WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.359 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start 00:00:02.359 --> 00:00:04.980 today by asking you to do something very simple. 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:07.139 I want you to just look at whatever's directly 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:09.919 in front of you. Okay. Maybe it's a desk, maybe 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.380 steering wheel, a coffee cup, or, you know, just 00:00:12.380 --> 00:00:14.859 your own hands. Seems like a simple enough request. 00:00:15.419 --> 00:00:18.699 It does. Now, here's the question. You assume 00:00:18.699 --> 00:00:20.780 that the object you're looking at is solid, right? 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:23.920 You assume it's made of matter. And you definitely 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:25.760 assume that if you closed your eyes or if you 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:28.260 walked out of the room, that object would just 00:00:28.260 --> 00:00:30.879 sit there exactly as it is, waiting for you to 00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:33.420 come back. Well, yeah, that's a fundamental assumption 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:36.899 of pretty much all of human existence. The world 00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:40.640 is physical. It's made of stuff. It exists whether 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:43.579 we're looking at it or not. Well, today we are 00:00:43.579 --> 00:00:46.659 going to explore the mind of a man who looked 00:00:46.659 --> 00:00:49.579 at that very assumption, the absolute bedrock 00:00:49.579 --> 00:00:52.850 of our reality, and said, Actually, I can prove 00:00:52.850 --> 00:00:55.189 that you are wrong. And he wasn't kidding. Not 00:00:55.189 --> 00:00:58.270 at all. He argued with this rigorous, almost 00:00:58.270 --> 00:01:00.850 terrifying logic that matter simply does not 00:01:00.850 --> 00:01:04.469 exist. And we should be clear. We aren't talking 00:01:04.469 --> 00:01:06.870 about some guy in a basement with a, you know, 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:09.030 a wild conspiracy theory. We're talking about 00:01:09.030 --> 00:01:11.730 George Berkeley, one of the absolute giants of 00:01:11.730 --> 00:01:13.930 18th century philosophy. He's basically the Agent 00:01:13.930 --> 00:01:16.709 Smith of the 1700s trying to tell us the Matrix 00:01:16.709 --> 00:01:19.920 isn't real. But before we get into the truly 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:22.859 mind -bending philosophy, we have to settle the 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:25.780 name. Ah, yes. The pronunciation. Because if 00:01:25.780 --> 00:01:27.879 you are listening to this in America, and especially 00:01:27.879 --> 00:01:29.840 in California, you're probably thinking of the 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:33.620 famous university city, Berkeley. Right. And 00:01:33.620 --> 00:01:36.000 while the city is, in fact, named after him, 00:01:36.140 --> 00:01:39.219 the man himself was Anglo -Irish. And in his 00:01:39.219 --> 00:01:41.180 time, and still in the UK today, the pronunciation 00:01:41.180 --> 00:01:45.969 is Bark, Bark. Barkley. Berkeley. So out of respect 00:01:45.969 --> 00:01:49.209 for the man who is about to dismantle our reality, 00:01:49.290 --> 00:01:50.890 we'll be sticking with Berkeley for this deep 00:01:50.890 --> 00:01:53.829 dive. So Bishop Berkeley, he lived from 1685 00:01:53.829 --> 00:01:57.109 to 1753. And looking at this stack of research 00:01:57.109 --> 00:01:59.530 we have today, biographies, letters, his own 00:01:59.530 --> 00:02:01.730 philosophical treatises, this guy is just a walking 00:02:01.730 --> 00:02:03.849 paradox. He really is. I mean, on one hand, he's 00:02:03.849 --> 00:02:05.950 this high -ranking, very respectable Anglican 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:08.370 bishop. On the other, he's a radical philosopher 00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:11.289 whose ideas profoundly influence people like 00:02:11.289 --> 00:02:14.050 David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and even, some would 00:02:14.050 --> 00:02:16.110 argue, Albert Einstein. And then you get to his 00:02:16.110 --> 00:02:18.129 personal life, and it just reads like an adventure 00:02:18.129 --> 00:02:21.169 novel. I mean, we've got a failed utopian city 00:02:21.169 --> 00:02:24.719 in the middle of the Atlantic. A weird inheritance 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:27.759 scandal involving the author of Gulliver's Travels. 