Knowledge, belief & agnosticism (Agnosticism)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 27, 2008, 00:18 (6084 days ago) @ whitecraw

Whitcraw commented: " if we were to adopt a different policy, defining 'existence' as (say) Berkeley did in his famous dictum 'esse est aut percipere aut percipi' ('to exist is either to perceive or to be perceived')..and then added... [make]....
 the policy assumption that 'noise' is to be defined rather as a vibration in some material that is picked up via an auditory organ and registered by a brain as a particular quality of sensation, then we may infer with equal reasonableness that a falling tree does not make a noise ... but only a wave-like disturbance of the air ... in the absence of any auditory organ and connected brain to turn those waves into sound waves." - What bothers me about these assertions is they make existence dependent upon human sensory organs. But there are many men who are color blind, and all of us color our observations with our own internal personal prejudices and experiences. Why are so many objects in existence described in the same way by so many people under these circumstances? To state that waves in the air exist but become sound only when heard by an auditory organ is true enough, but is much ado about nothing. Those waves exist and are potential sound waves all of the time. To me the whole argument is semantic mental calisthenics.