This is a fascinating topic. Certain schools of philosophy believe that the world as we know it is one of appearances. We do not know it as it really is; we know it only as it is represented in our consciousness. Struck by the unreliability of the senses, Descartes doubted the existence of everything but resolved that, since he was contemplating the world, the act of thinking is the one thing he could be certain of and from that the rest could be deduced. This insight was similar to that of Schopenhauer ... Read even more
