Assuming they do of course. Although i’m not totally convinced :).
If our relative perceptions of an object, the phenomenal, are relative to an existant object, how does the object exist independantly of our perceptions?
Berkeley’s “mind of God” argument deals with this nicely saying that God’s absolute perception is not relative and hence gives the object existence which we perceive relatively.
But how would an atheist respond to this question? I’m interested to hear your opinions. Or beleivers who have issue with the theory.
Our minds reside in (or as some would argue, interface with) matter in order to acquire those perceptions; if perception were necessary in order for matter to exist, how did our sensory apparatus come into existence?
If you define “existence” as “what humans perceive to be as real”, then your question is already answered in the negative: nothing would exist if we were not here to perceive. After all, what we call “the universe” doesn’t “exist” as we see it, because it’s already happened–much of it thousands, millions, perhaps billions of years ago. Thus the classic “tree falls in a woods, does it make a sound” counter-argument.
Sure, you can define an absolute reference frame as “God”, but it’s beyond me how that would do anything to establish any sort of anthropomorphic or otherwise intelligent deity who has some degree of detailed interest in humanity (in other words, what is most commonly defined as “God” in our culture). That would seem to be a non sequitur.
How can it not exist independently of our perceptions? How could our mere perception possibly affect the objective existence of an object? What am I missing here? Anyone have any help for the philosophically impaired?
Why can’t an object have an objective existence that is never perceived (e.g., only perceived relatively by perception devices such as our brains)?
Why would an atheist be concerned about this issue at all???
To turn the question around, if a thing in a universe suddenly became able to think, it would necessarily have trouble convincing itself that another thing existed since its “thoughts” were the sole interface by which the object could interact with the thinking object, agreed?
The OP seems to start from the hidden assumption that existence needs to be given. That assumption itself is most often derived from solipsist origins or the like. Things do exist, as a matter of fact. It doesn’t seem worthwhile to discuss where things derive their existence from. They just are. In effect, this is wat existentialism (in particular Sartre) is all about. TVAA put it even briefer. If you don’t want brief, read Critique of Pure Reason or Being and Nothingness.
The question in the OP: if perceptions are ‘relative’ (=dependent upon?) to things, how can things exist non-relatively from perceptions, looks like a dressed-up version of an invalid argument (I’m too tired to look up the fancy English word. Is fallacy right?): A -> not B, then B -> not A. Which is incorrect. The analogy is not exact, though. To take a clearer example: the branch depends on the tree to survive, but the tree does not depend on the branch. (Hopefully someone will give a better example)
If the OP wants to discuss why things exist, I’ll have to bounce the ball back: why would you want to know? What kind of answer are you looking for? If you can’t say what kind of answer will satisfy you, I can’t phrase the answer in a manner that will answer your question.
If the OP wants to discuss whether specific things exist: there is no general answer. For things like rocks and WMD I’d say: have a look. For things like Santa Claus, time machines, perpetuum mobile, a reasoned argument is necessary.
If the OP doubts whether things really exist and suggests everything may be an illusion, we are crossing the border to the well-ploughed area of solipsism/epistemology, of which I’m sure there have been countless threads already. I’m willing to discuss that, but I’m not sure whether the OP is asking for that.
It looks like a dressed up version of an invalid argument, but the subtle distinction is that I am not asking how they (things) can actually exist, but what kind of existence they have.
Mangetout the simple answer to your question is that our sensory aparatus came into material existence through becoming an object of God’s mind - fully objective existence.
If you don’t take this view you have to describe what kind of existence an
Given the existence of a God, I now understand your point regarding how God’s Mind could provide an objective means of perceiving an actual existence of an object.
Regarding atheists, I guess they would have to say that if one accepts that there are no objective perceivers, then the objective existence will never be perceived and thus may not be fully knowable. At best, it can be deduced from a plurality of subjective perceptions.
Or have I missed your point again? Perhaps I have, since this seems quite obvious to me, and I don’t understand why the question is being asked or what the dilemma could be.
actually…(A->~B) -> (B->~A) is tautological. it’s as valid as anything in logic, and is “the law of contrapositive” or what have you.
i’m not sure i see how this necessarily involves theism. the “mind of god” doesn’t seem to me to be an absolute reference frame, for one. in what reference frame, for instance, does god’s mind exist objectively in?
also, it certainly doesn’t seem as though one needs an absolute perceiver to describe an absolute frame of reference.
that one cannot perceive an objective existence doesn’t mean there is no objective existence. it simply may be assumed there is none, since nothing is lost by that assumption.
: reads Ramanujan’s post :
:o That’ll teach me from posting logic at the end of the working week. Of course I should have said what TVAA was so kind to read it as. (does this make sense?)
I still do not really understand the question. We agree physical things like chairs and computers exist. We probably also agree that other things that are not entirely physical exist as well, such as the theory of relativity, mathematical theories and the like. So are you saying that you believe these kind of things have a different kind of existence in your ‘God’s mind’ theory (GM for short), than in an atheist theory? Or are you saying there are different things (such as angels?) whose existence depends on GM, and atheists have to explain the kind of existence normal things like the aforementioned have?
I take it that you mean the first: you propose that existence-as-dependent-on-God is a different kind of existence than ‘bare’ existence in the Sartrean existential sense. But I have a hard time seeing what this coherently could mean. Why does me seeing a cup as simply existing differ from you seeing the cup as existing based on God’s mind? Do you think the latter kind of existence is more fragile, like the cup would suddenly disappear if God (which He should forbid) would be distracted for a moment? I know, GM-theory assumes that God could not be distracted in this manner. But then for all intents and purposes there is no difference between GM-theory and existentialism.
What I am suggesting is that (to my mind, at least) there is nodifference in the kind of existence according to GM-theory and existentialism. Since you seem to assume there is, it looks like the burden of proof as to why or whether there is a difference lies with you.
Or do you mean that the kind of existence depends on the actual source of existence? I don’t see why it should. Or are you in fact not concerned with the kind of existence, but with the explanation of existence? (it’s just like reading Heidegger all over again)
If you are really interested in this kind of thing, a lot of medieval philosophy was devoted to the question of ‘existence’ in relation to God. However, these philosophers (naturally) agreed on your basic assumption, that God created the world, so all things in the world shared the same kind of ‘created’ existence. Maybe the thing is that you consider this to be a kind of ‘fallen’, ‘lesser’ existence (compared to God’s existence). For atheists, however, there is no ‘higher’ kind of existence to compare to. Hence if you want to speak about that kind of ‘existence’, you are using ‘existence’ as a theory-relative word, which makes it meaningless to ask for an atheist theory of ‘existence’. It is like asking: what image of God do atheists have?
We don’t know. That’s kind of like saying: “Without using a mirror or camera, what does the back of your head look like?”.
This is meaningless until you define “God”.
This atheist doesn’t have a problem with simply saying “I don’t know”. Positing poorly-defined supernatural entities doesn’t help to answer questions that we don’t have the answer to. If you are unwilling to accept that matter just exists, why are you willing to accept that “God” just exists? There is less evidence for God than there is for matter, yet you would give God more credence?
I know, GM-theory assumes that God could not be distracted in this manner. But then for all intents and purposes there is no difference between GM-theory and existentialism.