• Mww
    5k


    When the topic of this discussion was current affairs, religion ruled the day, hence, one couldn’t stray too far from it and maintain his cultural standing. It was a race of sorts, among interested parties anyway, not so much the common man, to offer the strongest arguments for the distribution of properties, whether they belonged to things given by Nature, or belonged to things given by deities. But then….Nature itself may have been given by deities, resulting in nothing new. Comparative philosophical doldrums.

    Enter science proper, and stuff gets real interesting.
  • Leontiskos
    3.8k
    - In a general way, how do you see Kant relating to Berkeley?
  • Mww
    5k


    The interesting part? Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type.
    —————-



    Kant called Berkeley’s idealism “dogmatic”, meaning it was formed as a doctrine without sufficient critical examination of the warrant for doing so, and the greatest of that was the principle esse est percipi, wherein the insufficient warrant falls on what it is to perceive, as formalized in ’s OP, re: “For Berkeley, perception encompasses the whole experience of the world as presented to the mind”. Which is these days pretty much established as not the case.

    The way this relates to Kant, is that, generally, as you asked, in transcendental idealism, existence is granted outright, immediately removing it from necessary reference to ideas and the condition of our perceptions. Very generally, to be sure.
  • Gnomon
    3.9k
    The composition and nature of the stone is a matter for physical chemistry and physics. And it is nowadays well known that minute analysis of the stone reveals ever-smaller components or particles from which it is composed, until the sub-atomic level is reached, at which point the nature of the so-called components of matter, if that is what 'material substance' is supposed to comprise, becomes quite ambiguous. In fact modern sub-atomic physics has not done much to support the kind of 'argument' that Johnson is proposing.Wayfarer
    Did Berkeley in the 18th century have any empirical evidence upon which to base his foresight of "modern subatomic physics" view of Matter? Or was his Idealism a> just intuition or b> expansion on Plato's metaphysics?

    We now know that the table before us, that seems to be solid wood, is mostly empty space*1. So the solidity of the "substance" is a sort of illusion conjured by the mind ; but a "stubbornly persistent illusion"*2 that all humans share. That Johnson's rock will resist the impact of a foot is due to immaterial force fields*3, not to Matter in the Democritean sense. Could those invisible-yet-powerful forces & energy & gravity be interpreted in terms of the Mind of God (Universal Mind) binding the world together, perhaps by perceiving or conceiving*4 the cosmos as an integrated whole?

    I don't mean to put you on the spot. I'm just riffing on a theme, and going beyond my scope of meager philosophical knowledge. :smile:


    *1. Atoms are not the ultimate particle: they are nearly all empty space. This space is filled with electric and magnetic force fields. These fields are incredibly powerful, and hold electrons in their atomic prisons. The fields govern potential energy, and are strong enough to mean that atoms resist like a solid medium.
    https://academic.oup.com/book/985/chapter-abstract/137840897?redirectedFrom=fulltext

    *2. Albert Einstein wrote: “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
    https://www.spudart.org/blog/einstein-time-stubbornly-persistent-illusion/

    *3. A force itself isn't "made of" anything tangible, but rather is a concept describing the interaction between objects, resulting from the exchange of particles called bosons, and is mathematically defined as mass multiplied by acceleration (F = ma).
    ___Google A.I. Overview

    *4. According to George Berkeley's philosophical theory, God is the ultimate perceiver, meaning that the world only exists because God is constantly perceiving it; essentially, "to be is to be perceived," and since God always perceives everything, even when humans aren't, the world continues to exist even when no human is observing it
    ___Google A.I. Overview
  • Tom Storm
    9.4k
    The biggest issue here is that, for whatever reason, we have some trouble (at least I do) in understanding how concretely existing things could be solely ideas.Manuel

    Yes, I think this is the key problem for most people in thinking this matter through.

