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From Last time. Berkeley defines physical objects as collections of ideas God has ideas which constitute objects not perceived by finite beings A proof of God’s existence based on the fact that we do not control our perceptual ideas. Is the mind just a collection of ideas?.
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From Last time • Berkeley defines physical objects as collections of ideas • God has ideas which constitute objects not perceived by finite beings • A proof of God’s existence based on the fact that we do not control our perceptual ideas.
Is the mind just a collection of ideas? • Hylas says that since we can have no idea of a mind, there is no mind, only ideas • Philonous rejects this saying that we have a notion (not an idea) of our self when we think or will. • Do we have introspective awareness of our self as active? Or is “the self” just a bundle or collection of distinct ideas?
How is perceptual error possible? • All ideas are real. • But some ideas are more faint than others These are the ideas of imagination Some ideas fail to cohere with other ideas These ideas are “false perceptions” Example: The bent stick in water, hallucinated ants on the floor
The problem of Evil • If God is the author of perceptual ideas, then God is the author of murder etc. • Berkeley replies: Evil is found in the will, and God is not the author of evil intentions • Guilt is the same whether the action is preformed “with or without an instrument” • There might be other spirits who cause perceptual ideas (although this power is derived from God
Can God Feel Pain? • Hylas: if God perceives all our perceptual ideas, then God must feel pain • But feeling pain is an imperfection • Berkeley agrees that God cannot feel pain God can know what pain is, but not feel it Further: God “perceives nothing by sense as we do” (p.74)
Two Questions • IF God perceives objects in a non-sensible way, then how is the real physical world the same world we ordinarily perceive? • It is possible to know what pain is without feeling it?
If God perceives things in a way alien to us, then the world, the real world as it is sustained by God, is just as unknowable as Hylas’ “ material substance”