00:02:27.759 --> 00:02:30.919 A very strange story. A skint as a slave -owning 00:02:30.919 --> 00:02:33.879 plantation farmer in Rhode Island, of all places. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.439 And a final chapter where he becomes completely 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.659 obsessed with a miracle cure made of tree sap. 00:02:39.860 --> 00:02:43.150 It is a wild ride, but... The mission for us 00:02:43.150 --> 00:02:45.689 today is to try and connect these dots. We want 00:02:45.689 --> 00:02:47.810 to understand how a man can claim the physical 00:02:47.810 --> 00:02:50.169 world is an illusion, yet still be considered 00:02:50.169 --> 00:02:53.210 a genius rather than, you know, a madman. Exactly. 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:55.370 I'm ready to have my brain broken. So where does 00:02:55.370 --> 00:02:57.569 a character like this even begin? He begins in 00:02:57.569 --> 00:03:01.069 Ireland, in Kilkenny. He was born in 1685 at 00:03:01.069 --> 00:03:03.569 a place called Dysart Castle. A castle. Okay, 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:05.229 so that sounds pretty impressive. Was he from 00:03:05.229 --> 00:03:07.909 nobility? Not exactly high nobility, but he was 00:03:07.909 --> 00:03:09.949 definitely part of what was called the Anglo 00:03:09.949 --> 00:03:12.500 -Irish ascendancy. That was the Protestant ruling 00:03:12.500 --> 00:03:15.419 class in Ireland at the time. Exactly. His father 00:03:15.419 --> 00:03:17.919 was a cadet of the noble Berkeley family. So 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:22.099 they had status. They had land. And George, well, 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:24.879 he was. clearly brilliant from the very beginning. 00:03:25.020 --> 00:03:26.860 He goes to Kilkenny College and then straight 00:03:26.860 --> 00:03:29.000 on to Trinity College, Dublin. And he didn't 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:31.259 just attend. By all accounts, he basically dominated 00:03:31.259 --> 00:03:34.060 the place. Oh, absolutely. He was elected a scholar 00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:38.620 in 1702 and then a fellow in 1707. Now, for context, 00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:41.860 that meant he had a secure, prestigious academic 00:03:41.860 --> 00:03:44.539 position at a very, very young age. So he's not 00:03:44.539 --> 00:03:46.900 just sitting around in an ivory tower pondering 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.520 existence. Not at all. He was incredibly active. 00:03:49.699 --> 00:03:52.669 He was a librarian, a lecturer in Greek. taught 00:03:52.669 --> 00:03:55.229 Hebrew, and he was an ordained preacher. He was 00:03:55.229 --> 00:03:57.949 a very busy man. I do love the image of him as 00:03:57.949 --> 00:04:01.050 a librarian. It feels so fitting for a guy who 00:04:01.050 --> 00:04:03.689 thought the entire world was made of ideas. It 00:04:03.689 --> 00:04:05.590 does, doesn't it? But he didn't stay cooped up 00:04:05.590 --> 00:04:08.469 in Dublin forever. He did what all the cool rich 00:04:08.469 --> 00:04:10.430 kids did back then. He went on a big road trip. 00:04:10.629 --> 00:04:13.669 The Grand Tour. It was a rite of passage. Between 00:04:13.669 --> 00:04:16.689 about 1714 and 1720, he traveled extensively 00:04:16.689 --> 00:04:20.189 through Europe. And being Berkeley, I'm guessing 00:04:20.189 --> 00:04:22.899 he didn't just do the standard tourist stops 00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:25.600 in Paris and Rome. Oh, not at all. He undertook 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:27.779 one of the most thorough tours of Italy ever 00:04:27.779 --> 00:04:29.860 recorded. I mean, he walked the length and breadth 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:32.519 of the country. There are reports he even climbed 00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:34.759 down into the crater of Mount Vesuvius, which 00:04:34.759 --> 00:04:36.800 was active at the time. He's climbing active 00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:39.500 volcanoes. And interestingly enough, he's also 00:04:39.500 --> 00:04:42.389 acting as a kind of talent scout. I read that 00:04:42.389 --> 00:04:45.209 he discovered an artist named John Smibert while 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:48.110 he was in Italy. Yes, that's a fascinating side 00:04:48.110 --> 00:04:50.889 story. Smibert was a Scottish artist working 00:04:50.889 --> 00:04:53.949 in Italy. Berkeley met him, recognized his talent, 00:04:54.029 --> 00:04:56.149 and basically took him under his wing. He eventually 00:04:56.149 --> 00:04:58.490 convinced Smibert to join him on his later adventures 00:04:58.490 --> 00:05:00.949 in America. And Smibert becomes a big deal. A 00:05:00.949 --> 00:05:04.029 huge deal. John Smibert is now widely considered 00:05:04.029 --> 00:05:06.290 the founding father of American portrait painting. 