Who was Rene Descartes?

Have you ever had a dream that felt so completely real you thought it was actually happening? What if you are dreaming right now?! Join Mira and Finn on Philosophy is Not Boring as they travel back to the 1600s to meet a famous French thinker named Rene Descartes! Descartes decided to play the most extreme doubting game in history. To do his best thinking, he sat inside a giant, warm stove room and tried to wipe his mind completely clean. What if his eyes were tricking him? What if an Evil Trickster was feeding false images into his brain? He doubted the sky, his hands, and even his own body until he hit rock bottom and found one single, unshakable truth: "I think, therefore I am." Discover how asking big, confusing questions actually proves that you exist! Plus, learn mind-bending fun facts about this brilliant philosopher—like why he loved to sleep in until noon every single day! Get ready to twist your brain and wonder what you truly know for absolute sure.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Philosophy is not boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. We are so glad you are here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Let me ask you a question, Finn. Have you ever had a dream that felt so completely, totally real, that you were genuinely shocked when you woke up?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Oh yeah, definitely. Once I dreamt I had a pet dinosaur named Kevin. And when I woke up, I actually checked my closet to see if he was there. I was so disappointed when it was just my shoes.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

I bet. Losing a pet dinosaur is tough. But wait, think about this for a second. If dreams can feel exactly like real life, how do you know, right now, that you aren't dreaming?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Because I'm awake. I'm talking to you. We're recording a podcast. I can pinch my arm. Ow! See? Definitely awake.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

But couldn't you just be dreaming that you're talking to me? Couldn't you be dreaming about pinching yourself and feeling a little pinch?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Wait, that's true. Sometimes I dream that I wake up and I go downstairs and eat cereal. And then I actually wake up. It's like a dream inside a dream.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Exactly! Today we are playing the most extreme doubting game in the history of human thought. We're asking, what is the one single thing you know for absolute sure? To play this doubting game, we have to travel back in time to the 1600s to a famous French thinker named René Descartes.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

René Descartes? That sounds very fancy. What was his deal?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

He was a brilliant scientist, mathematician, and philosopher who was obsessed with finding the absolute truth. And he did his best thinking in a very weird place.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Like a treehouse? Or a cave?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Like a giant oven. In 1619, he was travelling in Germany, and it was a bitterly cold winter. To escape the freezing wind, he climbed inside a small stove-heated masonry room just to stay warm.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Wait, he just sat inside a giant heater to think. That is so funny.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yep, and while he was cozy in there, he decided he was going to wipe his mind completely clean of every single thing he had ever learned. He refused to believe anything unless he was completely, 100% certain it was true.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

That seems really hard. I feel like I'm pretty certain about a lot of things. I'm certain my shoes are blue. I'm certain apples fall down to the ground, not up into the sky.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Those are good examples. The apple falling is testable. We can drop an apple a hundred times and watch it fall to the ground. But Descartes wanted to go deeper than that. What if our very own eyes are lying to us? Lying to us? How could my eyes lie? Well, think about this. Have you ever seen a straw in a glass of water, and the straw looks totally broken or bent in half?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, it looks totally bent. But if you pull it out of the water, it's perfectly straight. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Your eyes tricked you. It's an optical illusion. So Descartes said, if our senses can trick us even once, how can we ever trust them perfectly? If they lied about the straw, what else are they lying about?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Okay, so my eyes can get confused by water or optical illusions. But I still know my hands are right here in front of me. I know I'm sitting in this chair right now. Do you really?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

This is exactly where Descartes brought in his famous dream argument. He published this whole idea in 1641 in a famous book called Meditations on First Philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

The dream argument? Is that what we were talking about earlier with my dinosaur Kevin? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

He wrote, often in my dreams, I am convinced I am sitting by the fire, wearing my winter coat, when really I am asleep in bed.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Oh wow! So he's saying, right at that moment, as he's sitting in that warm stove room, he might just be safely tucked in bed dreaming about the stove room. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Because there is no test we can do and no machine we can build to prove we aren't in a super realistic dream right now. It's an existential puzzle that you can't solve with a ruler or a microscope.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

But that's kind of unsettling, Mira. If this is all a dream, does any of it matter? Is anything around us actually real?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

It's completely okay to feel a little dizzy or worried thinking about it, Finn. Descartes felt that exact same way. He said doubting everything felt like suddenly falling into deep, dark water.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, that's exactly how it feels. Like there's no floor underneath you anymore.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