    The idealist might say that the idea of solid objects misses the point and remains stuck in a framework of metaphysical realism. In Johnson's case, the toe and the breaking themselves are a product of consciousness. I assume that the point of Berkeley is that the world of primary qualities does not exist independent of the mind. Solidity and the notion of 'hard matter' does not exist independently of mind and so kicking the rock, breaking a toe are mental experiences. It is how consciousness appears when experienced from our perspective. The solid stone and the foot's impact upon it are examples of the ability of consciousness to create a coherent world of experience - held together in the mind of God. Or in the case of Kastrup - we are all participants or aspects of a 'great mind' which is the source of all reality.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type.Mww

    Of course. But I'm of the view that it was this emerging modern view of the universe that the good Bishop wished to oppose. That the reason idealism as school of thought begins to appear in this time, is because of the rejection of scholastic realism, which held that particulars did not posses their own inherent or intrinsic reality, as scholastic realism held that the being of particulars was grounded in their intelligible form. Whereas the emerging forms of nominalism held that particulars are real 'in their own right', so to speak. This has had many consequences, most of which we're not aware of, as they are formative in modern culture.

    Did Berkeley in the 18th century have any empirical evidence upon which to base his foresight of the "modern subatomic physics" view of Matter? Or was his Idealism a> just intuition or b> expansion on Plato's metaphysics?Gnomon

    It's important to get what Berkeley is saying. Many people, even many philosophers, take him to be saying that solid objects are all 'in the mind', which is why Samuel Johnson believed that kicking a rock refuted his arguments. As I've been saying, that is based on a misunderstanding of Berkeley's contention, which was that there is no material substance apart from all of the perceived attributes of objects (size, shape, weight, solidity among them.) So he's not saying the rock doesn't exist, or is a 'mere' idea, but that what we know of it, is the sensible impressions it causes in us. As per the paragraph above on the meaning of 'substance' in Berkeley - the meaning of substance is crucial in this context. It doesn't mean 'a material with uniform properties' (a sticky substance, a waxy substance, a very hard substance.) It means something like 'a particular of of which attributes can be predicated, or in which attributes inhere'.

    (The point I'm interested in, is that 'substance' was derived from the Latin translations of Aristotle's 'ousia' in his Metaphysics, and that is a form of the verb 'to be'. So it is at least arguable that what philosophers often refer to a substances, might be better rendered as 'beings' or 'subjects'. It's not entirely correct, but it conveys something important. For instance, in translations of Spinoza, we read 'God is the infinite, necessarily existing, unique substance.' What if that was given as 'subject' or 'being'? Again, not quite right, but conveying something that has been lost in translation, and which leads to the idea, mistaken in my view, that 'substance' is objectively existent as a kind of thing, no matter how ethereal. But at any rate, it is the philosophical notion of 'substance' and in particular 'corporeal substance' which is at issue.

    Of course it is true that Berkeley had no conception of modern physics, although he might well have known of ancient atomism. But it is arguable that modern physics has also undermined the conception of 'corporeal substances'. It has certainly cast doubt on the conception of the mind-independence of fundamental particles, at issue in the 'Bohr-Einstein debates'.)

    Berkeley held to Platonism in some ways, with the emphasis on ideas, but contra in others, as he opposed universals. Many say that is the real shortcoming of his philosophy.

    The textbook account of Kant on Berkeley is that, after the first edition of Critique of Pure Reason, Kant was angry that many critics took him to be affirming Berkeley's basic thesis. Accordingly in the B edition, he included a section on the Refutation of Idealism, directed at Descartes and Berkeley. You can find an account here.

    Like 'substance', I think 'idea' in philosophy means something other than the parade of thoughts, words and images that pass the mind's eye. Objects are recognised by us as kinds and types - this is where Kant comes in - and without that recognition, which is part of the process of apperception, then they would be nothing to us. Experience presents itself to us in the form of ideas. It is much more clearly enunciated by Schopenhauer, in the opening paragraph of WWI, where he recognised Berkeley's 'permanent service to philosophy', although then immediately saying 'even though the rest of his teaching should not endure'. (Talk about a back-handed compliment.)
  • Leontiskos
    3.8k
    - Thanks.

    Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type...Mww

    Yes, but is it just modern science? Because there is plenty of philosophy between Plato and Berkeley that manages to avoid Berkeley's idealism. I'm sure if I investigated the way that Berkeley was reacting to Locke I would have a better understanding of this issue.

    ---

    - Okay, thanks. :up:
  • Mww
    5k
    Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own….
    — Mww

    Yes, but is it just modern science?
    Leontiskos

    I think science did more than anything else to liberate the intellect, yes.
    ————-

    I'm of the view that it was this emerging modern view of the universe that the good Bishop wished to oppose.Wayfarer

    I’m not sure he could do otherwise, could he? I guess I’m of the mind that, rather than oppose science, his raison d’etre was to uphold religion. I mean….

    “…..But you will say, has Nature no share in the production of natural things, and must they be all ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of God? I answer, if by Nature is meant only the visible series of effects or sensations imprinted on our minds, according to certain fixed and general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense, cannot produce anything at all. But, if by Nature is meant some being distinct from God, as well as from the laws of nature, and things perceived by sense, I must confess that word is to me an empty sound without any intelligible meaning annexed to it. Nature, in this acceptation, is a vain chimera, introduced by those heathens who had not just notions of the omnipresence and infinite perfection of God….”
    (Ibid 157)

    …..YIKES!!!! Nonetheless odd as hell, I must say, that had I lived in 1710, I might have just as similar an opinion, as the different one I do have.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    "I answer, if by Nature is meant only the visible series of effects or sensations imprinted on our minds, according to certain fixed and general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense, cannot produce anything at all" ~ BerkeleyMww

    I can't help be reminded of:

    At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.TLP 6.371
  • Leontiskos
    3.8k
    I’m not sure he could do otherwise, could he?Mww

    I mean, for hundreds of years Christian theologians had been incorporating Aristotle into their work and refusing Occasionalism, which is pretty close to what Berkeley promoted. See, for example, Aquinas on secondary causality. To say that Berkeley is not representative of Christian theology up to that point would be an understatement. And isn't Berkeley reacting primarily to John Locke, who was himself religious? Berkeley may have been opposed to realism, but that doesn't mean religion is opposed to realism.
  • Tom Storm
    9.4k
    . Objects are recognised by us as kinds and types - this is where Kant comes in - and without that recognition, which is part of the process of apperception, then they would be nothing to us. Experience presents itself to us in the form of ideas.Wayfarer

    Very interesting responses. So am I right in thinking that for you idealism consists more of our cognitive apparatus making order our of a type of chaos (but there is some sort of "noumena" to begin with)? I don't read you as subscribing to the notion that there is only pure consciousness and nothing else, held by a ground-of-being style great mind, in which we are all participants or instantiations.
  • Mww
    5k


    Sure, no prob. The human can only account for his world in his own terms, and whatever the difference between his terms and Nature’s, cannot be determined by them. The illusion resides in thinking they can.

    Right? Is this somewhat like what reminds you?
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    So am I right in thinking that for you idealism consists more of our cognitive apparatus making order our of a type of chaos (but there is some sort of "noumena" to begin with)?Tom Storm

    I think I'll defer again to Schopenhauer. While he came along much later than Berkeley, his insight ‘no object without a subject’ encapsulates a key idealist critique of materialism. Schopenhauer’s analysis deepens Berkeley’s argument by revealing how materialism presupposes the subject’s forms of knowledge—time, space, and causality—without acknowledging their dependence on the subject. This convergence between their critiques underscores the enduring relevance of idealism in challenging naive realism and materialism, which is, as Schopenhauer often insists, 'the philosophy of the subject who forgets herself'.

    Reveal
    Materialism… even at its birth, has death in its heart, because it ignores the subject and the forms of knowledge, which are presupposed, just as much in the case of the crudest matter, from which it desires to start, as in that of the organism, at which it desires to arrive. For, “no object without a subject,” is the principle which renders all materialism for ever impossible. Suns and planets without an eye that sees them, and an understanding that knows them, may indeed be spoken of in words, but for the idea, these words are absolutely meaningless.

