change from moment to moment. It is made two dimensional and given only the slightest passing glance so that we may judge it and move on concerned only with our set objective. But then again I feel a slight twinge of irony in that proclaiming that nothing is certain is possibly in itself a certainty. I feel as though our false sense of certainty is useful, but not necessarily imperative to our lives. If we can live with a constantly open mind and accept every breath and breeze as unique and never promised we can live without certainty. But because we always seem to be rushing about this open-mindedness is slightly improbable. We fear doubt and wish to know things exactly as we need them to be: constant and thus certain. There is life and spirit in everything thus it is unique, but ever shifting in its own self.