(March 29, 2018 at 2:12 pm)FlatAssembler Wrote: Light, for instance, exists only because it's being perceived, because, if it weren't perceived, it wouldn't by light by definition (a natural agent that enables vision).
This is problematic. It seems clear that light exists, whether we exist to experience it or not. It's just that when the human mind perceive light, it perceives it a certain way. It doesn't mean that light does not exist in a totally objective sense.
Quote:Since perceptions are ideas, they have to be caused by other ideas.
Ideas that correspond to actual things in the objective realm of existence, things that we can indirectly interact with.
Quote:Ideas have nothing in common with material things (they don't occupy space or have mass), and therefore they can't be caused by material things.
What's the logical argument for this? I'm all for parallelism if it makes sense, but I need to see that argument first. As of now, I am not convinced that mind and matter cannot interact, or that mind does not simply emerge from matter.
Quote:Since perceptions, which are ideas, can be caused by the natural agents such as light, it has to be that those natural agents are also immaterial. Now, here is the important part: if those natural agents are being caused or affected by something, that is, the things we perceive as material, it has to be that those things that affect them are also immaterial. If they were truly material, they couldn't affect the ideas through which we perceive them (such as light), and therefore they couldn't be perceived at all. Therefore, the material world has to be an illusion. All we can actually perceive are ideas.
Well, considering that I do not agree with the premises overall, I cannot agree with the conclusion. So further argumentation needs to be made to establish the conclusion, if possible.
Quote:Now, if those things are ideas, how it is that, if we open our eyes in the middle of the day, we can't choose what we will see or whether we will see anything? It has to be that those ideas aren't ours, but that those are actually ideas of a supreme being, and that we are also one of his ideas. That being is called God.
Or that ideas arise subconsciously. Either way, I don't agree with the premises overall, so conclusion rejected.