    On the other hand, the law of causality and the treatment and investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily to the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that, consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared,—this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all.

    Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge… The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.


  • Manuel
    4.2k
    Solidity and the notion of 'hard matter' does not exist independently of mind and so kicking the rock, breaking a toe are mental experiences. It is how consciousness appears when experienced from our perspective. The solid stone and the foot's impact upon it are examples of the ability of consciousness to create a coherent world of experience - held together in the mind of God. Or in the case of Kastrup - we are all participants or aspects of a 'great mind' which is the source of all reality.Tom Storm

    Yes. And that is an argument that can be given. I don't disagree with some varieties of idealism by the way, like Kant's, or Burthogge's or Cudworth's.

    But that aside, I can think away everything I can about an object, including my concepts, my sensations, everything I can think of. I still have the intuition that even if I don't feel it, I cannot pass through walls, something is there that is not solely mental.

    But as you say, this can be explained by being a content of consciousness. It's nebulous.
  • Leontiskos
    3.8k
    And the premise you stated [...] is arguably false, and clearly designed for the purpose of that refutation. It looks like a very clear cut example of begging the question to me.Metaphysician Undercover

    That's how arguments work. You design premises to reach a conclusion.Leontiskos

    A fun quote from Peter van Inwagen:

    (Some of my own philosophical arguments have been accused of something very like ‘begging the question’ – I concede the phrase was not used – simply because they were formally valid arguments for a conclusion the accusers thought was false. Their reasoning seems to have been something like this: if the conclusion of an argument can be formally deduced from its premises, then that conclusion is, as one might put it, logically contained in the premises – and thus one who affirms those premises is assuming that the conclusion is true. As R. M. Chisholm once remarked when confronted with a similar criticism, ‘I stand accused of the fallacy of affirming the antecedent.’) — Peter van Inwagen, Begging the Question
  • Mww
    5k


    Lots commendable in the WWR excerpt, but for this:

    ….on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being….

    Each conscious being indeed maintains the form, the condition, of its world in accordance with its effects, but each conscious being isn’t his own world’s existential causality.

    That being said, there’s agreement whereby *reductive* materialism, as a purely monistic ontology, ignores the subject in favor of the regressive series of things.
  • Mww
    5k
    Berkeley may have been opposed to realism, but that doesn't mean religion is opposed to realism.Leontiskos

    I’m not sure realism has much to do with it, whereas the primary source of it, its fundamental causality, does.

    “…. Such is the artificial contrivance of this mighty machine of nature that, whilst its motions and various phenomena strike on our senses, the hand which actuates the whole is itself unperceivable to men of flesh and blood….”
    (Principles…. , 1710, #151)
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.5k
    If you can’t prove primary perceptible qualities in us are not ideas in an immediate principal perceiver, perhaps it can be argued…….what difference would it make to the human perceiving mind, if they were not? Was the idea of measurable distance implanted in my head as an idea belonging to some sort of prevalent, re: un-constructed, spirit, or does the idea belong to me alone, as a mere distinction in relative spaces?Mww

    To understand this "what difference would it make...", we need to get a good grasp of the philosophical concept itself, "matter"; that being the concept which Berkeley insisted we can dispense with.

    In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity.

    Hegel, in positing the priority of "the Idea", rejects "identity" and this enables his logical dialectics, characterized by "becoming". That takes the world of change, and brings it from the external material realm, into the internal Ideal realm. Instead of being eternally unchanging, the Idea evolves with time. This is a significant change, but whether or not it provides the means to completely dismiss the concept of "matter" is debatable. Marx, who followed Hegel, argued that under Hegelian principles "matter" is still necessary as the kernel of content within the Idea.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.5k

    That's why begging the question is known as an "informal fallacy".
  • Mww
    5k
    …."matter"; that being the concept which Berkeley insisted we can dispense with.Metaphysician Undercover

    Agreed.

