After Descartes’ first meditation his problem becomes this; how can he be sure that any of his beliefs hold any truth? How can he be sure that everything isn’t just an illusion that is deceiving him such as a dream or that there isn’t a deceiver intentionally deceiving him? He finds that in order to move forward in his quest for true existence of god or the material world he must find a starting place of truth or as he puts it like Archimedes moving the earth, some fixed point of certainty. He finds this fixed point with his Cogito, the discovery that he himself must exist.
Having already convinced himself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, Descartes is left to ponder if he himself does not exist as well. He finds this thought to be false because if he can convince himself of something then he must certainly exist. Further questioning this theory he finds that even if some deceiver of supreme power that is deliberately and constantly deceiving him that he must also undoubtedly exist because he is still thinks that he is something even if false, thus still existing. This now brings in the phrase “I am, I exist” or the more popular interpretation “I think therefore I am”
He begins by using an example of a triangle in a mathematic and geometry context. Both mathematic and geometry he feels have always been most certain in nature. His essential claim is that a triangle, even if it be imaginary, has a certain nature or essence that is immutable and eternal that needs not be imagined. An example of this would be the mathematical sum of all three angles contained within a triangle equal that of two right angles. He furthers this with the concept of shapes that his never seen but can form in his mind and still clearly know their properties. He is illustrating the point that these qualities are linked and can not be separated from each other just as a mountain can not be separated from a valley.
He then links this concept of immutable and eternal qualities to that of god. He contends that existence can no more be separated from the essence of god than the properties of angles be separated from a triangle. Yet he then points out just because he can’t separate existence from the essence of god it does not make god there, just as you can’t separate a mountain from a valley it doesn’t make the mountain there. But he then contends this by stating that he can’
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