The belief in a world made of Matter

[Apech]

Indeed! Both real and unreal.

 

People who insist on pure materialism, I counter with quantum electrodynamics. Those who become trapped in the illusory, I invite to kick a large rock...

 

 

 

Boswell the biographer of Doctor Johnson – the composer of the first English Dictionary – narrates an episode in which the Doctor claims to refute Bishop Berkeley’s position by kicking a stone.

 

“After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- ‘I refute it thus.’”

 

This refutation is a logical error called ‘Argumentum ad lapidem’ (Latin: "appeal to the stone") after this event.  This is because although Johnson claims to refute Berkeley his demonstration does not prove the materiality of the stone but simply that he had the perception of the impact of his foot on the stone.

 

Many commentators find Berkeley’s position unacceptable but yet impossible to refute just as Boswell says.

[Marblehead]

But what about the tree that fell...

 

Trees fell before there was man on Earth.

[Marblehead]

Nothing in this material universe exists outside the realm of our consciousness.

 

You know that is an invalid statement, don't you?

 

If you had said:

 

Nothing in this material universe exists for us outside the realm of our consciousness.

 

it would have been a valid statement.

[Apech]

Berkeley's argument isn't a good one because it doesn't permit mind itself to be a material. If materialism is to be true, then this has to be true in its definition. His definition doesn't permit that.

 

It requires that material have no mind-like qualities. All that does is stand against the premise that inert, entirely un-intelligent material is what the universe is made of.

 

Which is basically a biased way of framing the problem.

 

 

I'm not going to defend Berkeley's view - I only mentioned him to point out that this refutation of a world made a matter was nothing new.  But I think you are mischaracterising his argument a little.  

[dwai]

You know that is an invalid statement, don't you?

 

If you had said:

 

Nothing in this material universe exists for us outside the realm of our consciousness.

 

it would have been a valid statement.

As sentient beings there can be no other without us...so logically the statement is 100% accurate

[Marblehead]

Matter does exist. But our understanding of its nature is quite limited. Which influences how we interact with it.

 

I like the way you said that so I am repeating it.

[dwai]

Is that like if its on the internet its got to be true?

Where it is, doesn't really matter. What matters is that It is known to YOU. True or false are judgements you ascribe to a description of something, is it not?

[Marblehead]

 

Many commentators find Berkeley’s position unacceptable but yet impossible to refute just as Boswell says.

Well, I just refuted it in my above post.  And I used his own dogmatic doctrine.

 

To the stone, if Johnson would have picked up the stone, asked Berkley where his car was and stated that he intended on throwing the stone through Berkley's windshield I am pretty sure Berkley would change his mind about material things.

[Marblehead]

Berkeley's argument isn't a good one because it doesn't permit mind itself to be a material. If materialism is to be true, then this has to be true in its definition. His definition doesn't permit that.

 

It requires that material have no mind-like qualities. All that does is stand against the premise that inert, entirely un-intelligent material is what the universe is made of.

 

Which is basically a biased way of framing the problem.

 

Thinking on this a little more I believe the entire problem in understanding is with the speaker's ego.  They seem to think that they are the center of the universe and that nothing existed prior to their having thought.  How vain!!!

 

Berkley's consciousness has nothing to do with the material universe.  It is only how he perceives it and I, of course, view it very differently therefore, IMO, I am right and he is wrong.

[Marblehead]

As sentient beings there can be no other without us...so logically the statement is 100% accurate

 

Good try,

 

but,

 

Fail!

 

Your and my existence have nothing to do with whether or not Apech exists.  He doesn't need us to exist.  But he might need his cat.

[dwai]

Good try,

 

but,

 

Fail!

 

Your and my existence have nothing to do with whether or not Apech exists. He doesn't need us to exist. But he might need his cat.

If you or I don't exist, how do we know if there exists a self-aware Apech?

[Apech]

Well, I just refuted it in my above post.  And I used his own dogmatic doctrine.

 

To the stone, if Johnson would have picked up the stone, asked Berkley where his car was and stated that he intended on throwing the stone through Berkley's windshield I am pretty sure Berkley would change his mind about material things.

 

 

 

No you didn't.  But I don't want to get into defending his view.  OK he was a Bishop eventually but he was hardly a traditional biblical scholar he developed his own philosophy.  I was in citing Berkeley just, as I said above, making the point that questioning the existence of matter is not new.

 

Obviously Berkeley didn't have a car - but that aside your example would have made no difference to his point of view - it's exactly the same refutation as kicking the stone.

[Marblehead]

If you or I don't exist, how do we know if there exists a self-aware Apech?

 

What makes us so important that it is up to us to acknowledge the existence of the universe?  Release that ego my dear friend.

[Marblehead]

No you didn't.  

 

Of course I did.  And you cannot prove me wrong.

 

But I don't want to get into defending his view.  

 

No, his view doesn't matter as we are discussing the concept, not his (mis)understanding of the concept.

 

OK he was a Bishop eventually but he was hardly a traditional biblical scholar he developed his own philosophy.  

 

It is my opinion that he didn't do a very good job.

 

I was in citing Berkeley just, as I said above, making the point that questioning the existence of matter is not new.

 

Agree, it is nothing new.  Some Buddhists have been talking about it for over two thousand years.  (How can they argue if they don't exist?)

 

Obviously Berkeley didn't have a car -

 

True.  Bad example.  How about his wine cellar?

 

but that aside your example would have made no difference to his point of view - it's exactly the same refutation as kicking the stone.

