Thursday, October 25, 2012
Much Ado About a Mite
Berkeley argues for his idealism from the relativity of perception. He compares the size of a mite's foot as seen by the mite itself, by a human and by some smaller microorganism. What, exactly, is the argument? Is the argument successful? If not, how do we resist the sucking of all so-called primary qualities into the mind?
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Berkeley's argument about the mite’s foot is an attempt to prove that the qualities of all material objects, such as size, are all relative to perception. His argument is that, to the mite his foot is normal sized. However to the human the mite’s foot looks very small, almost invisible. Finally to the organism that is smaller than the mite the mite's foot looks incredibly large. AS powerful as this argument may sound, in my opinion, Berkeley merely found three new ways to describe the foot of a mite. In no way does this take away from the existence of the mite’s foot. In fact, if anything, it further proves the possibility of the mite's foot existing because there are multiple people there (the human, the mite, and the smaller organism) to provide further evidence of its existence. However Berkeley would argue that because the mite's foot is not the same size in the eyes of a micro organism as in the eyes of a human being that the object itself does not exist. Personally I think that Berkeley is partially wrong to believe this. Of course everyone is going to see things in different ways because all humans and organisms are not all the same. But even if several different people perceive the same thing but with different qualities then that is strong evidence that there is something there. It doesn't necessarily mean that that particular object exists but it does mean that there is a possibility of it existing. If this is true then we cannot say with any degree of certainty that material objects do or do not exists.
ReplyDeleteIn addition Berkeley’s argument depends upon Gods existence in order for it to be true. Berkeley argues that God is the cause of all sensations we feel and not material objects. Without God in the picture Berkeley’s argument works in the complete opposite direction meaning that without God all of our sensations are caused by the qualities of material objects we are interacting with and perceiving. His argument also depends upon the assumption that God is good and that he won’t deceive us if he does in fact exist. In my opinion there are way too many ways Idealism can be dis-proven and refuted which is probably why I find I t so hard to believe.
In his attempt to further his argument for idealism, Berkeley uses the idea of the relativity of perception. When a mite is compared to a human’s foot, it is extremely small; however, when a microorganism is compared to a mite, the same mite is seemingly enormous. This, in and of itself, creates a contradiction because the same object cannot be both big and small at the same time. Since the mite cannot be two conflicting things, big and small, at the same time, it goes to say that the perception of size must not actually exist within the object, but rather in our minds. According to idealism, material objects do not possess any qualities; rather such qualities exist solely in the mind. Berkeley’s mite argument serves to further confirm his idealistic views. However, I do not completely agree with Berkeley’s argument. While an object can appear to be two contradictory things when compared to objects of different sizes, the original object’s size is not actually changing. For example, I am 5’4’’ and when I stand next to a small child, I appear to be tall. However, if I were to stand next to Shaq I would appear to be extremely short. According to Berkeley this is contradictory because I cannot be both big and small, and so my height is not a physical part of me but rather an idea in my mind. Berkeley fails to mention, however, that even though I am compared to two different people, giving the illusion that I am both short and tall, I am still 5’4’’. The perception of my height changes, but no matter what I remain 5’4’’. For this reason, I do not think that Berkeley’s mite argument is error proof in furthering his argument for idealism.
ReplyDeleteIn the First Dialogue, Berkeley touches on the relativity of perception and ultimately dismisses figure and extension in matter outside of the mind. His theory supports idealism, the belief that everything is constructed from the mind and the mind’s ideas. Berkeley ensures that his belief does not counter the notion that matter and external objects exist. He is proposing that they only exist as ideas stemming from the mind. For example, Berkeley would argue that a pencil is not a material object, but it is an existing idea inside of a person’s mind. The existence of the pencil lies in the perceiver’s mind and receives the traits that he or she attributes to the object. Perception and a perceiver are essential to idealism.
