The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
Sep 11, 2011 at 3:07am
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."
Are you persuaded?
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Nov '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
If a tree fell on Bishop Berkeley in the middle of a forest, would anyone care?
Nov '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Berkeley contends that to be is to be perceived. Absent perception, nothing exists.
But what about unobserved trees in the middle of the forest? No problem, says Berkeley: they continue to exist because God observes them.
But God, the great Perceiver, also exists. To exist, ex hypothesi, He must also be perceived. How does He manage this?
Well, He could perpetually perceive Himself to eternally ensure His own existence. This implies that, if God ever stopped thinking about Himself, He would cease to exist.
Another option would be to have a heavenly angel observe Him.
(Note that this would not be necessary: God's mind, being infinitely capacious, can effortlessly encompass both Himself and Creation.)
However, that angel, being finite, would not be God. Could that angel, then, adequately perceive God in his infinity?
Only, I would argue, if that angel had infinite perceptive power and was eternally subsistent. Luckily, Occam's Razor can be invoked to dispose of such a preposterous ontological superfluity.
I conclude that, if Berkeley's thesis is correct, then God is self-absorbed. Yet, psychologists assure us, this would be an imperfection. Indisputably, God is perfect and exists (Anslem). Hence, Berkeley's thesis is refuted.
Edited on Sep 11, 2011 at 4:24amNov '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
More seriously:
Johnson, as usual, makes a spirited stand for commonsense. But the whole point of Berkeley's thesis is that commonsense misleads us, and careful philosophical reflection shows us why.
Hence, invoking commonsense to refute Berkeley--as Johnson does by vividly pumping the intuition of felt physical resistance--is merely a form of begging-the-question.
To spell it out: Johnson perceives the physical resistance of the rock. But he thereby supplies no argument for why matter must underlie his perception.
Edited on Sep 12, 2011 at 3:47pmSep '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
"Kick the rock Sam Johnson, break your bones,/ but cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones." - Richard Wilbur
May '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
I always side with Johnson. Else he's apt to refute me. Thus!
Your eastern religions (Buddhism, primarily) would say that we see only a mask over true reality. Behind that mask, everything blends into one all-encompassing "God", for lack of a better word. All we have to do (easy for us to say) is look so far deep inside, and retreat from the world so far, that we lose sense of self and zap! This glorious new vista is open to us. Not sure what you're supposed to do at that point. Walk around being enlightened, I guess. Sounds deadly dull, and shows why they never accomplish much.
Plato, etc dabbled in this pointless sophistry, hanging out in caves and looking at shadows. My views on Greek philosophers are widely known. As the Kennedy School, for a sort of shorthand disdain.
The West holds that the world is real, and more or less as it appears. It was created; it is solid. We do, like Buddhists, tire of it, but can't wish it away. Here we are, and it is our duty to deal with God's creation as is. This makes life far more interesting.
May '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
200 words, neither more nor less. Check the packing slip against the invoice and purchase order. Save all three for the audit.
Aug '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Sam Johnson's sore toe seems too determined by his intention; he knew what to expect, so that it fails to refute Berkeley.
For me the ant-Berkelyan epiphany came many years ago on a bus somewhere in Turkey. We were at a road-side stop. I was looking out the window to patch of dusty ground by a drinks-stand. Someone handed two bottles of soda to two small girls and then bend down and removed the caps. The sweet drink fizzed up and bubbled over much to the hilarity of the children, who jumped up and down squealing with excitement. Suddenly it flashed on me, "the physical world is real!" Thinking back the underlying argument must have been because some things are just a total surprise.
Nov '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
I am persuaded that I am persuaded, and that I AM made a wonderfully mysterious world for us to ponder and discover. Now, anyone want an apple? There's theoretically not much to it, but it just fell from the tree outside. How did that happen?
Jan '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Berkeley doesn't contend that the physical world isn't real, but essentially that it is the mind of God. The mind of God could be very real, as are our perceptions. Berkeley contends that our understanding of physical reality is flawed, not that physical reality isn't real.
Edited on Sep 11, 2011 at 8:24amJan '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
As for Johnson's "argument," I am not persuaded even a little.
Feb '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Johnson's argument is limited only to matter that supports a shear stress. What about matter that does not (gases and liquids)? As for Bishop Berkeley's argument, it can neither be proved nor disproved, and as such I find it totally uninteresting.
Jan '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
It was obviously intriguing enough for you to explore it and comment on it. So I don't buy your claim that you find it uninteresting.
Jan '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Belief that things exist independently of our knowledge is a faith.
Faith has a religious connotation, but for the moment, set that aside. Faith is merely believing something that cannot be proved.
Berkeley's argument exploits the impossibility of proving reality independently of ideas. Once you accept that you need to use ideas to even form the assertion that reality exists independently, you find yourself in a circle. To even consider anything independent of ideas is itself an idea - and that's where you're caught.
How do we escape? Faith. We trust what we cannot prove. Only faith opens the door to reality.
If you don't like the religious connotations of the word faith, maybe you'll like axioms better. Axioms are the foundation of any theoretical system, yet they themselves are unproved. We belie-- oops, excuse me, we posit them -- without proving them. (Same trick, different name. Faith, axiom, to-may-to, to-mah-to, etc.)
