The more I think about it I still don't understand how it all works. How do we actually receive sense data if sense data is basically Gods ideas? If it is a Brain in a vat situation I can understand, however if it isn't then where exactly do our minds exists? How do our own bodies interact with other bodies?
I also understand the frustration people are having with this discussion of ideas and matter. I still haven't understood how the immaterial universe actually functions other than God makes it so. — Jamesk
But you and Berkeley are saying that the tree (the external tree, not the idea of a tree) is an idea too. If everything is an idea, including the things external to your mind, then of course you can measure your idea of a tree in your mind to the tree external to your mind (which you and Berkeley say is in the mind of God which makes it just another idea)).You have made Berkeley's point. Only ideas can resemble ideas. You cannot compare the idea of a tree with a tree or with anything else except another idea. All we know immediately are our ideas and we don't know enough about our own biology to say much more. — Jamesk
The more I think about it I still don't understand how it all works. How do we actually receive sense data if sense data is basically Gods ideas? If it is a Brain in a vat situation I can understand, however if it isn't then where exactly do our minds exists? How do our own bodies interact with other bodies?
I also understand the frustration people are having with this discussion of ideas and matter. I still haven't understood how the immaterial universe actually functions other than God makes it so. — Jamesk
And there would be no problem with our bodies interacting if God was material and we all were material.To make it coherent it must be realized that according to this view we are also ideas in the mind of God. Sense data, our sensory apparatuses, our brains, our minds, our souls are all ideas in the mind of God. So there is no problem concerning our bodies interacting with other bodies. — Janus
And there would be no problem with our bodies interacting if God was material and we all were material.
What is the actual difference between "material" and "ideas"? How do ideas interact with other ideas differently than how matter interacts with other matter? — Harry Hindu
I don't think that physicalism is an instrumental theory but rather what's really the case ontologically. — Terrapin Station
What do you mean by "purely logically"?Ideas can interact with other ideas purely logically I suppose whereas material objects, although they do interact with one another logically (or at least, not illogically), do not do so purely logically (although Hegel, the man who said "The rational is the real", might disagree)
In other words material objects do not logically (that is,necessarily) presuppose one another (well, not unless hard determinism is the case, anyway, and even then the necessity would be more than purely logical, it would be physical). — Janus
Can you predict the behavior of ideas? — Harry Hindu
What would be the smallest unit of the mind? Ideas? Sensory impressions? It seems to me that it would be the latter as all of our ideas, knowledge, imaginings, language itself is composed of sensory impressions - colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, etc. These things come together to form the contents of our minds (emergent properties). — Harry Hindu
So, which is it? Is the world composed of sensory impressions or quarks? — Harry Hindu
Indirect realism implies that we would think of the world as dualistic - of being some way independent of how we perceive it. — Harry Hindu
It might make more sense to say that primary "substance" is processes, or relationships. — Harry Hindu
In other words, our minds stretch these causal relationships into what we call space-time, and these causal relationships are the fundamental units of reality. — Harry Hindu
Someone like me who thinks that only particulars exist does not think that concepts do not exist (concepts simply are particular ideas in particular heads), and that's all that abstracts/universal terms are. — Terrapin Station
To make it coherent it must be realized that according to this view we are also ideas in the mind of God. Sense data, our sensory apparatuses, our brains, our minds, our souls are all ideas in the mind of God. So there is no problem concerning our bodies interacting with other bodies (or our souls or minds) on this view.
In your last sentence did you mean 'material universe'? — Janus
Music is not a particular, it is a universal, or type. It is a catagory error for you to use the Law of Identity in the way you did, there has been no violation. — DingoJones
Some ideas logically presuppose other ideas; that is all I was saying.
As to determinism, if all events since the big bang have been precisely what they had to be; in other words if it is true that if you 're-ran' the Universe every event would have been precisely the same down to the smallest particle, then it could be said that objects physically presuppose ('entail' is probably a better, clearer, word) one another.
It could even be said that, in a sense they logically entail one another: ' if this one exists that one had to' and so on. But this is not a purely logical entailment insofar as you could never know precisely which future objects are entailed by present ones, you could only know in general that future objects are logically (and physically) entailed by present ones.
So to rewrite the first sentnece:
Some ideas logically entail, or are logically entailed by, other ideas. — Janus
Music is not a particular, it is a universal, or type. It is a catagory error for you to use the Law of Identity in the way you did, there has been no violation. — DingoJones
I have, I've read all posts. I guess that I'm not included when it comes to principles of charity! :worry:Please read all of his posts before commenting. — Jamesk
Thanks :up:Thank you, illuminating comment. I hope you stick around :smile: — Wayfarer
TS claimed that a tree is matter in the same way that the song called Kashmir is music. This statement is only true and sound if universals are real. — Metaphysician Undercover
Are idealism and determinism compatible? — Harry Hindu
But anyways, about Berkeley and his subjective realism: if I observed an oar in the water and it is bent then according to Berkeley, the oar does not appear to be bent, it's actually bent. But if I put my hand in the water, I feel the oar is straight! Does this mean that there are two actual oars I am perceiving?. — Happenstance
Berkeley addresses and answers this objection in the Dialogues. Optics was actually his best subject, his book on it did much better than immaterialism. — Jamesk
I admit that I haven't read his Dialogues, only Principles of Human Knowledge and even then, that was a while ago. But cheers for the heads up anyway, I'll download a copy and give it a read. — Happenstance
We shall see! :wink:In it he pretty much uncovers every possible objection to his theory and overcomes them — Jamesk
Are idealism and determinism compatible? Can you logically predict ideas that haven't been realized yet? — Harry Hindu
If everything is ideas and if the ideas external to my mind are the ideas of God, then why is it easier to predict the mind of God than it is to predict the mind of another human being? There are many theories of science that make accurate predictions and are why the theories persist. In essence, science is predicting the mind of God.100% Everything is caused by God. — Jamesk
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