ReplyDeleteHe begins his argument by proposing that an object has primary and secondary qualities. Secondary qualities, such as colors, sounds, heat, smell, and taste, are said to exist nowhere outside of one’s mind. These qualities are able to be skewed, like the example of hot and cold. A person has one hand that is very cold and another that is room temperature. The person has the same temperature of water running over their hands, but because the temperature is based on the individual’s mind and heat is a secondary quality, they perceive the different heats even though the water is the same temperature. The cold hand feels much hotter under the water than the regular hand. Primary qualities, such as extension, figure, solidity, gravity, and motion, are said to actually exist in bodies. These primary qualities cannot change without the object changing itself; they are concrete.
Berkeley uses the scenario of a mite’s foot to prove his idealistic argument. Animals, like humans, can use what they see and feel to form figures and extensions, primary qualities, about any given object. Therefore, a mite can see its own foot, and it appears to be a measurable dimension to it. Along with its foot, the mite can see objects greater than its foot, like a blade of grass, and lesser than its foot, like a microorganism. Its perception of size is all relative to the perception of its foot’s dimension. To a human, the same foot is miniscule and inconceivable, even though its size has not changed to the mite. To a microorganism, the mite’s foot is gargantuan. To the mite, the foot continues to remain the same extension. Each of these dimensions is led to by the individual’s principles. These principles ultimately lead to absurdity and incoherent ideas, because Berkeley knows that an object can’t be different dimensions in the same moment without changing itself. The object’s primary qualities cannot change. The foot can appear huge to one thing and tiny to another, which means that the extension must be different in the same moment. Because this is impossible and primary qualities cannot change, extension and figure can only exist in our minds. Therefore, there is no extension or figure in any object because of its dimension’s ability to vary in perspective.
In dialogue one, Berkeley argues for idealism through the lens of relativity of perception. Berkeley states that in order for there to be an idealistic world, objects can have no primary qualities, and only secondary qualities. Some examples of primary qualities are gravity, extension, figure, size, and solidity while secondary qualities are things such as color, sound, smell, and taste. As Claudia already stated, secondary qualities are thought to exist in the mind while primary qualities are thought to exist intrinsically in the object. In order to prove idealism, Berkeley must prove that even primary qualities exist in the mind. This is where Berkeley incorporates the mite argument. In this argument, Berkeley introduces a mite. He states that if I looked at the mite, the mite would seem tiny to me. However if a much smaller organism looked at the mite, the mite would seem humongous. In these scenarios, the mite is both big and small, yet an object cannot have contradictory qualities. Therefore, size is relative and exists in the mind. While i do think that this argument is successful in proving that even primary qualities exist in the mind as they are relative to each person, I still have qualms with the fact that even if a primary quality such as size is relative, the object only exists in our mind. Regardless of whether an object is perceived as big or small, it holds no bearing on the existence of the object. Take for instance I have a ruler, which is 12 inches long. Whether I perceive that ruler as small, or a small organism perceives the ruler as large, the ruler is still 12 inches. I think that the only way we can resist sucking the primary qualities into the mind is by looking at each primary quality objectively, rather than from our own perspective. If we take the example of the ruler, the ruler cannot be identified as big or small, but as 12 inches long. This takes all relativity out of the equation. Size is not relative in general, and this disproves idealism.
ReplyDeleteIn Berkeley’s argument, he is portraying the idealistic view that material objects possess no physical characteristics but rather the traits of objects are all relative to the perception of their observer. He uses the example of the mite to illustrate this concept by saying that to the mite his foot is rather normally sized, while to a human the mite’s foot would be incredibly small, and to a microorganism the mite’s foot would be enormous. Therefore, because it is not possible for a single object to be average sized, incredible small, and gigantic at the same time, it must be the case that the mite’s foot does not actually posses any of these characteristics but rather they are all simply perceptions of our mind.
ReplyDeleteIn arguing that primary qualities such as form and size are merely figments of our perceptions and exist exclusively in our minds, Berkeley is making quite a bold claim. Although it seems hard to counter his argument, we must look at the concept of size. Ultimately, while we have different terms to describe size such as ‘big’ and ‘small’ or ‘long’ and ‘short’, these are all simply comparisons to another object. Therefore, when we use one of these words to describe the form of an object, we are not actually describing its form but rather comparing it to something else.
