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Berkeley Question

ragus
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Posted 08/15/09 - 06:54 AM:	#11
yebiga wrote Worse many of his ideas are over 2500 years old borrowed from a mixture of neo-platonism and pre-christian hermeticism. Is it their age that bothers you? That they were borrowed? The type of thinking? Berkely is obsessed with proving the existence of god Was he obsessed? Maybe he worked hard at his project. Why not give reasons (that don't border on ad homs) for his failure to convince you?
"A word in your ear is like an untethered goat in a field" Wittigenstein

JamesBrenton
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Posted 08/15/09 - 07:04 AM:	#12
ragus wrote: yebiga wrote [/font] Is it their age that bothers you? That they were borrowed? The type of thinking? [/font] Was he obsessed? Maybe he worked hard at his project. Why not give reasons (that don't border on ad homs) for his failure to convince you? No,baby it's no their age. It's the fact that he's one of those scolaly types, who sit there reading how failuristic Berkly is because "he" is "old" or rather "silly" and "worthless" . . .
Yea, though I walk through the vally of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

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Posted 08/15/09 - 08:46 AM:	#13
I think Berkeley was neither an idealist nor an anti-realist. Rather I view him as an immateralist and a realist. Berkeley's world was a virtual reality inside the mind of God. We and the the contents of our virtual world are only simulations. However, according to Berkeley, our virtual world ,although only a simulation, derives its reality from the external deus ex machina.
thanatos

180 Proof
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Posted 08/15/09 - 09:12 AM:	#14
Isn't Berkeley's deus ex machina the fly in the ointment that renders his scheme inconsistent, and at most surreal? If "real" does not, at minimum, denote "involuntary" (i.e. non-intentional), then what do "we" mean by it? But if it does, however, then Berkeley's immaterialism is clearly not "realist" by "our" lights (since the Good Bishop's god is anything but "involuntary"), now is it? Edited by 180 Proof on 08/15/09 - 09:24 AM. Reason: Who me?
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

bert1
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Posted 08/15/09 - 11:06 PM:	#15
180 Proof wrote: Yeah, this pan-sentience conjecture is far better than Berkeleyan idealism except that saying that every thing is sentient does away with the distinction between sentient & non-sentient altogether, and thus the concept of sentience itself. I think there are perhaps plenty of insentient objects, toothbrushes, chairs, rocks etc. They are aggregations of sentient objects. Their unity is not conferred by their own subjectivity, but by the interested subjectivity of an observer. For me, I suppose insentience is a kind of emergent property of aggregation of sentient matter, a sort of inverted materialism. Maybe that renders me not a panpsychist, but Timothy Sprigge used the word in a similar way, so I think it's a normal usage. I'm not quite sure on this, though. I'm not sure at which stages in the aggregations of matter unitary consciousness emerges. Maybe I'm wrong and things like toothbrushes are conscious. It would be unintuitive because I normally take certain kinds of behaviour as evidence of consciousness in larger objects, behaviour which toothbrushes don't exhibit, but maybe the only reason they don't exhibit unitary consciousness is that they have no internal moving parts with which to display complex purposeful behaviour. *** I'm not sure I understand your logical point. If you're right, couldn't you apply it to existence? Saying that everything exists does away with the distinction between existence and non-existence altogether, and thus the concept of existence itself. ragus wrote: And perception? How does that come into existence and what does it DO? I don't know! But I can have a guess: First, what does perception do? The five senses filter reality into five streams so that it appears to consciousness in a differentiated way. Now, we could take that to mean that perception is the same as creation, as differentiated objects only stand out after they have been perceived. But it seems to me that perception is not the same as creation, at least for human beings, because of the persistence of the external world. What we perceive is mostly not subject to our will (although interest plays a role). Reality comes, for us, pre-structured, even if certain aspects of that structure only become apparent after perception. From a panpsychist perpective, the reason reality is not subject to our will is not because there is dead matter out there, but because there are other centres of will opposing our own. For God the situation is different. There are no wills other than his to oppose him. So God can initially differentiate in whatever manner he wills. After he has done so, the individual centres of will then go on to behave in an orderly way because of their structure. My guess is that at these early stages, although sentience is everywhere, there is no complex perceiving going on, as the structures necessary for it are not in place. Also, I think experience/perception accompanies creation, but they are not the same thing. It's confusing the persons, to put it in theological terms. Sentience is not will, but they are both aspects of one substance. So, to be is not to be perceived. To be is to be willed. But what is willed will also be felt as a change in the sentient substance. How does perception come into existence? Well, simple perception might be there from the start. Halliday says substance feels its own condition. The experiences felt by the early centres of will (atoms, perhaps) would presumably be very basic in nature and pretty unimaginable. Changes in their state would be very limited, and so what they feel would be very limited. As atoms group together, they co-operate, their individual sentiences merge (and because I think consciousness is essentially field-like the merging of sentience would happen naturally), they develop structures within the body which can 'capture' other bits of stuff, the changes that can occur internal to the consciousness-field become more complex, and more complex perceptions arise. Is that a good story? 180 Proof wrote: Isn't Berkeley's deus ex machina the fly in the ointment that renders his scheme inconsistent, and at most surreal? Yes, at least as Berkeley states it. He needs to tell a much fuller story to make it credible for me. And yes, 'real' does denote involuntary from our point of view. That is the difficulty with simple idealism.
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180 Proof
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Posted 08/16/09 - 02:34 AM:	#16
bert1 wrote: I'm not sure I understand your logical point. If you're right, couldn't you apply it to existence? Saying that everything exists does away with the distinction between existence and non-existence altogether, and thus the concept of existence itself. I don't think so. You are equivocating, bert, between existing and relating nouns & predicates. My objection only goes to the (mis)use of a predicate to the exclusion of its possible negation. E.g. If everything is black then the predicate "black" is indeterminable (i.e. there are no contrasts). Same goes for "sentience". As for "everything exists": since "everything" denotes "that which is", it's redundant nonsense to say, in effect, "that which is exists". Existence is not a predicate but (consists in) the conditions that enable, or enact, predication. And yes, 'real' does denote involuntary from our point of view. What about from "god's" point of view? For a "creator god" it makes no sense to claim that anything is involuntary including/especially itself. "Involuntary from our point of view" hardly implies anything more than persistent illusions. I suppose I'm wondering what makes anything real to god, or god real to itself, if the real (i.e. its involuntary aspect) is not pov-invariant? Edited by 180 Proof on 08/16/09 - 03:44 AM. Reason: Copula-ting without existing?!
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

