https://www.superphysics.org/research/descartes/letters/fromondus/ Recent content in Letters to Fromondus on Superphysics Hugo en Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/descartes/letters/fromondus/part-1/ Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/descartes/letters/fromondus/part-1/ <p>LETTRE 8. Version.</p> <p>It seems to me that it is not without reason that Mr. Fromondus recalled, in the Exordium of the Objections he has made against me, the Fable of Ixion, not only because he wisely warns me to be cautious of embracing vain and deceptive opinions instead of the truth (which I will strive to do to the best of my ability, and which I have always endeavored to do until now), but also because he himself, when he believes he is challenging my Philosophy, refutes nothing other than that hollow and subtle Philosophy, composed of Void and Atoms, (which is customarily attributed to Democritus and Epicurus) or others like it, which do not concern me at all.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/descartes/letters/fromondus/part-2/ Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/descartes/letters/fromondus/part-2/ <ol start="9"> <li> <p>On page 30: He is astonished that I recognize no other sensation than that which takes place in the brain. But all doctors and surgeons will assist me, as I hope, to persuade him; for they know that those whose limbs have been recently amputated often think they still feel pain in the parts they no longer have. And I once knew a young girl whose eyes would be blindfolded whenever the surgeon came to treat her hand injury, as she could not bear to look at it. When gangrene set into her hand, they were forced to amputate her arm up to the elbow, without informing her in order not to upset her. They skillfully attached several cloths tightly in place of what had been removed, and she remained for a long time unaware of the amputation. What is remarkable here is that she nonetheless continued to feel severe pains, sometimes in her fingers, sometimes in her metacarpus, and sometimes in her elbow which she no longer had. This was because the nerves of her hand and arm, which then terminated near the elbow and had previously extended from the brain to those parts, were moved in the same way they would have been in the extremities of her fingers or elsewhere, causing her soul to perceive similar pains. This would undoubtedly not have happened if the sensation of pain, or as he calls it, sensation, took place in the hand or elsewhere other than in the brain.</p>