00:05:06.449 --> 00:05:08.810 So, you know, just as a little side hobby, Berkeley 00:05:08.810 --> 00:05:10.829 helped kickstart the entire history of America. 00:05:10.889 --> 00:05:14.810 That is a serious side quest achievement. Now, 00:05:14.829 --> 00:05:16.689 before we get to that American chapter, we have 00:05:16.689 --> 00:05:20.110 to talk about the money. Because in 1723, Berkeley 00:05:20.110 --> 00:05:23.050 comes into a fortune. And it's in this incredibly 00:05:23.050 --> 00:05:26.110 dramatic, almost scandalous way. The Vanessa 00:05:26.110 --> 00:05:28.610 Affair. Oh, this is straight out of an 18th century 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:31.589 gossip column. Okay, set the scene for us. There 00:05:31.589 --> 00:05:34.870 was a woman named Esther Van Omri. She was known 00:05:34.870 --> 00:05:38.029 in society by the name Vanessa. She was the longtime, 00:05:38.269 --> 00:05:41.170 very intimate companion of Jonathan Swift. The 00:05:41.170 --> 00:05:42.930 Jonathan Swift, the guy who wrote Gulliver's 00:05:42.930 --> 00:05:45.569 Travels. The very same. They were extremely close 00:05:45.569 --> 00:05:48.949 for years. But shortly before she died, she discovered 00:05:48.949 --> 00:05:51.389 that Swift had secretly married another woman. 00:05:51.529 --> 00:05:54.589 Oh, wow. And she and Swift had a massive, apparently 00:05:54.589 --> 00:05:57.620 violent quarrel. We don't know exactly what was 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:00.399 said, but she was absolutely furious. So on her 00:06:00.399 --> 00:06:02.500 deathbed, she rewrote her will. And I'm guessing 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:05.300 she cut Swift out. Completely. And in his place, 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:08.160 she named George Berkeley as her co -heir. What? 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:11.600 Why him? That's the craziest part. Berkeley barely 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:14.680 knew her. He'd met her father years before, but 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:16.540 they weren't close friends. It was a complete 00:06:16.540 --> 00:06:19.759 shock. He suddenly inherits a significant sum 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:22.600 of money, purely because she wanted to spite 00:06:22.600 --> 00:06:24.899 Jonathan Swift from beyond the grave. Talk about 00:06:24.899 --> 00:06:27.259 a lucky break. Although, didn't he lose a good 00:06:27.259 --> 00:06:29.939 chunk of it in legal battles? He did. Lawsuits 00:06:29.939 --> 00:06:32.060 were practically the national sport of the 18th 00:06:32.060 --> 00:06:34.399 century, but he kept enough to completely change 00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:37.329 the course of his life. And this new wealth allowed 00:06:37.329 --> 00:06:39.970 him to pivot from being an academic theorist 00:06:39.970 --> 00:06:43.350 to a visionary man of action. And this brings 00:06:43.350 --> 00:06:45.990 us to the American dream part of the story. But 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:48.410 Berkeley's dream wasn't about getting rich. It 00:06:48.410 --> 00:06:50.769 was about building a utopia. That's right. The 00:06:50.769 --> 00:06:54.129 Bermuda Project. In 1725, Berkeley published 00:06:54.129 --> 00:06:56.970 a proposal to found a college in Bermuda, which 00:06:56.970 --> 00:06:59.790 he very romantically called the Summer Islands. 00:07:00.129 --> 00:07:02.790 Bermuda. That seems incredibly remote. Why there? 00:07:02.990 --> 00:07:04.870 It was remote, but in his mind, that was part 00:07:04.870 --> 00:07:06.750 of the appeal. It was this perfect centralized 00:07:06.750 --> 00:07:09.829 location, untainted by the corruptions of Europe, 00:07:09.949 --> 00:07:12.149 where he could train ministers and missionaries. 