How does Berkeley's immaterial world actually work?

Jamesk December 31, 2018 at 17:16 4600 views 10 comments

So let's assume we allow Berkeley's theory of immaterialism that objects are real and have real existence but they are not material substances or any substance at all. They are ideas and the world / universe has only finite minds and an infinite mind and lot's of ideas. How does the idea of a tree become a real tree? where is it? where are we?

Comments (10)

Terrapin Station December 31, 2018 at 17:27 #242075 0 likes

I'll be interested to see the answers here . . . charitably assuming there will be some.

Metaphysician Undercover December 31, 2018 at 18:06 #242084 0 likes

Quoting Jamesk

How does the idea of a tree become a real tree? where is it? where are we?

It is an issue of temporal continuity At each moment in time, what exists at one moment is replaced with what exists at the next moment. "Real tree" implies that the thing observed as a tree is something with temporal extension, continuous existence in time, rather than just a flash of existence at a particular moment. But only a mind with a memory of past moments, establishing a relation between these moments can synthesize the reality of a tree with temporal extension. So the reality of the tree, with temporal extension, is an ideal created by that mind.

Jamesk December 31, 2018 at 18:06 #242085 0 likes

Reply to Terrapin Station What is your 'charitable' opinion?

Jamesk December 31, 2018 at 18:10 #242087 0 likes

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover But where does this mind reside? Where is my mind? Where is God's mind?

Nils Loc December 31, 2018 at 18:21 #242088 0 likes

Berkeley's idealism is too simple for complex minds. You have to be dumb to understand it. Or maybe you just have to be dumb to believe in it because of the pressure of default materialism.

Metaphysician Undercover December 31, 2018 at 18:22 #242089 0 likes

Reply to Jamesk
I think that in most forms of idealism the mind doesn't have a spatial existence, so it doesn't make sense to ask where is the mind, like it doesn't make sense to ask where is the future, or where is the past. You are attempting to produce a spatial context where there is none.

Nils Loc December 31, 2018 at 18:33 #242091 0 likes

deleted

Jamesk December 31, 2018 at 18:49 #242093 0 likes

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover That seems strange because ideas of objects do have a temporal spatial real existence according to Berkeley in some of his writing. I cannot help but assume that in a real world of real objects that exist in time and space because they are perceived, that my mind must also be present somehow.

Deleted User December 31, 2018 at 19:48 #242100 0 likes

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andrewk December 31, 2018 at 20:56 #242104 0 likes

Quoting Jamesk

How does the idea of a tree become a real tree?

I think the answer is that Berkeley used the word 'idea' differently from how we use it three centuries later. We think of 'idea' as synonymous with 'notion' or 'concept', which are logical constructions based on sets of properties. When Berkeley talks of idea I think he is referring to the phenomenon of a tree - the collection of sensory impressions one gets from a tree.

So where we talk about potential distinction between a real tree and the idea of a tree, the translation into 18th century English would be the distinction between the concept of a tree and the phenomenon of a tree.