    In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity.Metaphysician Undercover

    Kinda agreed. I’d be more inclined to grant to the concept of matter the underpinning for spatial continuity allowing a body to have an identity.

    ….under Hegelian principles "matter" is still necessary as the kernel of content within the Idea.Metaphysician Undercover

    I understand the concept represented as “becoming”, and, with respect to the kernel of content within the Idea, isn’t that more Platonic? Maybe where the notion of “becoming” initiated? My armchair mandates that matter is the kernel of content for experience; ideas, as such, have no material content at all.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.2k


    Enter science proper, and stuff gets real interesting.

    What is "science proper?"

    To me, it's always seemed a bitter irony that just as there is an explosion in scientific progress (helping to drive the "Great Divergence" of the 19th century whereby Europe became much wealthier and militarily stronger than Asia), much philosophy of science seems to become incredibly dismal, consumed with skepticism. Even today, "philosophy of physics," "philosophy of biology," "philosophy of complexity," or "philosophy of economics," are filled with interesting ideas, whereas "philosophy of science" often takes the form of dull reductions of science to "observation + modeling," scientific understanding to "prediction," and knowledge of causes to "more prediction."



    In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity.

    While it's true that for Aristotle "matter is what stays the same," when there is change, the "matter" and "substance" of Berkeley's era had changed dramatically from their ancient or medieval usages. The entire idea of "materialism" makes no sense from an Aristotelian framework. It would amount to claiming the whole world is just potency, with no actuality, and so nothing at all. But the term "matter" by Berkeley's era is more often conceived as a sort of subsistent substrate (often atomic) of which spatial, corporeal bodies are composed, such that their properties are a function of their matter (which would make no sense under the older conception of matter as potential). By way of contrast, Aristotelians would speak of the "material intellect" of the soul, the matter of abstract mathematical objects, the form of a logical argument (from whence we get "formal logic") versus its matter, the phrase "subject matter," etc.

    "Idealism" ("eidos-ism") would also make no sense in the Aristotelian frame. Saying "everything is idea" would be to declare that everything is act, which would preclude change, essentially putting you back with Parmenides. This is why "idealism versus materialism" is a modern debate (although it has some loosely analogous precursors). Aristotle might be close to Berkeley in some sense, in that the world is intellect, but this is taken in a very different (and IMO far more developed) way. The redefinition of substance also looms large here, since materialism versus idealism can be framed as "everything is material versus mental substance," a distinction which required the radically different early modern notion of substance to make much sense.

    Locke's matter, for instance, is closer to ancient elements than Aristotle's matter.
  • Mww
    5k
    What is "science proper?"Count Timothy von Icarus

    ….dull reductions to "observation + modeling”…..sounds about right to me. I’d add in “experimenting”, and the whole process doesn’t have to be dull, necessarily. Although…dunno if I could sit still long enough waiting for a cosmic neutrino.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    ….on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being….

    Each conscious being indeed maintains the form, the condition, of its world in accordance with its effects, but each conscious being isn’t his own world’s existential causality.
    Mww

    Isn't it interesting, though, that with David Hume and the advent of modern philosophy, the whole concept of natural causation is thrown into question. I recall Bertrand Russell saying in the History of Western Philosophy that Hume's scepticism would even cast science itself into doubt, had not Kant 'slipped a plank' under it. He was referring to Kant's 'answer to Hume', whereby Kant resurrected causal relations by showing that they are among the necessary conditions of reason.

    I recall an exchange some years ago between Richard Dawkins and the now deceased Bishop George Pell about evolution and creation, the transcript of which was kept online by the Australian Broadcasting Commission:

    GEORGE PELL: Well, what is the reason that science gives why we're here? Science tells us how things happen, science tells us nothing about why there was the big bang. Why there is a transition from inanimate matter to living matter. Science is silent on we could solve most of the questions in science and it would leave all the problems of life almost completely untouched. Why be good?

