My goodness. This has become a personal matter, and not a philosophical matter. No arguments, just nonsense. Who would have guessed?

There is no contradiction about a cup being half empty and half full. In fact being half empty and half full entail each other. To say that a cup is half empty, and to say that the same cup is half full is (logically speaking) to say the very same thing. How could a cup be half empty unless it were also half full?

A little logic goes a long way.

The question remains. If reality is but a dream, then what is a dream?

It is not nonsense, it only meant that your thinking is the same as Johnson.
I have no qualms to state that I agree with Berkeley where he related the mind with reality, but not where his god is concerned.

---------- Post added 03-13-2010 at 11:05 PM ----------

I explained that in terms of a continuum re Berkeley and the neurosciences, didn't you understand that?

Nope, I didn't. If you agree with Berkeley, but not "where his god is concerned", then from where do you think the sensations come which according to Berkeley are reality? Simply question, have you an answer? What causes the sensations which are supposed to be reality?

The fact is, our ability to have sensations emerged from evolution encoded since 4 billion years ago.

The above approach will cut away Berkeley's god.
Yet we can still reconcile Berkeley's theory by replacing his mind-ideas with 'mind', evolution, genes, DNA and the various encoded programs that we inherited from our 'ancestors'.

If you go along with 2D Johnson, i anticipate that you will not be able to comprehend the above which is in 3D perspective.

You are right. I believe that Berkeley was refuted by Johnson. Have you just discovered that?

But the following argument happens to be fallacious:

1. Johnson believes kicking the stone refutes Berkeley.
2. Kennethamy believes kicking the stone refutes Berkeley.
Therefore, 3. Kennethamy is Johnson.

The argument commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle term, and is, therefore, invalid. That appears to be your argument.

Attempting to philosophize without knowing logic is like attempting to row a boat without oars.

Our ability to have sensations is one thing. But I asked where the sensations, we have the ability to have, come from. You have yet to answer that question. How about doing so? (In 3D or 5D, or in how many D you like). Do you understand that telling me about our ability to have sensations does not tell me a thing about where the sensations come from, anymore than knowing about our ability to like ice-cream tells us anything about where ice-cream comes from? So, we try again. Where do these sensations come from, if there are no material objects? You see, I think the sensations are caused by material objects. Berkeley thinks they are caused by God. You think neither is true. So, what is your explanation?

Substance, the first of Aristotle's categories, signifies being as existing in and by itself, and serving as a subject or basis for accidents and accidental changes.

But you fail to see that he was not philosophizing. He was lampooning, making jest of you, laughing at your obstinate foolishness, and frankly, insulting Mr. Johnson.

Besides, Kennethamy, there is more to this world than is dreamt of in your philosophy!

Samm

The sensations can not be caused only by external objects, because sensation is a purely subjective process. Different people get different sensations from the same "stimuli", so I don't think it would be right to say that the cause was external, if anything it seems internal. The external object may have done some part in the process, but the reason for the sensation is not solely external.

Berkeley using God to explain the cause of sensation is making the same claim as Kant in CPPR when he defends the transcendence of the kingdom of ends.

OK one more time. When you are not feeling, seeing, smelling, holding, or kicking the rock, and without thinking of it, describe what it is.

---------- Post added 03-14-2010 at 09:50 PM ----------

And wait! There is something else in all this. First - Berkeley nowhere says 'sensations are caused by God'. But, more to the point: what does he deny? He denies material substance. Now this word has a very specific meaning on the context in which he was writing. Here is the Aristotlean definition of substance Now is not Berkeley denying the reality of just this? And furthermore, I think the idea of substance has subsequently been abandoned. Because 'the rock' has no 'underlying substance'. In other words, it is nothing 'apart from its accidents'. This is actually quite consistent with modern science - because 'the rock' has no 'ultimate constituents' or 'real being'. If you dissect it, you can break it down to infinitesimally small units, but ultimately the nature and whereabouts of those units in themselves are not determinable.

Berkeley does not deny that the rock has certain size, shape, weight, colour, and so on. But he denies it has any reality apart from those qualities, which the Scholastics would call 'accidental'. Galileo, meanwhile, would say that the size and shape were primary, and the other aspects secondary. But Berkeley is saying, as I quoted a few posts back, apart from the visual, tactile and other sensory perceptions it gives rise to, it has no substance.

And this is not to say that it does not exist!!!

I cannot describe the rock without thinking about the rock.

What I am trying to get at is the impossibility of separating the object from its perception, that is all. I think this is always the basic point that B is making. It is not as if the rock is one thing, and my perception of it (be that sensory, tactile, imaginative, and so on) is another. These two are always conjoined. You have said throughout that the object causes the perception. But to say this, is to say the object is one thing, and the perception another. But it can't be shown that there is an object apart from the perception.

If you think it can be shown, then show it.

There is no contradiction about a cup being half empty and half full. In fact being half empty and half full entail each other. To say that a cup is half empty, and to say that the same cup is half full is (logically speaking) to say the very same thing. How could a cup be half empty unless it were also half full?

A little logic goes a long way.

The question remains. If reality is but a dream, then what is a dream?

...
The rest makes Berkeley sound like Hume. But Hume believed there were external objects, although he did not believe we could know that was true, so the question of whether or not it was true was, he thought, idle.
...