00:07:12.250 --> 00:07:14.269 Or what was the plan for them? The plan was they 00:07:14.269 --> 00:07:16.870 would then spread the Anglican religion and what 00:07:16.870 --> 00:07:19.970 he saw as refined English culture throughout 00:07:19.970 --> 00:07:22.089 the American colonies and to the Native American 00:07:22.089 --> 00:07:25.290 populations. He had this very romanticized view 00:07:25.290 --> 00:07:29.790 of the West as a new Eden. And he was incredibly 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:31.550 committed to this. I mean, this wasn't just some 00:07:31.550 --> 00:07:33.970 passing whim. Oh, no. This is where you really 00:07:33.970 --> 00:07:36.750 have to admire his conviction, even if you question 00:07:36.750 --> 00:07:39.639 the plan. At this time, he was a dean in the 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:42.259 church. He held a deanery that was worth 1 ,100 00:07:42.259 --> 00:07:45.709 pounds a year. And in the 1720s, that's... That's 00:07:45.709 --> 00:07:47.610 an enormous amount of money. It's a massive, 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:50.389 life -changing salary. You are set for life with 00:07:50.389 --> 00:07:52.709 that kind of income. And he gave it up. He resigned 00:07:52.709 --> 00:07:55.170 the deanery and accepted a salary of just £100 00:07:55.170 --> 00:07:58.449 a year to pursue the Bermuda Project. He literally 00:07:58.449 --> 00:08:01.910 took a 90 % pay cut for his ideals. That is really 00:08:01.910 --> 00:08:03.730 putting your money where your mouth is. He then 00:08:03.730 --> 00:08:06.790 spent years lobbying London society. He charmed 00:08:06.790 --> 00:08:09.529 all the big names, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, 00:08:09.689 --> 00:08:11.810 Richard Steele. He even lobbied the House of 00:08:11.810 --> 00:08:14.639 Commons directly. And it worked. Miraculously, 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:17.540 yes. Parliament actually promised him a grant 00:08:17.540 --> 00:08:21.000 of 20 ,000 pounds to build this college. That 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.399 is an astronomical sum for the time. So with 00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:25.459 a promise of money in his pocket and a heart 00:08:25.459 --> 00:08:29.180 full of hope, he set sail. In 1728, he marries 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:31.579 a woman named Anne Forster, and they head across 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:33.940 the Atlantic. But, and this is a key detail, 00:08:34.220 --> 00:08:36.600 they don't go straight to Bermuda. They land 00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:39.320 in Newport, Rhode Island. I had no idea Berkeley 00:08:39.320 --> 00:08:41.379 ever lived in the colonies. He lived there for 00:08:41.379 --> 00:08:44.379 about three years. He bought a 96 -acre farm 00:08:44.379 --> 00:08:46.659 in Middletown, Rhode Island, and he named it 00:08:46.659 --> 00:08:49.460 Whitehall. And while he's there, he's not just 00:08:49.460 --> 00:08:51.860 sitting around. For the architecture geeks listening, 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:54.179 Berkeley is actually credited with introducing 00:08:54.179 --> 00:08:57.480 Palladianism to America. That's that very symmetrical, 00:08:57.659 --> 00:08:59.559 classical style, right? With the columns and 00:08:59.559 --> 00:09:02.159 the pediments. Exactly. He apparently borrowed 00:09:02.159 --> 00:09:04.820 a design for his front door case from the famous 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:07.490 English architect William Kent. It seems like 00:09:07.490 --> 00:09:10.549 a tiny detail, but that style became the dominant 00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:12.909 visual language of the American colonial period. 00:09:13.710 --> 00:09:15.870 If you picture a prestigious colonial building 00:09:15.870 --> 00:09:18.889 like Monticello or the White House, you're picturing 00:09:18.889 --> 00:09:22.049 a style that Berkeley helped to import. So he's 00:09:22.049 --> 00:09:24.610 farming, he's designing door frames, and he's 00:09:24.610 --> 00:09:26.690 waiting for his 20 ,000 pound check from the 00:09:26.690 --> 00:09:29.269 British Parliament. And he waits, and he waits, 00:09:29.389 --> 00:09:31.769 and he waits. Now, while we were in Rhode Island. 00:09:31.950 --> 00:09:34.750 Yeah. We have to address a very difficult part 00:09:34.750 --> 00:09:36.929 of the record here. The outline mentions the 00:09:36.929 --> 00:09:39.210 controversy. Yes. And it's important we don't 00:09:39.210 --> 00:09:41.190 shy away from this. To get a full picture of 00:09:41.190 --> 00:09:42.870 the man, you have to look at the whole story. 