    RICHARD DAWKINS: Why be good is a separate question, which I also came to. Why we exist, you're playing with the word "why" there. Science is working on the problem of the antecedent factors that lead to our existence. Now, "why" in any further sense than that, why in the sense of purpose is, in my opinion, not a meaningful question. You cannot ask a question like "Why down mountains exist?" as though mountains have some kind of purpose. What you can say is what are the causal factors that lead to the existence of mountains and the same with life and the same with the universe. Now, science, over the centuries, has gradually pieced together answers to those questions: "why" in that sense.

    Dawkins unwittingly expresses the way in which his type of scientific materialism is irrational, as it has no concept of causation beyond the material. There is no reason for anything existing, only a kind of forensic reconstruction of prior temporal events.

    In that passage Schopenhauer makes explicit what is implicit in Kant: causation is not an inherent property of the objective domain, but a necessary condition of how the mind structures experience. The logical relations and causal connections we discern in the world are only possible because the world is idea—a representation shaped by the mind. For the empiricists, this connection between causation and logic is severed, leaving causation as little more than a psychological habit without grounding. Schopenhauer restores this connection by showing that causation exists because the world exists as idea.

    Modern thought generally assumes that temporal priority subsumes causal or explanatory priority, but this is far from self-evident. As Schopenhauer argues, time and causality are structures in consciousness, not independent realities. To conflate what comes first in time with what is most fundamental in being is to mistake the descriptive for the ontological. For instance, while the Big Bang may precede the universe temporally, it does not answer the ontological question of why there is something rather than nothing. Similarly, while neural activity may precede consciousness in time, it does not explain the existence of consciousness, which is the very framework through which we understand causation.

    This is exactly what Schopenhauer is saying: 'The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye.'
  • Gnomon
    3.9k
    I cannot pass through walls, something is there that is not solely mental.Manuel
    That comment is true, but the "something" is not necessarily Matter, and may even be a form of Mind. If the notion of mental matter sounds odd or woo-woo, it's understandable. So, I'll try to explain, but Science and Philosophy tend to focus on opposite sides of this equation. Therefore, this post is a cross-over.

    According to modern physics, the something blocking your attempt to pass through the wall is not Matter per se, but Atomic Forces interpenetrating the space between sub-atomic particles : electrons, protons, etc. Those binding & repelling forces are what gives the "appearance of solidity to pure wind"*1. It's the sensation of push-back that makes the wall seem solid, even though its atoms are now known to be 99% empty space. Therefore, Johnson's rock and his shoe were mostly matterless, yet those invisible binding forces cause his foot to bounce-back without penetrating the apparent surface of the stone.

    But, what is a Force or Energy? It's not a material substance, but a positive (push) or negative (pull) relationship (statistical ratio), and exists in Potential (available) or Actual (causal) forms*2. And the knowledge of conceptual relationships (yes/no ; on/off ; hot/cold) is what we mentally interpret as meaningful Information*3. Potential (theoretical ; imaginary) energy has no sensable form, but Actual energy can even take on the form of Matter : E=MC^2. Yet we sense Matter directly only as the sensation of weight due to mathematical Mass, or indirectly by the stimulus of reflected light from the force field around the atoms, or by repulsion of a foot, when it attempts to pass between a material rock and an apparent hard place.

    What I'm trying to say here is that the "appearance of solidity", and the sensation of weight, and the visual image of a rock, are all mental functions. If you see a gray mass, and you believe it to be solid & massive, you will refrain from kicking it. Unless, of course, you are trying to demonstrate that something is there "that is not solely mental". You know from personal experience that your mind/body requires a door in order to "pass through a wall". And yet, Quantum Physics has revealed that the subjective Mind can be a causal force*3*4 in sub-atomic physics.

