>In order to determine whether it is possible for a tree to exist outside of the mind, we need to be able to think of an unconceived tree. But as soon as we try to think about this tree, we have conceived it. So we have failed and there is no good reason to believe that trees exist outside of the mind.
there are trees that are thousands of years old
>IRREFUTABLE
1, there are trees that are thousands of years old
2. you have not been alive for more than 100 years
3. it is possible for a tree to exist outside of your mind
>IRREFUTABLE
>>In order to determine whether it is possible for OP to not suck wieners, we need to be able to think of a decent thread. But as soon as we try to post one, OP opens his greedy dick holster. So we have failed and there is no good reason to believe that OP can exist without a wiener in his mouth
i can literally touch trees, not right now, i'm in my room. but i can. how is that untrue?
>inb4 your not real
i'm posting this, "i", i know i exist.
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Just go to the woods, cut down on and let it fall on you. Then you'll believe in trees, you dumb motherfricker
>IRREFUTABLE
>In order to determine whether it is possible for a tree to exist outside of the mind, we need to be able to think of an unconceived tree.
This premise presuposses that everything that is possible is conceivable. But how do you know that everything is conceivable? By using the same argument? That would just lead to circularity or an infinite regress.
On the other hand, even if we accepted that everything is conceivable, that would not entail that everything is mind. Unless of course, you give us a precise definition of mind and how its necessary for a conceivable object to be metaphysically preceded by the mind.
>IRREFUTABLE
I would also like to add, that if we were to accept that something being thinkable entails the existence of some sort of mind that gives thinkable qualities to things, then we shouldn't use the term ''mind'' in an individual and concrete sense, but rather in a platonic and abstract sense.
>When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind; though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in it self.
refuted
>we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas
We could say that those ideas are in your mind. But to say that they're your own, or are entirely produced by yourself is a completely different thing.
>(the mind) is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind
Is conceiving something the same as existence? How do you prove it? This is exactly why Berkeley's argument is circular. In order to accept that everything that exists is thought you must already assume that existence and thought are the the same. And it would not just be thought in the ontological sense, but rather in the ontic sense. As in the concrete mind of one particular person.
Asides from that, let's follow Berkeley's own logic. If everything that exists exists in virtue of my own mind, since my mind of the past can only be accessed by my mind of the present, therefore the past is merely an illusion. But if there is no past, the mind could not be able to think about itself, because thinking about itself requires a temporal succession. Thus the mind would be an illusion of the mind.
>If everything that exists exists in virtue of my own mind, since my mind of the past can only be accessed by my mind of the present, therefore the past is merely an illusion
I didn’t get how it followed that the mind of past is illusion by stating that the mind of present think of it. I guess the mind is one and the same but the impressions change accordingly in time. And that’s what may point to frailty of this idealism, whence these impressions?
>my mind
Berkeley doesn’t say this. “Your” mind has nothing to do with it. God’s mind is sustaining everything.
A tree a human can't conceive is not the same as a tree god can't conceive, but the argument mentions a tree unconceived by a human.
I think that’s where Kant comes in. Yeah, concepts, representations are not the same as the things unfiltered by our a priori conditions of experience, but they are nevertheless what make things possible to be experienced, to exist, since we cannot know whether they exist in themselves or not, unfiltered, but can only think that they may exist unfiltered by our own natural logical thinking.
Kant's position is more coherent, since his thesis is an epistemological one, rather than an ontological one. It is true that an object needs a subject to be conceived, but that it needs a subject to exist it's an entirely different thing. That's what sets him apart from Berkeley and the reason why he accepts the (unapproachable) existence of a thing in itself.
>I guess the mind is one
That's indeed the problem with Berkeley. Because in order to say that the mind is one, you must accept a mind substance that goes beyond immediate perception. Hence, something would exist without the need to be perceived, which contradicts his whole position. If something exists insofar as it is perceived, then a perceiver must be perceived in order to exist. But perceived by whom? It could not be by himself (or at least, himself in the here and now), since that would require him to exist before he exists. If it is by another one, then we should ask ourselves from what perceiver does his existence arise and apply the same reasoning. This would lead to an infinite regress, unless we posit that the first mind that gives existence goes beyond time, and is thus impersonal. But I would guess that now I'm getting into german idealism territory.