00:09:43.110 --> 00:09:45.090 The historical records from his time in Rhode 00:09:45.090 --> 00:09:47.950 Island are perfectly clear. George Berkeley purchased 00:09:47.950 --> 00:09:50.909 enslaved Africans to work on his plantation at 00:09:50.909 --> 00:09:53.330 Whitehall. So he wasn't just a passive observer 00:09:53.330 --> 00:09:55.870 of slavery. He was an active participant in the 00:09:55.870 --> 00:09:58.009 institution. Correct. And this wasn't a case 00:09:58.009 --> 00:10:00.809 of him privately struggling with it while publicly 00:10:00.809 --> 00:10:03.289 conforming. He baptized three of the enslaved 00:10:03.289 --> 00:10:06.470 people he owned, but he also publicly and explicitly 00:10:06.470 --> 00:10:09.549 defended the institution of slavery. In what 00:10:09.549 --> 00:10:11.629 way? He argued that becoming a Christian did 00:10:11.629 --> 00:10:14.470 not entitle an enslaved person to freedom. He 00:10:14.470 --> 00:10:17.370 saw slavery as entirely compatible with his theology, 00:10:17.649 --> 00:10:21.220 which for us today is... Well, it's a shocking 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:23.600 and abhorrent position. And this has had real 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:25.840 consequences for his legacy, even right up to 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:28.019 the present day, hasn't it? Very recently, yes. 00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:31.559 In 2023, Trinity College Dublin, the university 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:33.940 where he was a fellow and an absolute legend, 00:10:34.200 --> 00:10:36.500 made the decision to remove his name from their 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:39.039 main library. Wow. It had been the Berkeley Library 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:42.480 for decades. They officially renamed it the Evan 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:46.059 Boland Library in 2024 after the great Irish 00:10:46.059 --> 00:10:48.419 poet. And the university was explicit about the 00:10:48.419 --> 00:10:50.990 reason for this. Yes, completely. They issued 00:10:50.990 --> 00:10:52.929 a statement saying it was specifically because 00:10:52.929 --> 00:10:55.909 of his ownership of enslaved people and his active 00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:58.870 written defense of slavery. They've adopted what 00:10:58.870 --> 00:11:01.950 they call a retain and explain approach for other 00:11:01.950 --> 00:11:04.289 artifacts, like a stained glass window featuring 00:11:04.289 --> 00:11:06.889 him. So they keep the history visible, but they 00:11:06.889 --> 00:11:10.129 add context panels to explain the full, and in 00:11:10.129 --> 00:11:13.169 this case, very ugly reality. Exactly. It's that 00:11:13.169 --> 00:11:15.269 complexity we mentioned at the start. A brilliant 00:11:15.269 --> 00:11:18.509 philosophical mind capable of profound insight. 00:11:18.700 --> 00:11:21.860 yet also fully enmeshed in the brutalities and 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:24.159 prejudices of his era. It's a tough thing to 00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:27.100 reconcile. It is. So back in Rhode Island around 00:11:27.100 --> 00:11:30.580 1731, the dream finally falls apart. The check 00:11:30.580 --> 00:11:33.039 never came. The prime minister at the time was 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:35.779 a man named Robert Walpole. And Walpole was a 00:11:35.779 --> 00:11:38.000 famous pragmatist. He looked at the plan and 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:40.639 basically thought, a utopian college on a tiny 00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:42.960 island in the Atlantic. This is a waste of money. 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:45.710 The funds were blocked. They never arrived. Berkeley 00:11:45.710 --> 00:11:47.750 realized it was over. That must have been absolutely 00:11:47.750 --> 00:11:49.730 crushing. I mean, he gave up his fortune, he 00:11:49.730 --> 00:11:51.970 moved his family across the world, and he basically 00:11:51.970 --> 00:11:54.230 got ghosted by the government. It was a huge 00:11:54.230 --> 00:11:56.289 failure. So he packs up his family and returns 00:11:56.289 --> 00:12:00.309 to London in 1732. But before he leaves America, 00:12:00.590 --> 00:12:03.230 he does something that has a massive and lasting 00:12:03.230 --> 00:12:05.610 impact on American history. Look at that. He 00:12:05.610 --> 00:12:08.549 donates his farm, Whitehall, and his entire massive 00:12:08.549 --> 00:12:12.190 personal library, nearly 1 ,000 volumes, to the 00:12:12.190 --> 