 

And you know I don't accept that in the least.  Reading a little of his personal history he seems to have been a very materialistic person.  Even bought a plantation in America that he surely claimed didn't exist until he acknowledged that it existed in his mind.

 

[dwai]

What makes us so important that it is up to us to acknowledge the existence of the universe? Release that ego my dear friend.

This is not ego. It is a fact...our sentience is what gives the universe existence. It doesn't have to be human sentience either, just sentience, period.

 

We have bought into a relatively new idea (materialism), hook, line and sinker. This is not the position of the ancients (Hindu, Daoist, Greeks). There awareness had primacy. Because that is the predicate without which the phenomenal universe cannot be experienced.

[3bob]

the interesting thing is that there is only one of us - although countless facets

[liminal_luke]

...

Edited April 23, 2017 by liminal_luke

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I don't accept Berkeley's "Idealism", but the following is about as succinct a discussion of its most important aspect, and the one that is usually left out of the type of discussion going one here, God:
 

God in the Quad: A Knox Limerick

What’s interesting about the philosopher and bishop George Berkeley is his ontological proof for the existence of God. According to the bishop things have being only insofar as they’re perceived- that tree, this child, that can of corn … all these literally owe their existence to being perceived by one of my five senses. That screen, those letters, and presumably that cup of coffee your holding would have absolutely no existence were it not for your perceiving them this very second.
 
In fact, according to Berkeley, we can hardly validate the existence of anything without immediate reference to one or more of the senses.

Think about it: Can you prove your neighbor across the way exists at this very moment without the use of one of these senses? Memory doesn’t count- these are images of your neighbor in the past. A quick phone call doesn’t work- your using a sense: hearing. For all accounts and purposes, your neighbor simply doesn’t exist .

What a strange world Berkeley would have us in: things entering and exiting our perceptions (that is to say, entering and exiting existence itself, having being one moment and non-being the next). How can this be? Berkeley has a solution.

If things owe their existence to being perceived, and cannot logically pop in and out of existence based on our perceiving them one moment and not the next, then how do we account for their existence apart from our perception of them? Berkeley’s answer is that there’s an Infinite Perceiver, namely God.

Things exist independently from their being perceived by one another because God perceives them all from an infinite perspective.

Therefore, and perhaps to your grief, your neighbor does exist; when you walk out of the room you can be assured that that coffee cup you set down will still be there when you return, since a Higher Perception keeps it from plunging into non-being.

This is the approach taken by Berkeley to show how God might exist within the parameters of a logical system of 'empirical' philosophy. He means to impart to us the possibility of an ontological proof based ever so strickly on our perceptions as sentient beings (hence his partial classification as an empirical philosopher, as strange as that may be).

With that said, this blog site is not dedicated to philosophy- it dedicates itself to poetry. Berkeley’s principle of perception, existence and God are presented here because his ideas are expressed beautifully (and philosophically) in a limerick written by Monsignor Ronald Knox : God in the Quad.

Here's that limerick below:

God in the Quad

There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."

Reply:
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."

 
Of the Poem:

Here in our poem a quad is essentially the courtyard of a campus, or a quadrangle thereof.
 
. . .

About our limerick above, do you remember this question: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This poem, along with our bishop, contends that God always perceives the tree, and that therefore anything it does- even crashing to the ground- is being observed. Therefore yes, the tree is heard.

 

In Berkeley's philosophy God is the perpetual witness of all, and the guarantor of the "objectivity" of all perceptions.  There is more to all of this of course, however, this gets rid of problems with stones and trees, but what Berkeley is really trying to deal with is certain problems with Locke's empiricism which have "bedeviled" Western philosophy since the Seventeenth Century.

 

By the way, Locke, basically a Puritan in Anglican clothing, as well as just about all of the advocates of the Seventeenth Century revival of Epicurean atomism, were as dependent on "God" as an explanatory element as was Berkeley.  Seventeenth Century Epicureanism was "Christian" Epicureanism from its inception to the middle of Eighteenth Century, when group of evangelical libertines did everything they could to exorcise the Holy Ghost from the machine.

[Michael Sternbach]

[Apech]

 

No you didn't.  

 

Of course I did.  And you cannot prove me wrong.

 

But I don't want to get into defending his view.  

 

No, his view doesn't matter as we are discussing the concept, not his (mis)understanding of the concept.

 

OK he was a Bishop eventually but he was hardly a traditional biblical scholar he developed his own philosophy.  

 

It is my opinion that he didn't do a very good job.

 

I was in citing Berkeley just, as I said above, making the point that questioning the existence of matter is not new.

 

Agree, it is nothing new.  Some Buddhists have been talking about it for over two thousand years.  (How can they argue if they don't exist?)

 

Obviously Berkeley didn't have a car -

 

True.  Bad example.  How about his wine cellar?

 

but that aside your example would have made no difference to his point of view - it's exactly the same refutation as kicking the stone.

 

And you know I don't accept that in the least.  Reading a little of his personal history he seems to have been a very materialistic person.  Even bought a plantation in America that he surely claimed didn't exist until he acknowledged that it existed in his mind.

 

 

 

 

fair enough - but green ink!  did I deserve that?

[Apech]

 

All matter is energy - but if you don't have the energy it doesn't matter.

[Michael Sternbach]

All matter is energy - but if you don't have the energy it doesn't matter.

You need it for running the fridge.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Michael Sternbach

[Marblehead]

fair enough - but green ink!  did I deserve that?

 

Well, I did change my mind from using red ink.

[Apech]

You need it for running the fridge.

 

 

Oh I wondered why the butter is always soft.

[Apech]

Well, I did change my mind from using red ink.

 

That was very kind of you.