    A New Age interpretation of quantum subjectivity --- as illustrated in the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats {video below} --- concluded that since the wall is nothing-but emptiness, it's only an obstacle to those who believe in matter. Conveniently ignoring the real world role of forces. Mass is indeed an abstract mathematical concept, and Matter is a lump of information relationships, but Physics is more-than just an illusion : it keeps us from falling through the floor.

    The bottom line here is that Energy/Force/Causation may be a primitive relative of what we understand as Mind*5. Hence, Mind & Matter may both be forms of essential Energy. This Energy-Mind relationship is not well known*6. But, as the 5b link says : "This theory has implications for transforming states of mind and the ethical treatment of all living beings". I apologize for getting so technical, but the relationship between Matter & Mind is a fraught question on this forum. So it might help to get down to fundamentals. Or not . . . :nerd:


    *1. Politics . . . according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language

    *2a. A force is simply the transfer of energy between kinetic and potential. Energy can exist in so many forms, but the only way between those two is with a force.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wyrmvk/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_form_of/
    *2b. Force is what accelerates a mass. Energy is a completely different thing, the potential to create a force across some distance.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wyrmvk/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_form_of/

    *3. Energy is the relationship between information regimes. That is, energy is manifested, at any level, between structures, processes and systems of information in all of its forms, and all entities in this universe is composed of information. . . . . Information is a statistical concept, also in telecommunication engineering, say. It captures the scientific aspect of information, though not its subjective value for human beings.
    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/22084/how-is-information-related-to-energy-in-physics

    *4. Quantum subjective causality is a philosophical and theoretical framework that explores the role of causality in quantum physics. It combines ideas from quantum information, computer science, and general relativity to explain how causality and time work in the quantum realm.
    ___Google A.I. Overview

    *5. The statement "mind is energy" means that our thoughts, feelings, and consciousness can be understood as a form of energy, as the brain's activity generates electrical impulses and chemical reactions which are essentially energy in action, allowing us to think and experience the world around us; essentially, our mental processes are not separate from physical energy within the body.
    ___Google A.I. Overview
    *5b. The mind is viewed as energies of relationships, with no beginning and no end, that give rise to consciousness in an observer processing change or information from the universe.
    https://researchoutreach.org/articles/mind-as-energy/

    *6. Interactionism :
    In his 1996 book The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers questioned interactionism. In 2002 he listed it along with epiphenomenalism and what he calls "Type-F Monism" as a position worth examining. Rather than invoking two distinct substances, he defines interactionism as the view that "microphysics is not causally closed, and that phenomenal properties play a causal role in affecting the physical world." (See property dualism.) He argues the most plausible place for consciousness to impact physics is the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactionism_(philosophy_of_mind)
    *6b. Type-F monism is the view that there are phenomenal or at least protophenomenal properties that underlie physical properties like mass and charge. This is a version of panpsychism.
    https://philarchive.org/archive/BRODCO

  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    What I'm trying to say here is that the "appearance of solidity", and the sensation of weight, and the visual image of a rock, are all mental functions. If you see a gray mass, and you believe it to be solid & massive, you will refrain from kicking it. Unless, of course, you are trying to demonstrate that something is there "that is not solely mental". You know from personal experience that your mind/body requires a door in order to "pass through a wall".Gnomon

    Eddington's Two Tables
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.5k
    Kinda agreed. I’d be more inclined to grant to the concept of matter the underpinning for spatial continuity allowing a body to have an identity.Mww

    This is an interesting perspective. But I tend to apprehend spatial features of a body as formal rather than material. Spatial features tend to be the traditional properties, which are formal.

    In his Physics, Aristotle describes the material cause as what persists through change. This idea of persistence from one time to another, is why I interpret "matter" as temporal continuity. Zeno's paradoxes, and the idea of infinite divisibility, had cast doubt toward the reality of spatial continuity. So Aristotle moved to assign identity to the thing itself, and the essence of being a thing is to have temporal extension, as a continuous duration of being.

