What do you intellectuals think about Berkeley's Idealism?

Verbose x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

There

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Genetics is fate. Change our genes, achieve free will.

Well I disagree with Berkeley.
I do not think that a MIND must be there for an object to exist.

First, I am not quite sure I believe in the Observation theories [in which an object must be observed to exist] but i'll bite anyway.

Why must it be a mind that observes such things?
If an object relies on observation, or being measured then could it not also be "observed" to a certain degree by some other form of energy.

Could a tree not be shown existence by disturbing a wind pattern, or a leaf not be proven real by carrying out its photosynthesis and releasing oxygen.

We humans have in our minds that we are the center of the universe and that it revolves around us, that without us, the universe would not exist.

I believe this is wrong, perhaps it is true that without us the universe is not perceived, But i could hardly claim that if we were not there to measure such things, that they would not exist.

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            ...life is good...
...mai ho oni i ka wai lana malie...

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Hmm...

Well I disagree with Berkeley.  
I do not think that a MIND must be there for an object to exist.  

First, I am not quite sure I believe in the Observation theories [in which an object must be observed to exist] but i'll bite anyway.

Why must it be a mind that observes such things?  
If an object relies on observation, or being measured then could it not also be "observed" to a certain degree by some other form of energy.

Could a tree not be shown existence by disturbing a wind pattern, or a leaf not be proven real by carrying out its photosynthesis and releasing oxygen.

We humans have in our minds that we are the center of the universe and that it revolves around us, that without us, the universe would not exist.

I believe this is wrong, perhaps it is true that without us the universe is not perceived, But i could hardly claim that if we were not there to measure such things, that they would not exist.

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But a philosophical empiricist like Berkeley would say that since we perceive wind using our senses it only exists in our mind. Likewise since we are able to measure how much a tree disturbs a wind pattern, the tree's essence still lies in its being perceived. The only thing we actually know about the tree is what we see with our eyes, feel with our hands, hear with our ears and taste with our mouths. So the existence of the tree consists exclusively of our perceptions of the tree. Whatever the tree really is, apart from the sensations that we feel and see and the ideas or mental pictures that we perceive, the tree is still completely unknown to us. The tree exists, ultimately, as an idea in our mind, nothing more and nothing less.

Your counter- We only think a 'dead' man doesn't sense, ironically based on our own senses.  However again I go to your fear.  You know that in reality there is something bigger than our mind out there.  Simply put it is called the world.

Our senses would not work without something to sense.  And it is not a whimsical world out there which is merely in your mind, since obviously we are discussing this topic and that would not be possible without existence (Descartes)  

I admit though it is a bit mind boggling and I already know your argument before you make it, but I appeal to your.... drum role please... common sense , to realize how stupid Berkeley's idea really is.  Again if this is a made up world/dream standing in front of a car should be no problem since dreams never follow natural law.

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flying on eagle's wings!

2. this reminds me of Gettier cases:p

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Out of all the stars glistening in that brilliant night sky.
I want to shine the brightest of them all.

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1. there are, in total, 6 senses.

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But a philosophical empiricist like Berkeley would say that since we perceive wind using our senses it only exists in our mind. Likewise since we are able to measure how much a tree disturbs a wind pattern, the tree's essence still lies in its being perceived. The only thing we actually know about the tree is what we see with our eyes, feel with our hands, hear with our ears and taste with our mouths. So the existence of the tree consists exclusively of our perceptions of the tree. Whatever the tree really is, apart from the sensations that we feel and see and the ideas or mental pictures that we perceive, the tree is still completely unknown to us. The tree exists, ultimately, as an idea in our mind, nothing more and nothing less.

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Unless you are a solipsist, i fear that this is a very weak argument.

For instance, If i am locked in a lead room [with all of the essentials of life] where no number of instruments can detect me, your argument would imply that -to me- all other aspects of the world do not exist, only myself and that box. But, to another, I do not exist, since they can not measure my existence.

your counter:
But that makes no sense, since no one else exists, there is no one to believe that YOU do not exist.

Well, say then that at some time, the door is opened and the world is as it was before i entered the box, is it your position that everything ceased to exist whilst I was in the box, then reappeared when the door was opened?

let us make your problem even more difficult. say this lead box was stored in an even larger room, one that must be entered first in order to unlock the second. IF the door has been opened, it is apparent that the first must have been also, and thus something must have opened the door even without my measuring it.

Do you suggest that with the man opening my door, the measuring of his existence lead to his opening of the first door? it seems time would have to be di-directional for that to occur...

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            ...life is good...
...mai ho oni i ka wai lana malie...

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Or another point, You put a cat in a lead box with a small amount of radioactive material, which is equated to effectively kill the cat in 5 hours.  You wait for 10 hours to be sure and open the box.  Now according to Berekely Would you say that the cat is not really dead till you open the box?  This is ludicrous.  Now you might say that using my senses I was able to calculate that the cat would be dead, but what if a stranger to this action opened the box who knew nothing of what was inside.  Basically this is norok's argument restated  

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Despite whatever stranger opening the box, the cat would still be dead. If a tree falls in a forest, and no-one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Of course it does, when atoms and particles collide they produce vibrations that create sound, irrelevant of a present human or any other animal that may be nearby. This tree still exists.

What I find interesting is the idea that there is more to the tree than we could possibly imagine, because it lies outside of our 5 sense boundaries, what could this possibly be if it existed, and what means, if we knew of it, would we use to describe it to a fellow animal?

H°§

The Mind is a object (FUCK DUALISM)

The arguement fails.

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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

read my point above.

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            ...life is good...
...mai ho oni i ka wai lana malie...

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I'm pretty sure you fail blackadder...
the argument was not for dualism, it was more of a solipsist account based off of the premise of a sort of schrodinger's cat type of deal.

read my point above.

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in order for the arguement to be coherent, it would need to adopt dualism

"Therefore the essence of the tree lies in its being perceived. Physical objects are just bundels of qualities and those qualities can only exist if there is a mind to perceive them. It then follows that material objects only exist in the mind."

THE ARGUEMENT:

[p1]X ( eg. tree) =ABC (its qualites)
[p2]M (mind) creates[percieves] ABC

[c1] as ABC=X, and M causes ABC,  X is created by M

my refutation:

M = X

IF M=X then MX=ABC  

IF ABC=MX then MX must be (according to [c1]) created by M

But M=X!

so MX is created by MX...X=X!

In verbal form:

The mind is a object.

If it is a object, it must be its properties.

if the mind is its properties then those properties must be defined by the mind.  

but the mind is a object and objects their are properties!

so the properties of the mind are defined by the the properties of the mind.

ehh....thats given me a headache....I'll proof-logic (like proof-reading, but with logic) this later

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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

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The Mind is a object...

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Quote: from Blackadder at 1:11 am on Jan. 13, 2008

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The Mind is a object...

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Clearly, an object absent in some.

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now now, simple grammatical errors do not take away from the overall well presented post.

though i don't agree with the logical systematic argument presented, I see that thought was put in and was a good argument, despite the fact that some of the premises do not follow directly from the previous ones.

some of those assumptions are too great for me to accept.

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            ...life is good...
...mai ho oni i ka wai lana malie...