Enter the World of the Dream

During Friday’s class, Dr. Layne covered Descartes’ First Meditation. I found Descartes’ philosophy that the senses constantly deceive us about the nature of reality quite fascinating; especially when applied to the world of the dream. His argument makes perfect sense when one realizes that even in dreams there is an eerie likeness of real things (e.g. the world, space, color, and math). In order to show that science rested on foundations that lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes began by asserting the importance of doubt; the foundation of knowing. I found Descartes’ claim extremely relatable (more so than “The Matrix”) to Christopher Nolan's movie “Inception” which deals with the fictional science of shared dreaming. The characters enter others' minds, to steal ideas, or plant them while the target is unaware they are dreaming. In the movie, characters can distinguish a dream from reality by using totems. In the end, the film leaves open the question of whether the protagonist (Cobb) is himself dreaming. The entire point of the architect character (Ariadne) is to meticulously design a world to deceive the subject’s ability to distinguish what’s real and what is not. "Inception" conveys Descartian philosophy.