Berkeley's Response to Descartes

Does Berkeley try to equate 'God' with reality itself, irrespective to any religious doctrine?

If you're trying to peddle that bullshit about concurrences between supra-atomic events and sub-atomic events--yes, i do.

Leaving aside your apparent ignorance, it doesn't take much knowledge of the sub-atomic realm (we've left you behind by now) to understand that it is an entirely seperate realm form the realm of "solid" matter. It's very simple, but i'm not surprised that you don't understand this.

Precisely.

Yes. That's their core theological problem.

Set. I strongly recommend you take some Pepto-Bismol.

Ah, that silly old grammar school trick of attempting to suggest that your interloctor is angry, and not the cool voice of sweet reason such as you would like to portray yourself as being. That's a pretty common, and silly, tactic online.

Berkeley thought that god was a very proper Anglican, so any interpretation equating god with reality would have, no doubt, smacked of Spinozism to him.

"Entirely separate" means "not at all related" and that is simply not the case.
Quantum physics and classical physics, one describing the sub-atomic, the other describing the "realm of solid matter" explain the same realm on different conceptual level.

Chemistry is the science at which i did best. I can assure you that the complex carbohydrates in your granola bar are broken down from the molecular level to less complex molecules, or even to elemental atoms. Those elemental atoms, however, have not been changed in the process. If any of the atoms in your granola bar have lost or gained electrons, or if the nuclear sturcture has been changes, it is completely coincidental to the process of eating, digesting and excreting the granola bar--it would not be a result of those processes.

You really don't know what the hell you're talking about, and you're just spewing more pseudo-philosopical babble in a pathetic attempt to justify your unjustified claim.

So that guy who claimed not to know much has been thrown off the committee ! What a pity. I see the loud-mouth lout has assumed chairmanship as usual, after the "heeheehee" guy has had a go.

You really don't deserve the courtesy of a reply from well mannered members like JLN. If you don't like philosophy go and find a nice history thread to pontificate on.

I have frequently said that i'm not strong in science and math, but always pointing out that i did well in chemistry and geometry because they can be drawn, diagramed.

It's ludicrously hilarious to see you accuse someone else of pontificating.

Since I subscribe to the concept of a dis-unified self I have no problem in accepting that some of my posts can be classified as pedantic depending on the audience with which I am communicating. The "self" is a function of its audience and vice versa. However wherever possibly I try to support my posts with contemporary philosophical and scientific views , an act which can hardly be called pontification, albeit I am making a personal selection which I consider appropriate to the context.

I suppose you think you should be congratulated on justifying the excellence of your understanding. You're rather pathetic, although you can be entertaining. I have asked Cyracus to support his hilarious claim to the effect that "all cognitive processes in the brain take place at the sub atomic level." His response has been vague and silly statements about concurrence between the realm of "solid" mater and the sub atomic realm, something which he has also failed to support. You should direct your conceited remarks on your habitual pontification to him. Personally, i'm unimpressed by your occasional references to the ex cathedra philosophical claims of other players of word games.

You make a counter claim with just as much certainty as I made the original claim, with just as little justification.

So if a part of what you eat, some molecules, are transformed in the body into energy you use to move your hand, are you saying that the sub-atomic condition of that energy that started out as a granola bar remains unaltered? Can you back up that claim with something more than the blunt force of your rhetoric?

No, i just denied the claim that you made. The matter in the granola bar is not "transformed in the body into energy." The interaction of the chemicals in your body produce energy--but the hydrogen, oxygen and carbon from the complex carbohyrdrates in your granola bar remain hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. The only way matter is changed into energy is in a thermonuclear reaction--the only phenomenon which appears to resemble the bullshit you've been attempting to peddle. But, in fact, that is a case of the sub-atomic realm affecting the supra- (or super-, if you prefer) atomic realm. You're nutty if you think i'm going to try to teach you all the basic chemistry involved here, but i suggest you start out by doing some research into alimentation and metabolism.

If you're converting matter into energy in your gut, your farts could level Oslo.

So, a combustion engine doesn't do it? Where does all the gas go, I wonder.

What happens when a person decides to lose weight, and starts burning more energy than he consumes? (Fat is the body's way of storing energy, by the way)
Where does that fat go?

There are places in The Three Dialogues where one might construe the first, as in the quotes below. But far more difficult to infer the second, as he makes clear their "supposed" grounding in Christian thought or Biblical POV. ___Berkeley:

It must be owned that I entirely agree with what the holy Scripture saith, 'That in God we live and move and have our being.'

[...]

When I deny sensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind in particular, but all minds. Now, it is plain they have an existence exterior to my mind; since I find them by experience to be independent of it. There is therefore some other Mind wherein they exist, during the intervals between the times of my perceiving them: as likewise they did before my birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily follows there is an "omnipresent eternal Mind", which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner, and according to such rules, as He Himself hath ordained, and are by us termed the "laws of nature".

[...]

PHILONOUS: When things are said to begin or end their existence, we do not mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All objects are eternally known by God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal existence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures, are, by a decree of God, perceptible to them, then are they said to begin a relative existence, with respect to created minds. Upon reading therefore the Mosaic account of the creation, I understand that the several parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits, endowed with proper faculties; so that, whoever such were present, they were in truth perceived by them. This is the literal obvious sense suggested to me by the words of the Holy Scripture: in which is included no mention, or no thought, either of "substratum", instrument, occasion, or absolute existence. [...]

HYLAS: But, Philonous, you do not seem to be aware that you allow created things, in the beginning, only a relative, and consequently hypothetical being: that is to say, upon supposition there were "men" to perceive them; without which they have no actuality of absolute existence, wherein creation might terminate. Is it not, therefore, according to you, plainly impossible the creation of any inanimate creatures should precede that of man? And is not this directly contrary to the Mosaic account?

PHILONOUS: In answer to that, I say, first, created beings might begin to exist in the mind of other created intelligences, beside men. You will not therefore be able to prove any contradiction between Moses and my notions, unless you first shew there was no other order of finite created spirits in being, before man. I say farther, in case we conceive the creation, as we should at this time, a parcel of plants or vegetables of all sorts produced, by an invisible Power, in a desert where nobody was present -- that this way of explaining or conceiving it is consistent with my principles, since they deprive you of nothing, either sensible or imaginable; that it exactly suits with the common, natural, and undebauched notions of mankind; that it manifests the dependence of all things on God [...]

Berkeley speaks Buddhism here: "...in [Ultimate Reality, God, Dharma] we live and move and have our [very] being."

Berkeley speaks Buddhism here: "...in [Ultimate Reality, God, Dharma, etc.] we live and move and have our [very] being."