Dioptrics: Descartes' fifth discourse
Dioptrics is the branch of geometrical optics dealing with the formation of images by lenses. In Descartes' 5th Discourse, he explains how he methodically removed the eye of an oxen and sealed it in a wooden shutter covering a window. The experiment showed the lifeless eye of an oxen can meticulously render nature. This suggested that the living, thinking, dreaming mind might not be required to fulfill the renaissance quest to transcribe God's perfect world. Light is not the radiation of truth.
During the summer of 2009 we decided to recreate Descartes' experiment to see if we could spawn a universe from a single ray of light. We followed the exact procedure from Descartes' fifth discourse Des images qui se forment sur le fond de l’œil, (the material insemination of a surgically occluded utopia), (our translation).

What follows is our re-enactment of the detailed procedure as described in Descartes’ 5th discourse accompanied by our humble attempt at translating Descartes' introduction to this work.

 

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