Descartes demonstrates the idea that an object is an object due to its characteristics, because we can still distinguish an object even if our senses sense a change in that object. Descartes observes a piece of wax, and notices its properties. Then, he lights it on fire, and “the taste is
exhaled, the smell evaporates, the colour alters, the figure is destroyed,
the size increases, it becomes liquid, it heats, scarcely can one handle it,
and when one strikes it, no sound is emitted.” Descartes point is that the wax has lost the physical properties that makes it wax— however, we can still clearly distinguish and understand that it is still wax. Therefore, the object is not defined by its physical properties, but rather the fact that we have distinguished it as such in our mind. It connects to the concept of dualism because it further establishes the idea that the mind and the body are independent of one another. The mind distinguishes the wax, without its physical properties of the body.

We know the mind is separate from the body because we can doubt our body, but we cannot doubt our mind. It is possible to doubt our body and our senses, but our mind can survive the radical doubt of illusions, dreams, and demons. The concept boils down to “I think therefore I am,” the idea that the mind is what gives us our identity. Because we know ourselves, and we cannot deny our existence, we can know that somehow we exist. And the only thing that cannot be doubted is our mind because our body can be doubted in a number of ways, as established in the first meditation. I half agree. I believe that the mind/spirit lives on past our body, and our body is simply a vessel that we use in this lifetime. However, I believe the body is still important and still communicates important feelings to our spirit, that can shape how we look at the world. The body and the mind are separate, but also intricately connected. Modern science proves that the body and mind are connected– if our mind is healthy, so is our body, and vice versa. Therefore, though on a spiritual level they are separate, on a physical, science level, they are deeply connected.

The problem that Princess Elizabeth asks Descartes to explain is how if the mind and body are separate, how the separate mind can control the physical body. She believes that movement has to requires contact, and therefore the immaterial mind that he describes would not be able to affect the physical body. I do not think Descartes even comes close to answering her efficiently. In a very confusing and drawn out answer he eventually says that the relationship between the mind and the body is impossible to explain, therefore avoiding the issue of having to address what she brings up.

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