I don't want to derail the discussion on Berkeley, but in Kant epistemology gets entangled with ontology when the how and what of representations and appearances are raised, that is, they implicate their form and nature.
Yes, that’s true, I’d might even say Kant’s transcendental idealism is an ontological position. But it is not ontological in the sense that it questions how does a thing come into existence, but rather what conditions make a thing intelligible, which is quite different. The first one assumes an access to the thing in itself, whereas the second does not.
Then using the word “existence” doesn’t make any sense at all. Then we should distinguish between something that is being actively conceived and something that is conceivable (or potentially conceived). It makes sense to think of the existence of a tree that is not being actively conceived, since there is an unity between two different moments in which the tree is being actively conceived (if this was false, I would think of a different tree in those different moments). But it does not make sense to think of a tree that isn’t conceivable.
An apology, I made a silly mistake by using the term “substance”. I just wanted to say that if the mind is one, there must be a transcendental aspect to it. There must be something that holds both the actual and potential perceptions that is not itself a perception. There is no image, sound or any type of sensation of the subject, yet all sensations only make sense insofar the subject is assumed. Even if instead of “perception” used the term “thought”, the subject wouldn’t be a thought in the usual sense, because a thought is the thought of an object, whereas the subject is the one that makes possible the intellection of an object.
> Dunno on what basis could you possibly treat God's mind as impersonal.
What I mean is that God in no way can be a person such as you or I. “He” can’t possibly be an individual amongst other individuals, located in a specific place and moment. Not a “being in the world” but rather the condition of the world. If we were to identify thought with being, it wouldn’t be human thought in particular.
>What I mean is that God in no way can be a person such as you or I. “He” can’t possibly be an individual amongst other individuals, located in a specific place and moment. Not a “being in the world” but rather the condition of the world. If we were to identify thought with being, it wouldn’t be human thought in particular.
That qualification is a bit too limiting. Not being a finite person does not entail a lack of personality (unless it is proved eith further arguments). But yeah I get your point
>Then using the word “existence” doesn’t make any sense at all. Then we should distinguish between something that is being actively conceived and something that is conceivable (or potentially conceived). It makes sense to think of the existence of a tree that is not being actively conceived, since there is an unity between two different moments in which the tree is being actively conceived (if this was false, I would think of a different tree in those different moments). But it does not make sense to think of a tree that isn’t conceivable.
The tree is conceived only phenomenical, under the application of the categories to the pure intuitions of space and time. On the other hand a "noumenical tree" (assuming that there is any such thing) is not necessarily tied to these forms of intuitions (in fact Kant rejects the possibility of a spatiotemporal constitution for noumena in both the transcendental aesthetics and in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Sciences: noumena cannot be, a priori, nor spatial nor temporal). This means that the noumenical, unconcieved tree is constituted in a way that is radically different from the phenomenical tree, and we have no knowledge of such constitution.
Other issues can be added, for example the fact that by using the term "noumenical tree" I am entailing that there is a noumena that specifically corresponds to a tree. But for what I know this conjecture might as well be false, since it could as well be that all non-personal phenomenical entities (I say non-personal because in the second critique Kant is willing to assign a noumenical cause to each moral subject) are the product of a single noumenon. This issue stands from the fact that we have no theoretical basis to apply the categories of quantity to noumena. More in general, the issue, once again, stems from the fact that we know entities only as phenomena, and not as noumena. To this an empiricist like Berkeley would simply add that we are justified in believing in the existence of entities we have experience of (or in entities we must infer from the entities we have direct experience of), and since a material correlate is not a necessary condition of possibility for phenomena, we should not believe in the existence of material entities.