However, one thing that can never be ‘taken’ from an object, and does not require anything to which it must be compared is an objects mass. As opposed to things like big and small which require comparison, and are in fact figments of our perception, when we examine an objects mass we are measuring the tangible amount of ‘stuff’ it contains. No matter what conditions you put an object under, whether it be in this galaxy or another, its mass will always be the same.
Therefore, in my opinion, although Berkely is correct in saying that to describe things as big and small is merely to analyze our perceptions rather than the physical qualities that an object posses, I believe that the concept of mass provides the necessary tool in order to ‘resist sucking all of the primary qualities into the mind’, because it can never be changed.
Throughout Berkeley’s dialogues, he creates a string of arguments to demonstrate that heat, size, smell taste, and others are all secondary. A secondary quality is one that is relative and perceived differently by everyone. Berkeley believes that all of these secondary qualities exist in the mind and that there is not actual material existence. Berkeley uses the size of a mite to demonstrate that size is relative to the perceiver to prove that a quality such as size only exists within the mind. He claims that a mite’s foot looks extremely small to a human, looks normal to a mite itself, and humongous to a microorganism that sees it. He argues that it is impossible for an object such as a mite’s foot to be small, normal, and humongous at the same time, because it is impossible for something to contradict itself. Berkeley concludes his argument by saying that size only exists in the mind and varies based on the perceiver.
ReplyDeleteThis is an extremely impressive and accurate argument for Berkeley. He successfully uses a mite’s foot to show that size is relative based on the perceiver. The mite’s foot can’t exist because it is impossible for it to be both big and small at the same time. Berkeley uses a bunch of different arguments similar to this is order to prove that other qualities are relative. Because these qualities are secondary and only exist in the mind, Berkeley argues that material substances do not actually and only exist within the mind. While it sounds extremely different and radical to claim that material arguments do not exist, Berkeley makes an argument to prove this. Despite making an extremely valid and strong argument, I am not convinced that material substance does not exist. Based on common sense, it is impossible for me to persuade myself that the trees, the chairs, and the buildings are not material substance.
I believe that Berkeley's argument is correct, but I believe that it is correct because of one premise that he appears to use but never explicitly states: that it should, in a world governed not by idealism but by realism/skepticism, be possible to describe any object solely through solely qualitative means. In other words, you should be able to describe something as only through adjectives such as big/small, hot/cold, hard/soft, clear/opaque, rough/smooth and so on. But if this were to be the case, then any object must be able to be described as one of these qualitative adjectives throughout ALL reference frames and vantage points. If this were not to be the case (which is precisely what Berkeley attempts to prove with his mite's foot, hands in water, and other examples), then nothing could be described as being any of these things. Because the argument holds for this premise, the argument stands.
ReplyDeleteNow, what many people seem to misunderstand is that any so-called "quantitative" descriptions of an object only exist with respect to their system of measurement. To elaborate, take the aforementioned ruler. Yes, it is 12 inches long, and will always be considered 12 inches long...as long as we accept the definition of an "inch" being a constant small value, equal to 2.54 cm, and 1 cm is equal to about the length of my thumbnail. What if we redefined an "inch" to be some other length? What if i considered an "inch" to be the furthest distance I can throw a baseball, a centimeter to be the speed light travels in one second, and a mile to be the width of a human hair? All metrics we use for length are completely arbitrary, and make about as much sense as using some British King's shoe size as our basis (...oh wait, we did). The same can be said for any other every other system of measurements ever devised for energy, time, matter, etc: they're completely arbitrary.
So, if we can't definitively describe an object by quantitative means, and as Berkeley has proved through the mite example (as well as others), we can't definitively describe an object qualitatively either, how can we describe anything? The answer: we can't, idealism is true and all things only exist within the mind.
I would argue that idealism is a false foundation off of which to base beliefs. One could not go as far as to say that everything must be perceived in order to exist. The biggest issue I have with idealism as Berkeley presents it, is the notion that there are no primary qualities. As an extreme realist, I would argue the opposite. The crux of the argument for idealism is that perception is relative: something can be sweet and salty at the same time, and something can be both hot and cold at the same time. While I do agree that this proves that perception and sensation only exists in the mind, I would argue that matter still exists, and that there are only material substances. Consider this situation: A man is walking his dog when all of a sudden he smells an incredibly foul stench. Curious, he follows his dog to the source of the odor and it turns out it was a rotting deer carcass. The dog is overjoyed by the smell and starts to gnaw on the deer bones, while the man is repulsed and turns away. Does this not prove that matter exists? In order for the human and dog to smell the stench, it must have existed in the first place. The idea of smell could have existed, but we know that some matter thing must have caused the sensation of smell, and driven the dog to it. Additionally, I would argue that the difference in perception and qualitative judgment of an object doesn’t really prove anything but a difference in how our minds work.
