RE: Berkeley's argument for the existence of God
March 29, 2018 at 3:14 pm
(This post was last modified: March 29, 2018 at 3:18 pm by Mystic.)
(March 29, 2018 at 3:10 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:(March 29, 2018 at 2:55 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: ...except for the fact that the immaterial idea wouldn't exist if there wasn't a material brain to conceive of it. Material, fleshy, pink brains are the source of ideas. There's a direct necessity for the material brain in order for the immaterial conception to exist or matter. A material brain is the necessary cause for ideas, as far as all the available evidence tells us.
But Berkeley would argue that we've never experienced a pink, fleshy brain directly... all we've experienced is the idea of a pink, fleshy brain...
@Khem
So, yeah, you have a system of firing neurons which cause the idea. If you are going to call those neurons (or the energy flowing through them) the idea, then, yes, then the idea takes up space and has mass. But even biological naturalists might disagree with the notion that the neurons are the actual idea. I don't want to say the word "qualia" too loudly because of recent controversies, but yeah... *whispers* qualia.
I think Berkeley's philosophy can be understood apart from neuroscience, regardless. Obviously he didn't know anything about it because neuroscience wasn't even a thing in his time. But he does have a point about ideas. All we ever know are ideas, and we never really "experience" material things. I'm pretty sure it's too airy fairy for you to take seriously, but he does say something interesting about the world we perceive.
I think it's very a good argument.
Material is opposite to immaterial by definition. Ideas are immaterial.
If there is no interconnection between a and b, nothing in common, than they cannot interact and one cannot be the cause of the other.
Dualism is disproven for sure by this premise if you believe in God, material existence is not possible for him to create, since he is not material.
But it also is proven regardless if you believe in God or not, the true nature of existence is immaterial because we perceive immaterial and assume opposite for material, and hence, this made up reality we made up in our heads, by definition, cannot have interaction.
So immaterialism is the state of existence without any material.