    While it's true that for Aristotle "matter is what stays the same," when there is change, the "matter" and "substance" of Berkeley's era had changed dramatically from their ancient or medieval usages.Count Timothy von Icarus

    I do not agree. Berkeley takes "matter" in very much the way of Aristotle. That's how he manages to conceive of substance without matter.

    The entire idea of "materialism" makes no sense from an Aristotelian framework. It would amount to claiming the whole world is just potency, with no actuality, and so nothing at all. But the term "matter" by Berkeley's era is more often conceived as a sort of subsistent substrate (often atomic) of which spatial, corporeal bodies are composed, such that their properties are a function of their matter (which would make no sense under the older conception of matter as potential).Count Timothy von Icarus

    I believe that Berkeley is actually demonstrating the incorrectness of this 'new' way of conceiving of "matter" by showing how these ideas that people have about "matter" do not hold up if we adhere to principles.

    The reason why I mentioned Marx, is because he also maintained the Aristotelian conception of matter. But Marx demonstrated how, contrary to what you say here, a true materialism is possible. It just develops some odd features like violation of the law of non-contradiction in dialectical materialism. But Marxist materialism is actually well structured conceptually.

    "Idealism" ("eidos-ism") would also make no sense in the Aristotelian frame.Count Timothy von Icarus

    This is why Marx was so easily able to invert Hegelian idealism, and transform it into materialism. Aristotle refuted traditional (Pythagorean) idealism by putting human ideas, and matter, both in the same category as potential, then applying the cosmological argument. So when Hegel proposed "the Idea" as fundamental, Marx was able to apply Aristotelian principles to replace "the Idea" with "matter", thereby hijacking Hegelian dialectics and turning that idealism into materialism. And then it turns out that Hegelian principles are better suited to materialism than idealism.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    While it's true that for Aristotle "matter is what stays the same," when there is change, the "matter" and "substance" of Berkeley's era had changed dramatically from their ancient or medieval usages.
    — Count Timothy von Icarus

    I do not agree. Berkeley takes "matter" in very much the way of Aristotle. That's how he manages to conceive of substance without matter.
    Metaphysician Undercover

    I agree with @Count Timothy von Icarus. As I put it in an earlier post:

    In essence, Berkeley’s rejection of material substance is a critique of the early modern philosophers (specifically Descartes and Locke) who inherited and transformed Aristotelian metaphysics into the notion of a "material substratum." For Locke, material substance was posited as the "unknown support" underlying sensible qualities, but something inherently beyond perception, and of which we only receive impressions (the basis of Locke's representative realism). For Descartes, matter was res extensa, entirely lacking in intelligence and possessing only spatial extension, all of the functions of intelligence residing in res cogitans, the so-called 'thinking substance'.Wayfarer

    Note the 'and transformed'. Berkeley was very much at odds with Aristotelian universals, which he rejected as 'abstract ideas'.
  • Manuel
    4.2k


    That's fine and you are right that the matter we have now is just extraordinarily removed from our common conceptions of it. This is true and sure; I do agree the world is a construction of the mind. We don't even need metaphysics to establish this, I think it just follows form facts of the matter.

    The issue is that our everyday image of the world is not and probably cannot, be exhausted by whatever physics says about it. From an "everyday" perspective, you can "think away" all sensations and maybe most conceptions, but I, that is me specifically, have trouble removing solidity from this, it seems to me that based on manifest world terms, we still would bump up against something, even if we can't feel it.

    This is different that speaking about the micro-constituents of matter, as I see it,
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.5k
    I agree with Count Timothy von Icarus. As I put it in an earlier post:Wayfarer

    The quote you provided seems to agree with me. Berkeley was criticizing the 'new' conception of matter. And he did this by falling back onto a more Aristotelian conception which allows him to disassociate substance from matter. He showed that substance does not require matter. This is what i said:

    I believe that Berkeley is actually demonstrating the incorrectness of this 'new' way of conceiving of "matter" by showing how these ideas that people have about "matter" do not hold up if we adhere to principles.Metaphysician Undercover
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