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Persona #131

George Berkeley

1685–1753
Anglo-Irish philosopher, Anglican bishop of Cloyne, founder of immaterialism

Esse est percipi — to be is to be perceived. Material substance is incoherent; only minds and ideas exist.

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where personas disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid (32 attributes) is shown.

Attribute George Berkeley
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Emergent
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Emergent
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Non-local
Matter · Extent Finite
Matter · Ontological Status Emergent
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Non-local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Total
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Disembodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Scripture
Observer · Theological Method Confessional
Energy · Extent Finite
Energy · Ontological Status Emergent
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Emergent
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each persona's writings reveal about their stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

George Berkeley

Emergent — time is a structure of the succession of mental ideas.

Space

George Berkeley

Emergent — space is the structure of perceived spatial relations among ideas; non-local in that God's perception is not spatially bounded.

Matter

George Berkeley

Emergent — what we call material objects are bundles of sense-ideas. There is no mind-independent matter.

Observer

George Berkeley

Disembodied at the metaphysical level (minds are not material; the body is a bundle of ideas). Active in willing and perceiving. Personal metaphysical agency: God whose perception sustains the cosmos.

Energy

George Berkeley

Emergent within the ideational order.

Information

George Berkeley

Conserved at both scales. Finite minds persist as immaterial substances; God's mind holds the complete order.

Internal Tensions

Where each persona's working synthesis strains against itself.

George Berkeley

Berkeley's thesis that material objects depend on perception was famously read as absurd (Samuel Johnson kicking the stone: "I refute it thus"), but the actual arguments are tighter than the kicking-stone response acknowledges — modern analytic philosophy has produced sympathetic re-readings (Howard Robinson, John Foster). The deeper tension is between Berkeley's commitment to common sense (he insists his philosophy is precisely common-sense properly understood) and the radical conclusion that matter is incoherent.