Rene Descartes contributed and enhanced science as
we know it today. He was able to create a shift in the way we view mathematics
and how this applies to discovery within the world. His abilities lay in his
mental creativity, analytical truth seeking ability, and the desire to
understand the world around him. It was the right education mixed with the right
circumstances and the right abilities to develop something profound.
Descartes was born in 1596 in the town of La Haye France to a Councilor in
Parliament. His father sought to create the best learning environment for his
son. In 1637 he published Geometry which was a blend of geometry and algebra to
create something knew called Cartesian Geometry. He was also well known for
three works entitled Meditations on the First Philosophy, Principles of
Philosophy, and Truth in the Sciences.
Known as the The Father of Modern Philosophy he was able to reference a point in space by using two
coordinates. This method became used in everything from land coordinates to
graphing profits & losses. His great discovery deriving from a fly on the
wall that he began to see how its position could be calculated. Taking the
edges of the wall he mentally developed a graph of the entire wall to create what is
known as X and Y axis in standard charts.
He also discussed early emotions called Passions of the Soul. This was
unique for its time as he moved philosophy into trying to understand human
nature from a scientific point of view. It was an early argument of human
cognition and separation of mind and body. He describes it as "the perceptions, sensations, or commotions
of the soul which we relate particularly to the soul and are caused,
maintained, and strengthened by some movement of the spirits."
The most interesting aspect of Descartes's genius
is that he changed science as we know it-a paradigm shift. Instead of
Aristotelian logic he changed his whole perception to adjust science to a more
mechanistic and mathematical explanation. Quantitative analysis took off. This
had a systematic effect on the whole field of study and developed updated
approaches to understanding.
To understand the profound nature of changing
perspective think about how a vast majority of us move through life “knowing
what we know” because everyone else confirms it for us since childhood. We are
like fish in a fish bowl and never know we are actually in water. By digging
into the very essence of life and feeling, Descartes was able to adjust his
entire vantage point.
The nature of genius is to make connections that
others cannot see. It doesn’t happen overnight but occurs through decades of
deep study, reflection, and questioning everything around you. In Descartes
case, you one day see a fly on the wall and everything changes. This cannot
happen without connecting piece by piece of alternative information that leads
up to a previously unknown conclusion.
The most difficult aspects of a new discovery, is the
ability to sell it. In some way it will be necessary to concretely draw out the
conclusion, analyze it, and put it in a logical-spatial explanation that others
can see. Imagine the difficulty getting someone to agree in basic political or
religious arguments and then asking them to question the world around them in a
new way-A near impossibility. Each person must come willingly to the conclusion
and have the motivation to see the explained pieces for themselves; some will
always be in doubt.
