/lit/ - Literature

Is it just me or is George Berkeley severely underrated?

I never even heard of him yet here is a man who offered concise criticism of early calculus that many realist/constructivist mathematicians nailed as letting the cat out of the bag for bad logical foundations.

Is it because of an Anti-Christian bias?

Bishop Berkeley has still never been refuted.

Prove me wrong
Protip: I can't

>>13293525
what God?

Reminder that there's no outside reality, and only sensations in your mind exist.

I have been unable to reconcile the hard problem of consciousness and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics with materialism.

First, if we assume an atom isn’t conscious and a human brain is conscious, it should be theoretically possible to add unconscious atoms in the right order until we reach a point whereby a certain configuration of atoms (let’s call this configuration “X) gives rise to the appearance of phenomenality. But that also means there’s a configuration of atoms almost identical to X (let’s call this configuration “Y”) that has no consciousness whatsoever. Imagine moving one of Y’s atoms so that it becomes X; how could a such an infinitesimally small change in the arrangement of unconscious matter switch on the lights and traverse that explanatory chasm from nothing to something it’s like to be that particular being?

Second, von Neumann showed that interacting systems should become entangled. Starting with a superposition (S), the interaction of S with a measurement apparatus M would result in a superposition. But we could think of another apparatus M0 that measures M and S, and we’d still have a superposition. We could keep adding more measurement apparatuses, including our eyes as a photodetector that measures this chain of measurement apparatuses, and we’d have no reason to assume, according to von Neumann, that we would not have a superposition. We can keep on going, including not only our eyes, but our optical nerves, up until we get to the brain, and we are left with a brain/measurement apparatus/system that is still in a superposition. Since we never observe a superposition, this chain needs to stop somewhere.

The materialist cannot explain why collapse happens. Von Neumann proposed that the interaction between mind and matter causes matter to evolve probabilistically, according to Born’s rule, and non-linearly. In other words, the mind causes the collapse of the wave function. But this would imply substance dualism, which cannot explain how mind could arise from matter.

But what if we’re creating these problems for ourselves by positing the existence of an entirely separate ontological class from mind, called matter. What if, akin to alters (personalities) becoming disassociated from the larger psyche in people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), we’re just dissociated alters within a universal mind-at-large?

On this view, wave function collapse occurs as a result of an interaction between an organism’s thoughts and the thoughts underlying the inanimate universe that surrounds it, rather than "matter".

This ontology – idealism – is internally consistent, solves the hard problem of consciousness and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, and is more parsimonious than materialism in that it only posits a single ontological class: mind.

Counter arguments?

Why haven’t you accepted idealism?

The idea that matter can produce consciousness – what it’s like to be me – is ridiculous. If we hone in on the very instant consciousness is born, unconscious clumps of matter are arranged in some slightly different configuration sufficient to produce consciousness. What could it be about this new configuration of atoms that makes it sufficiently different to the configuration of atoms just prior? How can such a minuscule change to the arrangement of unconscious matter “switch on the lights” to give rise to subjective experience? There is no conceivable way to bridge this explanatory gap.

Why, instead of positing an entirely new ontological category (matter), do we not just extend the one thing we know to exist – consciousness? If we take consciousness to be the ontological primitive and imagine the universe as a mind, the hard problem of consciousness disappears. On this view, much like people with disassociate identity disorder have dissociated personalities, or alters, within one cognitive space, we are disassociated alters within a larger cognitive space - a mind at large. Our brain does not generate consciousness, it localizes, filters and amplifies consciousness – much like a whirlpool disassociates itself from the larger body of water, but remains water.

This philosophy is far more parsimonious than materialism in that it does not posit the existence of a new ontological category - matter. It is also compatible with mainstream quantum mechanics, which shows that an objective physical world does not exist independent of observation.

Well?

but nothing exists outside of the mind

>>10378606
>implying

What would he have to say about the periodic table?