00:12:15.039 fledgling Yale College. To Yale? Why Yale? He 00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:16.960 had become friendly with some of its tutors, 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:19.480 and that donation effectively doubled the size 00:12:19.480 --> 00:12:22.379 of Yale's library at the time. It brought rigorous 00:12:22.379 --> 00:12:24.539 Anglican scholarship and European philosophy 00:12:24.539 --> 00:12:27.620 into the heart of Puritan New England. So even 00:12:27.620 --> 00:12:30.100 though his own college failed, he unwittingly 00:12:30.100 --> 00:12:32.240 helped build the intellectual foundation of what 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:34.899 would become the Ivy League. That's a fascinating 00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:37.320 and ironic twist. But let's get to the main event. 00:12:37.460 --> 00:12:39.500 The reason he's in the history books isn't just 00:12:39.500 --> 00:12:41.340 because he farmed in Rhode Island. It's because 00:12:41.340 --> 00:12:44.269 of his core idea, the immaterial. materialist 00:12:44.269 --> 00:12:47.409 thesis? It's to be perceived. That's the bumper 00:12:47.409 --> 00:12:49.570 sticker. Yes. Okay. Let's unpack this slowly 00:12:49.570 --> 00:12:52.370 because when you say matter doesn't exist, my 00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:54.950 brain instinctively fights it. I'm holding a 00:12:54.950 --> 00:12:56.929 pen right now. It feels hard. It has weight. 00:12:57.029 --> 00:12:59.409 If I drop it on the desk, it makes a noise. How 00:12:59.409 --> 00:13:02.110 can a certified genius claim this isn't real? 00:13:02.870 --> 00:13:05.789 This is the key. Berkeley would say, I never 00:13:05.789 --> 00:13:07.950 said the pen isn't real. I said matter isn't 00:13:07.950 --> 00:13:10.440 real. There's a difference. Okay. here's how 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:13.559 he breaks it down he argues that the entire universe 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:16.960 consists of only two things first there are spirits 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:20.259 spirits these are active thinking perceiving 00:13:20.259 --> 00:13:23.250 minds You are a spirit. I am a spirit. Anything 00:13:23.250 --> 00:13:25.509 that is conscious and has a will. Got it. Mines. 00:13:25.730 --> 00:13:28.409 Second, there are ideas. These are the passive 00:13:28.409 --> 00:13:30.950 things. They are sensations, thoughts, feelings, 00:13:31.230 --> 00:13:33.710 memories, everything that a spirit can perceive. 00:13:34.009 --> 00:13:36.789 So spirit and idea. That's the entire list. There's 00:13:36.789 --> 00:13:38.970 nothing else. That is the complete inventory 00:13:38.970 --> 00:13:41.169 of the universe, according to Berkeley. Now, 00:13:41.190 --> 00:13:43.110 think about an apple. When you experience an 00:13:43.110 --> 00:13:45.730 apple, what actually happens in your mind? I 00:13:45.730 --> 00:13:48.649 see redness. I feel a smooth skin. I smell a 00:13:48.649 --> 00:13:50.919 certain scent. You taste sweetness. You hear 00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:53.460 a crunch when you bite into it. All of those 00:13:53.460 --> 00:13:56.779 things, redness, smoothness, sweetness, crunchiness, 00:13:56.879 --> 00:13:59.759 are what? Sensations. They're ideas in my mind. 00:13:59.860 --> 00:14:03.120 Exactly. They are ideas. Berkeley then asks the 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:06.820 killer question. Does redness exist out there 00:14:06.820 --> 00:14:09.220 in the world if there's no eye to see it? No, 00:14:09.220 --> 00:14:11.259 that's just light waves. Does sweetness exist 00:14:11.259 --> 00:14:13.539 if there's no tongue to taste it? No, that's 00:14:13.539 --> 00:14:15.820 just a chemical structure. So if you strip away 00:14:15.820 --> 00:14:18.360 all of these qualities that depend on a mind, 00:14:18.840 --> 00:14:21.480 the color the texture the smell the taste the 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:26.039 sound what is left of the apple nothing Precisely. 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:28.720 Berkeley argues that an object is nothing more 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:31.820 than the collection, the bundle, of these perceived 00:14:31.820 --> 00:14:34.679 ideas. We have this habit of assuming there's 00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:37.179 some invisible, colorless, tasteless, silent 00:14:37.179 --> 00:14:39.639 stuff underneath it all, a substance we call 00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:41.759 matter that holds all these qualities together. 