bert1
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Posted 08/17/09 - 11:06 PM:	#17
180 Proof wrote: I don't think so. You are equivocating, bert, between existing and relating nouns & predicates. My objection only goes to the (mis)use of a predicate to the exclusion of its possible negation. E.g. If everything is black then the predicate "black" is indeterminable (i.e. there are no contrasts). Same goes for "sentience". As for "everything exists": since "everything" denotes "that which is", it's redundant nonsense to say, in effect, "that which is exists". Existence is not a predicate but (consists in) the conditions that enable, or enact, predication. OK, that's interesting. Up to now I haven't looked in any detail at the problem of whether existence is a predicate or not. I have done so a bit just now reading the SEP, and I think a case could be made for it being a predicate, but I'm still not sure on the issue. In any case (and as you acknowledge), I do have a concept of insentience, one which I normally apply to most things, such as toothbrushes, the solar system, tables. But if those things do in fact possess unitary consciousness, then I have made a mistake in thinking they are insentient. And if you are right that predicates depend on their possible negation to make sense, this would mean that the concept of sentience is dependent on a mistake. Which is interesting. What about from "god's" point of view? For a "creator god" it makes no sense to claim that anything is involuntary including/especially itself. "Involuntary from our point of view" hardly implies anything more than persistent illusions. I suppose I'm wondering what makes anything real to god, or god real to itself, if the real (i.e. its involuntary aspect) is not pov-invariant? I think there are things that God can't do. It's impossible for an omnipresent God to move in the sense of relocate, for example. It's impossible for a continuum to die, because there are no parts which can fall out of functional relation. His omniscience he cannot stop. So these are God's involuntary realities, I guess. Halliday wrote a very short essay called "What God Cannot Do" talking about this sort of thing. Universes and such like, i.e. what God does, are voluntary. Do you think think the real includes both what is voluntary and involuntary? Edited by bert1 on 08/18/09 - 04:02 AM. Reason: spelling
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Willowz
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Posted 08/18/09 - 03:02 AM:	#18
So what happens when someone dies, is it the same death a tree might go through? When a tree falls in a forest and a human is there, then the tree exists. But when no one is there, then it still exists? If so then what is the difference between our existence and the stuff that surrounds us? Sorry but I had to ask about the tree. EDIT: Objective reality exists in this theory. But at the same time it is flawed by not explaining the subjective and objective. Edited by Willowz on 08/18/09 - 03:11 AM
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180 Proof
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Posted 08/18/09 - 12:08 PM:	#19
bert1 wrote: Do you think think the real includes both what is voluntary and involuntary? I think the voluntary supervenes on the involuntary.
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

keving
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Posted 08/18/09 - 01:13 PM:	#20
I still feel like I'm a little bit unclear as to what Berkeley is advancing. When he says that God imprints His ideas on our senses so that we are directly aware of objects (which would consist of "ideas" in our minds), wouldn't that be more or less like experiencing a dream, with God as the origin and cause of it? Edited by keving on 08/18/09 - 06:05 PM

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