ReplyDeleteUpon further thought, I might actually argue for the truth in idealism and reject my previous blog post. Synesthesia is a mental condition where all of ones senses are intermingled so that each sound, smell, taste, sight, and feeling has associated perceptions/sensations in the other senses. In some cases, someone with synesthesia could perceive the letter “a” to have a warm feeling with a reddish hue and a low humming sound to it. Say that the whole entire population of perceiving beings were to eventually have this condition, and everything people sensed had completely different associations with the other senses, this would create massive contradiction in the qualities of an object. Seeing, feeling, smelling, and hearing would no longer be singular events that we would be able to pinpoint on one singular action or object. People would perceive sounds, sights, books, films, nearly everything completely differently, which would give rise to endless contradiction. In a world where such a condition exists, there really can be no primary qualities in an object. Even if you say, “oh well this doesn’t matter, every perceiving being in the world does not have synesthesia” the argument still holds strong. Who is to say that the whole world does NOT have some undiagnosed condition similar to synesthesia in the idea that our perceptions can neither be accurate nor trusted? Because all of our knowledge and sensory data is taken in by the senses, and because we cannot trust that our senses will give everyone the same exact perception, we cannot attribute any single perception, any datum of knowledge, to the object from which we take it. This enforces the fact that everything really has only secondary qualities and that the notions of existence for objects that we think of only exist in our mind.
ReplyDeleteIn order to prove idealism, the notion that things only exist in the mind, Berkeley argues that relativity of perception is unique to the perceiver, and that these perceptions only exist in the mind. To do this he first argues that heat is relative to the perceiver. He does this by presenting the scenario where a person holds one hand in a fire and another in an ice bath. One hand would feel cold while the other would feel hot. However something cannot be both cold and hot at the same time. Philonous states that no doctrine can, “be true that necessarily leads to and absurdity”(14). Things can’t exist in contradiction, however, something can be perceived hot and cold at the same time. Therefore heat and cold are only sensation existing in the mind. Berkeley goes on to show that all our senses are in the mind. The information we take in with our senses about an object are secondary qualities, and Berkeley argues that these are all in the mind with a series of arguments that are similar to the hot and cold hand argument. Berkeley then goes further to say that even primary qualities are in the mind. These qualities include: gravity, extension, solidarity, figure, motion, and number. He argues that these Qualities are in the mind by saying that, “a mite must be supposed to see his own foot, and things of equal or even less than it, as bodies of some considerable dimension; though at the same time they appear to you scarce discernible”(24). This basically means that to a human a mite looks tiny. However, to a microscopic organism a mite looks ginormous. Since the same thing cannot contradict itself, size is in the mind. Similar arguments can be made for the other primary qualities, thus proving idealism.
ReplyDeleteAt first I found this argument very convincing. It bears a striking resemblance to Einstein’s relativity and is thus atheistically pleasing. Relativity states that observers in relative motion will experience the laws of physics differently. Basically, observers in relative motion will disagree on primary qualities. Relativity has been thoroughly experimentally verified. So it would seem that absolute idealism is also scientifically supported. However, this overlooks an important notion of relativity. All observers in any reference frame will observe the speed of light to be a constant. This saves the secondary qualities and senses because they will never be in contradiction over the speed of light. And this consistency of the speed of light can be used to overcome inconsistencies in primary qualities. Equations were derived that compensate for time dilation, length contraction, and mass increase. These can explain why different observers observe different things, and thus defeat absolute idealism.
I forgot to mention, that you stick the hot hand and the cold hand in the water, and then the water feels both hot and cold. something can not feel both hot and cold at the same time.
ReplyDelete