00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:43.919 Right, a substrate. But Berkeley says that's 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:46.820 a complete fiction. It's an unnecessary, unprovable 00:14:46.820 --> 00:14:50.179 fantasy. He says, try to imagine an unperceived 00:14:50.179 --> 00:14:53.259 object. Try to imagine a tree in a forest when 00:14:53.259 --> 00:14:56.700 absolutely no one no mind is perceiving it. Okay, 00:14:56.740 --> 00:15:00.960 I'm picturing a tree in a forest. No one's around. 00:15:01.139 --> 00:15:03.120 But you are picturing it. It is an idea in your 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:05.059 mind right now. You haven't escaped perception. 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:07.799 You can't. The very act of conceiving of an unperceived 00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:09.740 thing makes it a perceived thing. Okay, he's 00:15:09.740 --> 00:15:12.940 got me in a logical box there. But this leads 00:15:12.940 --> 00:15:15.159 to the classic, you know, college dorm room philosophy 00:15:15.159 --> 00:15:17.460 question. I know where you're going. If I walk 00:15:17.460 --> 00:15:19.980 out of this room and no one is here to perceive 00:15:19.980 --> 00:15:23.460 the microphone, does the microphone just disappear? 00:15:23.929 --> 00:15:26.090 Pop out of existence. This is the hurdle everyone 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:29.309 trips over. And it's a fair question. If to be 00:15:29.309 --> 00:15:32.289 is to be perceived and no human is perceiving 00:15:32.289 --> 00:15:34.850 it, it should vanish. But Berkeley has a very 00:15:34.850 --> 00:15:37.330 powerful answer. He says, no, of course it stays. 00:15:37.590 --> 00:15:41.090 Why? Because there is another perceiver, an infinite, 00:15:41.230 --> 00:15:43.610 omnipresent, eternal mind that perceives everything 00:15:43.610 --> 00:15:47.590 all at once and always. Gone. God. Berkeley argues 00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:50.429 that the entire universe is, in essence, an idea 00:15:50.429 --> 00:15:53.230 in the mind of God. The universe is held in existence 00:15:53.230 --> 00:15:56.070 moment to moment because it is being constantly 00:15:56.070 --> 00:16:00.289 perceived by God. That is a huge shift from the 00:16:00.289 --> 00:16:02.850 science of his day, right? Oh, it's a massive 00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:06.029 shift. The dominant scientific view, the Newtonian 00:16:06.029 --> 00:16:09.509 view, was that God was a kind of cosmic watchmaker. 00:16:09.769 --> 00:16:11.970 Right. He builds the universe, winds it up, and 00:16:11.970 --> 00:16:14.590 then lets it run on its own according to physical 00:16:14.590 --> 00:16:17.779 laws. Exactly. He was distant. He set the machine 00:16:17.779 --> 00:16:20.259 in motion and then stepped back. Berkeley's God 00:16:20.259 --> 00:16:22.480 is the exact opposite of that. So Berkeley's 00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:26.100 God is not a watchmaker. He's a what? A live 00:16:26.100 --> 00:16:28.799 streamer constantly broadcasting reality to us. 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:30.940 That's actually a pretty good modern analogy. 00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:34.039 Berkeley argues that what we call nature or the 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:36.700 laws of physics, the sun rising, gravity pulling 00:16:36.700 --> 00:16:39.419 things down, the seasons changing, is really 00:16:39.419 --> 00:16:42.419 a visual language spoken by God. A language. 00:16:42.919 --> 00:16:45.659 Yes, God is actively and directly generating 00:16:45.659 --> 00:16:47.899 these ideas in our minds in a consistent, reliable 00:16:47.899 --> 00:16:50.419 order. The reason the table is still there when 00:16:50.419 --> 00:16:52.159 you turn around and look back is that God is 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:54.659 consistently maintaining that idea for you and 00:16:54.659 --> 00:16:56.879 for everyone else. It sounds surprisingly similar 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:00.500 to modern simulation theory. It is the 18th century 00:17:00.500 --> 00:17:04.230 theological version of simulation theory. If 00:17:04.230 --> 00:17:06.829 you think about a complex video game, the world 00:17:06.829 --> 00:17:09.450 only renders because the computer code is telling 00:17:09.450 --> 00:17:12.390 the screen what pixels to display. There's no 00:17:12.390 --> 00:17:15.009 physical rock inside your computer's memory. 