I think therefore I am Renee Descartes (1640)
It is a beautiful summers day and you are walking in the countryside. In a clearing to your right you see a cherry tree, the red fruit peeping from under the lush green foliage. You walk up to it. You touch it, feeling the rough bark under your fingertips. You can hear the breeze rustling the leaves, and smell the odour of the fruit. You take a cherry and pop it in your mouth, savouring the sweet juice as it floods over your tongue.
But does the cherry tree exist? You can see it, hear it, feel it, smell and taste its fruit but this is not enough. You may be hallucinating, or asleep and having a particularly vivid dream. How would you know?
You wouldnt. All our experience of the world and reality is governed by our five senses (I leave aside any discussion of a sixth sense). These senses are our only connection with the world outside our selves. A blind person has no visual contact with the outside world; somebody with a severe cold has little taste or olfactory contact with the outside world. And these senses are basically biochemical machines designed to send information to our brain. For example, the eyes...
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