Berkeley George Berkeley Argues That

Berkeley George Berkeley argues that there is no material world beyond that which we perceive. All things, therefore, are strictly mind-dependent. He even extends his argument to hold that because all things are ideas, there cannot even be a physical thing that correlates to the idea of that thing. Therefore, were everything in the world to suddenly and instantly double in size, this would only be occurring in the minds of people.

The way that our minds perceive things is typically in relation to other things, so if everything on in this world doubled in size we would notice no difference at all, because no relative proportions would change in our minds, and because there was no physical change in size to begin with.

If we were a being outside of this world -- an alien, or God, perhaps -- we may be able to perceive with our mind that there was a change in the size of this world and everything in it, because we are external to the world. However, Berkeley did not give consideration to how the minds of aliens or God might work, only those of man. While Berkeley rejects the idea of matter, many others do not.

Thus, if the world and everything in it doubled in size, we are left with a complex question. The first issue this would raise goes back to the idea of perception. Even if matter exists, we must still perceive it. If this world and everything in it has doubled in size, we may not perceive this difference, because we perceive material objects in relation to all other physical objects, including ourselves.

It is entirely possible under such a scenario that the size of material things could constantly be in a state of change. The universe itself would be constantly changing in size. Only an entity external to the universe itself, such as God, would be able to perceive such changes. The reason for this is simple -- the size of the universe would be changing in relation to some external object that did not change in size. Doubling in size could mean a few different things as well.

If "size" was taken only to mean mass, this could make the change disproportional in other dimensions. If that happened, we would perceive these changes. Only a doubling that was equally proportional in all respects could go unperceived. It is worth considering, however, that if the height and width of an object doubled, its volume and therefore mass would more than double. This means that we would perceive such changes, because the proportions of different items would be different.

I do not believe that how suddenly the change occurs would make much difference, because our minds have the ability to store long-term information. It would be easier, perhaps, to perceive rapid changes than slower changes. However, a factor that could be more important is the frequency of such changes.

If objects in the world were constantly doubling in size, we may find that our minds have created a shorthand by which to understand the world, and this shorthand would make the adjustments naturally with the actual changes in the material world. Thus, while the physical.