I'm trying to figure out whether I believe the world actually exists because I see it and experience it with my senses (Thomas Aquinas/Aristotle/Realism), or whether I think it exists and so it exists, and that the only real thing I can be sure of is that I think, and so existence can only really be linked to thinking. Thus for universal existence, there must be a mind conceiving of the world all at once (thoughts in the mind of God) (Berkeley/Plato/Exaggerated Realism).
To me exaggerated realism leads to neoplatonic and protestant errors in it's emphasis on the mind, whereas empiricism is kind of baseless (why should we trust the senses) and leads to existentialism and postmodernism (which might not be a bad thing, I'm still figuring this out).
Where this is relevant is kind of funny. I was walking around Brock yesterday and I saw a girl bending over with alot of cleavage and I wondered if that was a thought in the mind of God, or a sensical discovery. I am starting to appreciate the physical world of phenomena and senses more and more (not in the way mentioned above per se), but just trying to sit down and actually experience life. To realize my body is ME and that I'm actually travelling at ridiculous speeds on a rock spinning in the universe. Realizing that this life we live now is so important and beautiful, but at the same time - as Pascal says - "the most fragile thing in the world".
The more I read about Immanuel Kant, the more I like the guy, obviously he has some problems, but his theory is that we experience, and then we reason which acts kind of like the final sense (if I've understood him properly). As I watch home movies of me as an infant and realize that I wasn't reasoning yet, I think it shows that Berkeley is out and that it's either Thomas or Kant or someone else I find. Kant said something that I've been thinking about for a while now to see if I agree with it: "to be is to do"
Any Thoughts?
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5 comments:
I might be totally missing the point, but. If you have to think it exists for it to exists I see 2 problems.
1) If your thinking makes it exist, then All physical phenomena should be limited to your understanding of your "real world" i.e. Nothing that you cant explain would ever happen. No?
2) If you have to be thinking to exist in the real world. You'd never have existed because you'd have to think your own birth right?
I'd really like to have a nice one of these conversations with you one day. I dunno if I could hold my own against you. But I'd definitely try =).
The problems you raised are actually part of Berkeley's argument.
The things you listed as being problematic (infants and things you personally don't know), prove the existence of God.
Because some super-mind must be perceiving everything in existence -including you before you can think- in order for you to exist.
Thus the problem is solved, and Berkeley disarms anyone trying to create a worldview without some kind of universal mind/God.
Logically, Idealism/Berkelianism is solid, it's just that most people have so much faith in their senses that they'd never concede so much to logic.
Like I said in the post though I'm not sold on any method. I always like talking about this stuff, but I think you would hate it because it's all deduction/thinking without any induction/experimentation/science.
I don't think anyone would be out of the other's league, we'd just be playing completely different games (to further the analogy)
Personally, I think it's ridiculous to think that something exists only because a super-mind is thinking of it. Can't things just exist? Adding a "super-mind" behind everything just seems redundant to me.
Whether it seems redundant or not, it's the only way life can make sense.
Causation necessitates an uncaused cause / invisible immaterial cause. Language and logic require invisible/immaterial realities. Thus logically, a 'super-mind' or Plato's 'realm of the forms' or Kant's "Noumenal Realm" or Christianity's "God" is necessary for anything to make sense.
Ironically that is people's problem with Theism, it's too rational, there's too much logic.
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