Johnson's reply, however, is just a cheap shortcut. He displays his faith in the existence of matter without acknowledging Berkeley's point. Johnson doesn't refute Berkeley, he just detours around him.
Sep '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
This kind of stuff makes my thoughts spin in circles, creating an infernal doo-loop, like a computer that's locked up. I remember as kids my sister and me trying to fathom nothingness, only to get up off the floor feeling dizzy. ... Perhaps both insights are correct and the paradox is the only real gauge of that fleeting chimera known as truth. In other words, maybe it's a balancing act, Newtonian physics working pretty darn well at this level of mass only to meet up against quantum physics in the more rarefied realms of pondering time and mere existence. I recall Raphael's magnificent painting The School of Athens and especially Plato pointing to the sky while his walking companion, Aristotle, reaches out toward the horizon. Makes me think that, when it comes to meaning, there really is nothing new under the sun but that when it comes to physical life each moment is totally new.
Apr '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
I am Brahma, creator of worlds.
In our experience, as humans, perception is the highest order of reality.
What is faith, but the trust given to one perception against others?
The world we live in provides us with the boundaries of earth and sky and as consistent as they are, we know them to be illusions; stone is but tiny pixels, below our perception, with vast space between them. Cosmic rays pass through us as easily as if we were not here, but we are. We know we are because we perceive ourselves.
I am Shiva, destroyer of precepts.
To us, the only world that matters is the one we perceive. Why should other tests be required? Does it matter how it came to be or what will become of it after our brief light goes out?
Day after day, we awake to one continuing meme. We are human. From that start, we can make as much or as little as we care to. One thing remains; each perception is our own and our free will creates either heaven or hell.
I am Vishnu, protector of all I survey.
Jun '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Nothing is really real, not even time and space. Time is relative while space warps. As for matter, well that’s just an organized series of sub-atomic particles. So why care? What difference does it make if our approximations turn into an iPad under the Christmas tree or a terrorist bomb left at the door of the church next door? It’s all just a mix of subatomic particles. Hell! God, Himself, is only an idea concocted by electrons flashing through more subatomic particles that collectively approximate a brain. And if my subatomic particles are interacting with that series of subatomic particles named Christopher Hitchens, the idea of God is a damn bad one. In the quantum world we’re all just a series of charges, strings, if you will, that discretely vibrate to make the music of the Universe.
And then there is love, the clearest example of entangled subatomic particles that subatomic particles have ever invented.
All of which leaves me muttering does matter matter?
For the record, I am not antimatter, especially when it comes packed in a tight set of jeans with rhinestone trimmed pockets.
Edited on Sep 11, 2011 at 10:34amOct '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Aodhan: More seriously:
Johnson, as usual, makes a spirited stand for commonsense. But the whole point of Berkeley's thesis is that commonsense is misleads us, and careful philosophical reflection shows us why.
Hence, invoking commonsense to refute Berkeley--as Johnson does by vividly pumping the intuition of felt physical resistance--is merely a form of begging-the-question.
To spell it out: Johnson perceives the physical resistance of the rock. But he thereby supplies no argument for why matter must underlie his perception. · Sep 11 at 4:23am
Edited on Sep 11 at 06:27 am
Johnson--"Outahand, why do you assume that my feeling the solidity of the rock is inconsistent with a correct concept of the nature of matter, in my head. Whatever the ultimate nature of the atoms that constitute the rock are, they react thus to my aching heel. If I apply the word 'real' to the pain and its attendant cause, is it not my right as a pioneering lexicographer?
Or to put it another way, why can't I call whatever it is that underlies my perception in this case, 'matter'? Define your terms, son, define your terms. I'm all about that."
Oct '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Oh, and KS; 200 exactomundo.
Johnson's voice in the previous post should be read as approximating that of Foghorn Leghorn.
Edited on Sep 11, 2011 at 11:39amOct '10
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
Very well. e=mc^2. Solving for m, of course, gives m=e/c^2. Matter is unbelievably condensed energy. How condensed? What intuition can we attach to this? Well, we all know how to convert matter to energy: we burn it or blow it up ("blow it up" being the term we use to describe burning something very quickly). Thankfully, this only converts a tiny fraction of the matter to energy. Perfect conversion of a teaspoon of water to energy would yield as much as over 3,000,000 gallons of gasoline.
So yes, matter exists, but only in the sense that so does energy. The interesting stuff is in how matter and energy are related and can be changed back and forth. We're extremely good at turning matter into energy. Energy into matter, not so much.
Edited on Sep 11, 2011 at 12:39pmJan '11
Re: The Sunday Morning Debate for the Ricochet Glory Badge
The fun of Einstein is not that perception is relative; Einstein holds that reality is relative. And ... I disagree.
Take two atomic clocks. Toss one in an orbit around the sun at the speed of light. Whoosh! When you catch the tossed clock on the return orbit, it will display a slower time. Aha! That must mean that velocity changes reality.
But that can't be, because in the act of comparing the clocks, right now, the clocks are within the same time. (Otherwise, how could you compare them?) And if they are now in the same time, that would mean that one of them would have had to go faster than the speed of light to "catch up." That can't happen.
Therefore, time cannot be part of reality. It can only be a feature of measurement, a.k.a knowledge, which can be distorted.