But he didn't stop there. He didn't just give up. He wanted to push the doubt even further to see if anything at all survived the fall. He wanted to hit rock bottom and find something solid.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

How do you possibly go further than everything in the world is a dream?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

You imagine an evil trickster.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Wait, a what? That sounds like a comic book villain.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Descartes imagined a super powerful, incredibly sneaky trickster. What if this trickster's whole job is feeding false images directly into your brain? Like a virtual reality video game, just feeding the a completely fake world. Exactly! What if the sky isn't actually blue? What if trees aren't real? What if two plus two doesn't actually equal four and the trickster is just messing with your math to make you think it does?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

That's wild! That is the most extreme doubting game ever. He basically threw away the whole entire world. He really did.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

He doubted his eyes, he doubted his memory, he doubted the sky, the earth, and even his own physical body. He stripped everything away until there was absolutely nothing left.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

But wait a minute, hold on.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

What is it, Finn? What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, he has to be there to do the stripping away, right? If he is doubting everything and he is being tricked, then someone has to be there doing the doubting.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Finn! You just found it! You found the exact same thing Descartes found over 300 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I did? Wait, what did I find?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

The one unshakable brick! Descartes realised that the trickster can fool him about the sky. The trickster can fool him about his body. But if he is being fooled, he has to exist in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Oh, because a trickster can't trick nobody. You can't fool someone who doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Exactly. Even if I am doubting everything in the universe, the very fact that I am doubting proves that I am real. I am a thinking thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

That's brilliant! So as long as he's thinking, he knows for absolute sure that he exists.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yes. In Latin he called it cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. It's probably the single most famous sentence in all of philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Wow! I think, therefore, I am. He really did hit rock bottom, and he finally found some solid ground to stand on.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

And that is exactly why this matters for us. Right now, in our real lives. Sometimes the world feels super confusing. People disagree about what's true, or you might make a big mistake and start to question yourself.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, but this idea is actually really comforting. Nobody can ever take away the fact that my mind is right here. Experiencing things, making mistakes, and asking big questions.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Exactly, Finn. Your questions prove that you exist. You are real, and your thoughts belong to you. Now, are you ready for some mind-bending fun facts about our friend Descartes?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Oh, absolutely. Hit me with the weird stuff. I love a good fun fact.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Fact number one. Descartes was famous for being a very, very late sleeper. He stayed in bed until noon almost every single day of his life.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

What? A famous philosopher who slept till lunch? I love this guy so much.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

He said he did his absolute best thinking while half awake in a nice warm bed. But tragically, when he was 53 years old, the Queen of Sweden invited him to be her personal philosophy tutor. Oh, that sounds like a great job. Did she let him sleep in? Nope. The Queen demanded that he wake up for lessons at 5 in the morning in a freezing cold castle library in the dead of the Swedish winter. Oh no! That sounds terrible for a guy who loves his warm bed. It really was. He actually caught pneumonia from the freezing cold mornings, and he died shortly after.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

The cold finally got him. That's exactly why he needed his warm stove room in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Exactly right. So the lesson here is protect your sleep, people. Alright, Finn, it's that time! Time for the quiz!

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Okay, I'm ready. Let's see how much I remember about our sleepy philosopher.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

First question. Which 1600s French thinker played this extreme doubting game? Next one. What strange place did he sit inside to escape the cold and do his thinking? Question 3. What did he say could be tricking us into thinking fake things are actually real? Here's number four. What was the name of the famous book he published in 1641? Last question. What time did this philosopher like to sleep until every single day? Great job listeners! Let's see how you did with those tricky questions. The first answer is Rene Descartes. For question two, he sat inside a small stove-heated room. Number three, the answer is our dreams or an evil trickster. Question four. The book was called Meditations on First Philosophy. And the final answer is, he loved to sleep until noon.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

You know, Mira, I really like that I think therefore I am idea. It makes me feel, I don't know, really solid and safe.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Me too, Finn. The very fact that we can wonder about all this stuff proves that we are really here. It's okay to ask big questions.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Hey, if you are out there listening right now and you know you exist, we would absolutely love it if you left us a five-star review.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yes, please do. Just scroll down on whatever podcast app you are using and tap those five stars. It really helps other curious thinkers find the show and join our doubting games.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Oh, and definitely don't forget to check out our site kidopoly.com. We've got tons of fun learning games and really cool activities to explore over there.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

And if you want to shout out on the show, or if you just want to tell us about your favourite weird dream, send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Keep thinking, keep wondering, and keep doubting.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

See you next time on Philosophy is not boring. Bye everyone.