I mostly agree with Kant's point. I would say that there needs to be a tree ''in itself'' in order for any representation to make sense. Under this assumption, there must be an idea that can integrate any potential tree ''in itself'' into subjective experience in the form of an appereance. This means that it is possible to think of something beyond our immediate experience, but that thing must have the conditions of intelligibility in order to appear as phenomena. Thinking of something without the conditions or as a noumenon wouldn't make any sense. In that point I would agree with Kant. I may derrail the discussion, but my point of disagreement is that the binding between the thing itself and the subject must be assumed, and it is not an object of understanding, but of reason. So, it is true that we can't apply categories to this binding act, but nevertheless it's assumed in every representation. You could accept Berkeley's idealism and reject the tree in itself, but by doing so you must also reject any unity that holds together the multiplicity of appereances. But if that was the case, you couldn't speak or think about anything at all, since both perceptions and the conceptualization of perceptions are not perceptible. Hence, any true and consequent empricism refutes itself. Plato already discussed this in some of his dialogues, such as the Theaetetus. The other way around would be to make reason (and not understanding) the ultimate source of knowledge i.e. the absolute is accessible and it is presupposed in every representation.
>A general remark may be added about the outcome that has resulted from the critical philosophy with regard to the nature of knowing [des Erkennens] and that has gained the status of one of the prejudices, i.e. one of the general assumptions of the age. In every dualistic system, and especially in the Kantian system, its basic flaw reveals itself through the inconsistency of combining [vereinen] what a moment ago has been declared to be independent and thus incompatible [unvereinbar]. While what had been combined was just declared to be true, so now instead it is declared to be true that the two moments, whose separate existence on their own has been denied to them in the combination which was to be their truth, possess truth and actuality only insofar as they exist in separation. Such philosophizing as this lacks the simple consciousness that in going back and forth in this way each of these individual determinations is declared to be unsatisfactory, and the flaw consists in the simple inability to bring together two thoughts (and in point of form there are only two of them present). It is therefore the greatest inconsistency to admit, on the one hand, that the understanding acquires knowledge of appearances only, while maintaining, on the other, that this kind of knowledge is something absolute by saying that knowing cannot go further, that this is the natural, absolute barrier [Schranke] for human knowledge [Wissen]. Natural things are limited [beschränkt], and they are merely natural things, insofar as they know [wissen] nothing of their universal barrier, insofar as their determinacy is a barrier only for us, not for them. Something can be known [gewußt], even felt to be a barrier, a lack only insofar as one has at the same time gone beyond it. Living things have the prerogative over lifeless things of feeling pain. For the former, an individual determinateness becomes the sensation of something negative, because, qua alive, they carry within themselves the universality of the living nature that is beyond the individual, they maintain themselves even in the negative of merely themselves, and feel this contradiction as it exists within themselves. This contradiction is in them only insofar as both exist in the one subject, namely the universality of its feeling for life [Lebensgefühl] and the negative individuality opposed to this. A barrier, a lack of knowing is determined precisely to be a barrier or lack only through a comparison with the existing idea of the universal, of what is whole and complete. Therefore, it is merely a lack of consciousness not to realize that the designation of something as finite or limited contains the proof of the actual presence of the infinite, the unlimited, that the knowledge [Wissen] of a boundary can exist only insofar as the unbounded exists on this side, in consciousness.
>A general remark may be added about the outcome that has resulted from the critical philosophy with regard to the nature of knowing [des Erkennens] and that has gained the status of one of the prejudices, i.e. one of the general assumptions of the age.
God damn you Hegel
Jesus fricking christ, this iniquitous Black person is literally just spouting the platonic eide in an obscure fashion.
how is it obscure?
>That sounds like atheism with extra steps.
only if you have an antromorphic conception of god
>What I mean is that God in no way can be a person such as you or I. “He” can’t possibly be an individual amongst other individuals, located in a specific place and moment. Not a “being in the world” but rather the condition of the world. If we were to identify thought with being, it wouldn’t be human thought in particular.
That sounds like atheism with extra steps.
