Monday, March 31, 2008

Happy Birthday Rene

Fun fact of the day -- today is the birthday of Rene Descartes -- French philosopher born in 1596. I stumbled across that on Yahoo this morning, and it brought me back to one of my earlier lives.

Back in graduate school I read a lot of Descartes. At the time I was interested in the history of ideas and the history of science. I thought I was going to pursue a career in academia, become a professor of philosophy maybe. Well, it didn't work out that way. Another one of those roads not taken.

Seeing his name on the "today in history" page brought home that feeling I get when I reminisce -- the feeling like I've actually lived two or three lives already. I have changed life paths several times, and the break has always been very sharp -- I am not good at keeping in touch with people when I move, and so I lose contact with the people who once surrounded me and filled my world. So many distinct stages of my life -- different schools, different jobs, different cities. When I think back on some of those earlier episodes, it seems like some other person lived that life, not me.

I liked Descartes because, like me, he was a generalist. Back in those days philosophers studied all different topics of knowledge -- everything from the physical science (what today we would call Physics and Astronomy) to mathematics, cognitive theory, psychology, theology.

I remember reading "Le Monde" -- a book in which he sought to explain the physical laws of the universe. It contained his (incorrect, as it turns out) theory to explain how and why the planets moved: the "vortex theory". His idea was that the planets are all being carried along in these whirlpools of a aether-like substance.

We now know Descartes was on the wrong track, but I always liked the theory anyway, the idea that the heavens were full of this swirling fluid-like substance that carried the planets around. Nothing but a scientific dead-end, sorta like my graduate school experience.

Anyway -- Happy Birthday Rene!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, now you're just showing off and it's really not very becoming...I'm just kidding; I know what you mean about those other lives lived. But I like to think that it was all a place I needed to be at the time to learn something.

Anonymous said...

Sorry dude. Don't worry, soon I'll run out of interesting things to talk about (the well's not that deep). Also, the kids will be here visiting next week, and so I'll have some more family-type stuff to blog about.