Imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., are indeed thinking. Perceiving is a total different thing. It involves our senses and is a most simple process: it stops at recognizing, identifying things, which are almost instant. What we observe we can then process with the mind, which involves thinking, a process that can take ... forever.Perceiving, like imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., is a species of thinking. — charles ferraro
I don't think Descartes has ever assumed "for any human mind". It;s an additive. It's Berkeley that assumed that, as I menteioned.Descartes: For any human mind, to think is to exist (cogito ergo sum). — charles ferraro
I have showed in different occasions that this unfortunately is not true, referring th the term "thinking" as we use it today. In fact, its the opposite. During thinking you may lose the sense and experience of living. There are many times that you are thinking all sorts of things but in reality you are absent-minded, or immerged in the past by bringing up memories, or while you are imagining things, etc. Thinking can be also illusory. In all these cases you are not aware, or you are partially aware, of your existence and anything in your environment! Thinking actually is an obstacle to being totally aware, that is, observe and perceive things in your environment as well as aware of youresf. But I can't believe Descartes didn't realize all these things. That's why I believe that by "thinking" he most probably meant "being aware". That is, "I am aware, therefore I exist".In other words, when and while I am thinking, in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing. — charles ferraro
As I said, thinking and perception are two totally different things. But if by "thinking" pone means "being conscious/aware" --as in Descartes' time -- then they are close.Berkeley's esse est percipere (to be is to perceive) and Descartes' cogito sum (while thinking, I am) are saying precisely the same thing. — charles ferraro
Please look up the definitions of "perceive" and "think" or "perception" and "thinking". I mean it.They both claim, each in his own way, that the existence or being of a human mind depends upon its perceiving or thinking. — charles ferraro
Of course. He lived a century later. And most probably he took ideas from Descartes.However, Berkeley takes a major step beyond Descartes. — charles ferraro
Right. By this only you should see that thinking and perception are different things. And that Berkeley was very close to consciousness/awareness, since consciousness depends on perceiving; it is actually and in essence perception. (Not as a definition, of course).Berkeley also claims the "esse" of every object of human perception depends upon its "percipi," i.e., the existence of every object depends exclusively upon its being perceived by a human mind. — charles ferraro
I'm currently reading the 2021 book by Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things. He seems to be an Idealist, but unlike Plato or Berkeley, he bases his idealistic interpretation of Reality on scientific evidence ; especially the non-classical (non-mechanical) notions of Quantum Physics.As I understood it via Bernando Kastrup, all of reality emanates from the mind of God and this allows for apparent object permanence and the regularities of nature. — Tom Storm
Yes. As I understand it, the Copenhagen Interpretation was not about Idealism, but about Holism. The particle that suddenly appears upon "collapse" of the superposed statistical state did not just materialize from thin air. Instead its statistical (mathematical) existence is Potential, and its collapsed existence is Actual.I want to make a couple of points about this. The first is a reference to the Copenhagen Intepretation of quantum physics. According to it, the object of analysis of an experiment does not exist until it is measured or observed ('no phenomena is a phenomena until it is an observed phenomena' ~ Neils Bohr.) But a corollary of this was that it was incorrect to say that the object did not exist until it was observed. Rather, nothing could be said about it, until it was observed. — Quixodian
Aristotle probably had nothing like the modern concept of Electrons or Galaxies, but he saw a need to distinguish Potential existence from Actual being. — Gnomon
Yes, that article seems to agree with my assessment of the Quantum quandaries, that make the basement of physical reality appear to be a dungeon of dragons. On the other hand, "including “potential” things on the list of “real” things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses". Ironically, it expands our conventional materialistic notion of Reality into the realm of Platonic Ideality. Potential "things" --- hidden in statistical superposition --- are technically not-yet-manifest in our sensory reality. They must be coaxed to actualize (realize) by a technological act of mind.I'm sure we discussed this article before Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities -'“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility”. Notes that Heisenberg (Platonist that he was) endorses the Aristotelian concept of potentia. — Quixodian
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.