George Berkely wrote."To be is to be perceived." What does that mean?

Question

George Berkely wrote."To be is to be perceived." What does that mean?

Answer 1

It's saying that you are how others see you, but I don't think that's true. It doesn't matter how others see you. It only matters how you see yourself!

Answer 2

i'll try it this way: to be a 'leader' is to be perceived as a 'leader'..

i guess a proclaimed leader loses his leadership when he ceases to be perceived as a leader by his fellowmen.. he then becomes one of them; his words are reduced to one among those of the many.

just as 'jesus' has lost his godness (as he's proclaimed a god by the bible-fundies) in the eyes of the atheist, he is nothing more than a deranged, middle-aged, son-of-a-carpenter.. and his words are nothing more than a 'fairy-tale' classic.

Answer 3

it means that observability is inherent in being.

Answer 4

sounds like a social metaphysician.  One who only knows reality through anothers eye.    

Answer 5

You are how others see you

Whoever gave me a thumbs down...eff you

Answer 6

Sounds like he is saying if I were to meet someone who is deaf and blind, I would not exist.  What if I touch that person....poof I exist, like a big bang!

Answer 7

The person I think I am is not the person that others see. Like it or not I am not judged by my ideas and my inner life (But I'm a good person, really!) I'm judged by my actions and their impact on others.

Answer 8

don't listen to those other people. what george berkely means is that in order to be, you need to be perceived. this is is similar to the buddhist concept of dependent orgination - that everything arises dependently. so, you can't have good without evil, and evil without good. like batman wouldn't be a superhero if there were no villains. understand? so, in order for you to exist, other people have to exist. you can't have inside without an outside and you can't have an outside without an inside. if you weren't actually perceived, then you wouldn't exist. if you were not perceived by anything at all, then you'd be nothing. it's like saying men would be men without their being girls. that would be impossible! the only reason why men know they are men is because there's a girl. i hope that makes sense...

oh and rockadayjohnny - the zen thing you're talking about is a koan. and i think the koan you are trying to think of is: what's the sound of one hand clapping? i don't think that: if a tree falls down and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound (I say no - no one is around to perceive it, you know?). that's not a koan. and don't write it off as some trippy hippy nonsense. finding out the sound of one hand clapping is why we were put here on earth.

Answer 9

Some people say that God "the creator"  created, so as to experience self.

So maybe     We are perceiving and are perceived

We are God experiencing;  Duality is necessary for this it would appear.

Answer 10

Even if it's self referential perception, if you ain't sensed, you ain't.

It's the axiom that would answer the Zen question whether if a tree falls and no one hears it did it make any sound.  Berkley would say no, presumably.

It's not unlike the theism of some cosmologist whose name I can't remember who rather famously believes that it is the mind of  God that everything is "in", a sort of meta space.

Trippy stuff, I lurve it.

Answer 11

Everything we know or think we know comes to us through our senses of one kind of another.  Sight, smell, touch, hearing, etc.  If you cannot sense it, can you be sure it exists?  How do you know that radio waves exist?  Can you sense them?  No, but you can translate them into something you CAN sense.  If you cannot sense a thing, and cannot translate it or something from it into a form that you can sense, does it really exist?  How can you  be sure?

Answer 12

Sounds like a Schrodinger's Cat sort of situation...