Well a rock may exist, but not be perceived. For example, a rock that right now lies on top of Mt. Everest. Or, it is possible that there is a diamond at the very bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which is not, and cannot be perceived. If you think that is impossible, then show it. I really cannot understand why anyone should think that something cannot exist and not be perceived. I suspect, as I have already said a number of times, that it is because some people fail to distinguish between how we know that something exists, and the existence of that thing. That failure is at the bottom of Idealism. It is the failure to distinguish between epistemology and metaphysics. (It is why Berkeley claimed for himself the title of the only true empiricist, for he reduced the existence of something to our knowledge of its existence, and knowledge to the having of sensations and nothing else. So he reduced the existence of something to the having of sensations. It is empiricism gone wild. A textbook example of what Wittgenstein called the philosopher "in the grip of a theory". It might, given a particular sense of "know" be impossible to know that something exists unless it is perceived, but, clearly, it is not impossible for something to exist unless it is perceived. And that is the heart of the matter. For Berkeley tries to persuade us that because the first is true, that the second is true. But that is trying to persuade us to accept a fallacious argument.

A dream is a collection of mental images that play in the mind and for which there are no "external" sources. Thus reality, according to Berkeley, is (like) a dream. uestion to be a stumper when it only indicates a lack of understanding?

Samm

And that is one reason why Hume was a truly great philosopher. Hume is one of the few philosophers who puts limits on human knowledge and then takes the limits seriously, unlike those who say that one can't say anything about something, and then they go ahead and try to say something about it anyway. Another reason is that he was right about this, but as this is not a thread about Hume, I will presently say no more about this.

But I would like you to respond to an earlier post of mine from a while back. It is post number 80 in this thread.

Now jeeprs said "It can't be shown that there is an object apart from the perception. If you think it can be shown, then show it." I think what he means to suggest is even if the rock is immediately in front of you, but we remove all your ability of perception, how can you know that the rock is in front of you, even by kicking it, since contact and pain are themselves perceptions. If you had no perception, we could tie the rock to your ankles and toss you in the river and you would be unaware of what happened until, arriving at the pearly gates, someone restored your perception to you (if we should so imagine it). On this point Hume and even Locke agreed with Berkeley. But Berkeley would suggest that taking away your perception would take away your world as well.

This is my problem with Berkeley's idealism (and empiricism). If you wake up in heaven, I think you will want for an explanation of what happened to you during your period of imperception. If your world exists entirely in your perception of it, then how could anything happen to you while that world was taken from you with your perception? You should still have been standing next to the rock immediately as you were when your perceptions were removed. Nothing could change while the world was shut down with the removal of your perception. Unless, contrary to Berkeley's notion, perception is not essential to existence.

This parallels what you are saying about the diamond so deeply hidden that it can never be seen or perceived. Also, I do not perceive you nor you me, but these words on our screen suggest an entity behind them, one with consistent character and values we never see, but one that does not inexplicably change. I never expect to get a post from you talking about how much you love the work of Bishop George Berkeley. I could never trust such a post. Yet how do we explain the consistency of human character except by something that is unseen and imperceptible? Yet, does it not exist? Of course it does.

There is more to this argument of course, but it is why I can not accept Berkeley's idea of "to be is to be perceived." But if I did not understand Berkeley's argument, how could I question the essence of it? How could I know that kicking a damned stone proves nothing against his argument? Like you, I disagree with Berkeley. But I realize the fallacy of his argument is not found in kicking a stone, and so should you. That is why I have suspected you of pure sophistry, which is equivalent to trolling on a philosophy site. I just can't imagine that you do not see the fault of Johnson's actions, how utterly they fail to address the arguments of Berkeley.

Samm

Well a rock may exist, but not be perceived. For example, a rock that right now lies on top of Mt. Everest.

I really cannot say more than to point out that Berkeley thought it followed from the premise that it is impossible to know that there are external objects, that it is impossible for there to be external objects. And that is fallacious. And, by the way, the premise is false too. Metaphysical conclusions never follow from epistemological premises. In fact, that is called "the epistemological fallacy" (or "the Idealist fallacy").

But you see the fallacy here is your supposition that there IS an external world or self

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Which one are you referring to?

This is not a facetious question.

---------- Post added 03-15-2010 at 08:06 AM ----------

anyway, this has inspired me to go back and read the original sources again, and I shall be doing that over the next few weeks. Thanks.

But you see the fallacy here is your supposition that there IS an external world or self. There is no evidence to support such an hypothesis since all knowledge of reality is internal, of the mind. Berkeley then is only attempting to disprove "the materialist fallacy" of imagining an external reality with absolutely no basis for that conclusion in the internal reality of which we exclusively have knowledge.

It is obvious that our entire knowledge of what you call external reality is itself an idea in the mind fabricated on flagrant misinterpretation of sensory information.

Or at least, that would be Berkeley's take on this "fallacy" nonsense you propose.

Samm

Whichever rock happens to be there, of course.

The point is, that it does not follow from the premise we don't know of such a rock, that there is no such rock.

You are expecting to go there and find something. And indeed you might - but this is an example of inductive logic. Because you have previously found such things in such places, then there is a reasonable expectation that you will find them again. Does it really say anything about the argument at hand?


And again, I am not saying, that in the absence of our knowledge, that there is no object. What you are positing as 'no such rock' is in fact 'the imagined absence of a rock'. You are imagining it not being there and then saying 'of course this is absurd'.

But everything you present here is what you imagine as being real. It is not necessarily unreasonable, and in all likelihood true, but it in no way disproved B's arguments nonetheless. Hylas went through all the same arguments.