>That's indeed the problem with Berkeley. Because in order to say that the mind is one, you must accept a mind substance that goes beyond immediate perception
Dunno why would you say that immediately after having mentioned Kant as a valid source, considering that for him the mind is one in the synthetic unity of apperception, and thus unity does not entail a substance.
>This would lead to an infinite regress, unless we posit that the first mind that gives existence goes beyond time, and is thus impersonal.
Dunno on what basis could you possibly treat God's mind as impersonal.
Not true, the argument is not about the ontological status of trees, but about the reasons we have to characterize said ontological status in a way or another. The argument conclusion is that we have no reason to believe in the extra-mental existence of trees (and not, as you seem to believe, that the extra-mental existence of trees is impossible: at best it is unknowable).
>Claimed trees might not exist
>Lived in a wooden house
Honestly you can't make this shit up.
>IRREFUTABLE
Bad thread concept. It was funny for a second. I don't care whether his argument is refutable.
doesn't matter. it's literally irrefutable.
>inb4 thinking about responding
>thinking
too late refuted
his argument doesn't prove that trees cant exist outside of the mind anyways so there is no need to refute it
>thinking about the possibility of trees existing outside his thinking about the possibility of trees existing outside his thinking
refuted
>locks you inside a cage for 10 years since the day you are born
>All os see nothing but white Walls
>Takes you out and show you things you never ever imagined and thought that did exist: TREES
woof! I sure am getting tired of all this winning.
see
In order to accept the argument you must assume the exact same thing it aims to prove.
Ontological arguments of this sort, which make a game of solipsism--collective or otherwise, and ambiguously as such as it is possible to do so--always make me wonder how the writer responds to everyday things that are closer to the threshold of sensory detection. For instance my bedroom window has an easy view of one end of a stand of trees around which fireflies gather this time of year at night, especially near the ground, but which can be occasionally seen flashing near the tops of them, about 80 feet up. Even from there, which is about 200 feet away, as they flash, they're briefly about as bright as 2nd magnitude background stars, as well as rather more obviously green than any star looks in the rural dark. I noticed this when my attention was attracted to the window by faraway fireworks on the part of the horizon which is especially unobstructed, so much so that the view of them made me think about fashions in pyrotechnics and the manufacturing techniques thereof. Never been much into Independence Day solemnities. but always enjoy that kind of spectacle from time to time.
>I always enjoy that kind of spectacle from time to time
>Always from time to time
Huh
We don't even know what real trees look like, let alone imaginary ones. Our sense data sucks.
>sense data
You 'people' are worse than the solipsists.
Refuted by Kant.
Kant literally agrees with this, he just doesn't accept the empiricist interpretation of the conclusion of this argument (which is to claim that there is no unconcieved tree because we have no reason to believe in the existence of unconcieved trees)
Even that latter part is ambiguous in Kant. The thing in itself is really a huge problem for him.
Wrong
How so? Kant 100% thinks that we can know of trees only as phenomena, we have no knowledge of them as unconcieved (to the point where we cannot even be sure wethere there is such a thing as an unconcieved tree, since we have no knowledge of how phenomena relates to their noumenical counterparts)
So only what is conceivable exists? Sounds dumb as frick
>we need to be able to think of an unconceived tree
The argument presupposes its conclusion. If you believe that nothing exists outside the mind, it is necessary to be able to think of something for it to exist. I who disagree that nothing exists outside the mind, do not think it necessary to be able to think of something for it to exist. So I don't have to be able to think of an unconceived tree for me to believe that an unconceived tree exists.
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Something can only be irrefutable relative to its premises. I can make an irrefutable argument for the existence of God (or at least for the existence of a single unmoved mover), but if in my proof I suppose that it is impossible for there to exist an infinite chain of causes, you can simply disagree with that premise, and the entire argument falls apart for you, even if the conclusion irrefutably follows from its premises. I can ask you if you believe it's possible for a paint brush to paint without a hand to guide it given it has an infinitly long handle, or if a train without an engine can run given it has an infinite number of boxcars, but if you simply reply that you do, I can't say anything, and we walk away from each other without having made any progress in changing each other's mind.