A New Refutation Of Time The Circular Ruins

Gnosticism, idealism, and materialism are Philosophical concepts and beliefs that are recurring in Jorge L. Borges collection of short stories in Labyrinths. Idealism is the perception of reality depends upon the mind rather than external objects. Materialism a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter. Gnosticism the thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis. The stories that I feel most symbolizes these concepts the most are, A new Refutation of Time, The Circular
The story is about a man from the south who retreat’s to the circular ruins in the north. Resting there, he finds that his wounds have healed. The ruins is a statue of what might be either a figure, made of stone. The man goes to sleep, and finds gifts by his side when he awakes. He enters a meditative sleep and focuses all his efforts on dreaming, to create another man through a dream. The main idea behind this story is that the mind has the ability to shape what we perceive as reality. The circular ruins is a story of a dream within a dream, which the man does not realize, we can only see what is in the dream what is in our mind. The man thinks himself to be real because he is able to dream up a student person and teaches him to dream. He reaches a point if insomnia and realizes that he is not able to have dreams any more. The man thinks himself to be real, but as the story unfolds he comes to the realization that he is only the product of someone else’s dream. The man confuses his dream with reality “In the dreamer’s dream, the dreamed one awake.” The wizard uses the Gnostic religion to create a world of his own or dream a world of his own. He creates a son that is not really real, he only comes to him in memory. He is the projection of another man's dream. It is objective reality or the lack thereof, he also plays with the idea of simulacrum a copy without there having to be the presence of an original. Borges plays with the idea that in some way all people are in some way asleep. Infinite regression each man is created from the man before, they get deeper into the dream. The man is one turn in the cycle if dream