00:17:15.269 --> 00:17:18.410 There's just code generating the idea of a rock. 00:17:18.569 --> 00:17:20.289 So Berkeley is saying there's no physical rock 00:17:20.289 --> 00:17:23.420 in the universe. There is just God's code. God's 00:17:23.420 --> 00:17:26.579 ideas being fed directly to our spirits. That 00:17:26.579 --> 00:17:29.059 is a perfect way to put it. He removes the hardware 00:17:29.059 --> 00:17:32.000 of the universe matter and leaves only the software 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.900 spirits and ideas. And he didn't just rely on 00:17:34.900 --> 00:17:37.059 faith to prove this. He used some pretty sharp 00:17:37.059 --> 00:17:40.039 logical arguments to try and dismantle the whole 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:42.339 idea of materialism. You mentioned the likeness 00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:43.960 principle. The likeness principle. It's very 00:17:43.960 --> 00:17:46.660 clever. He said, quite simply, an idea can only 00:17:46.660 --> 00:17:49.480 be like another idea. What does that mean? Well, 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:51.599 you can compare the memory of a table to a photograph 00:17:51.599 --> 00:17:53.759 of a table. You can compare your idea of a tree 00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:56.859 to my idea of a tree. Both are ideas. But he 00:17:56.859 --> 00:17:59.660 argues you can never, ever compare an idea of 00:17:59.660 --> 00:18:01.980 a table in your mind to a so -called physical 00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:04.480 table that exists outside of any mind. Because 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:06.299 I can't get outside my own head to look at the 00:18:06.299 --> 00:18:08.039 real one and see if it matches. Exactly. You 00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:10.420 are permanently locked inside the theater of 00:18:10.420 --> 00:18:13.400 your own perceptions. So to assume there is a 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.160 physical world out there that... perfectly matches 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:19.220 your mental world is a huge leap of faith that 00:18:19.220 --> 00:18:21.660 you can never ever verify. It's an unnecessary 00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:24.039 hypothesis. He also loved to use something called 00:18:24.039 --> 00:18:27.259 the bucket experiment to mess with people's assumptions. 00:18:27.619 --> 00:18:30.099 Yes, this was his brilliant response to John 00:18:30.099 --> 00:18:33.039 Locke. Locke was the big philosopher before Berkeley, 00:18:33.220 --> 00:18:35.740 and he tried to save a version of materialism. 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:39.299 Locke argued that objects have primary qualities, 00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:42.940 things like size, shape, motion, which are real 00:18:42.940 --> 00:18:44.799 and objective and exist in the object itself. 00:18:45.099 --> 00:18:47.380 And then they have secondary qualities, things 00:18:47.380 --> 00:18:50.240 like heat, color, or taste, which are subjective 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:53.259 and only exist in our minds. So for Locke, a 00:18:53.259 --> 00:18:56.059 campfire log is objectively cylindrical. That's 00:18:56.059 --> 00:18:58.480 a primary quality. But it's not objectively hot. 00:18:58.680 --> 00:19:01.759 Hot is just a feeling, a secondary quality. Precisely. 00:19:02.029 --> 00:19:04.430 And Locke proved that heat was subjective with 00:19:04.430 --> 00:19:07.109 the famous bucket experiment. You take three 00:19:07.109 --> 00:19:09.710 buckets of water, one hot, one cold, and one 00:19:09.710 --> 00:19:12.150 lukewarm. You put your left hand in the hot water 00:19:12.150 --> 00:19:14.710 and your right hand in the cold water. You leave 00:19:14.710 --> 00:19:16.950 them there for a minute. Then you plunge both 00:19:16.950 --> 00:19:19.690 hands into the lukewarm bucket at the same time. 00:19:19.789 --> 00:19:21.849 Right. And the hand that was in the hot water 00:19:21.849 --> 00:19:25.390 will feel the lukewarm water as cold. And the 00:19:25.390 --> 00:19:27.549 hand that was in the cold water will feel the 00:19:27.549 --> 00:19:30.369 lukewarm water as hot. Exactly. The water itself 00:19:30.369 --> 00:19:33.190 is only one temperature, but your senses are 00:19:33.190 --> 00:19:36.130 reporting two completely different things. Therefore, 00:19:36.430 --> 00:19:39.970 Locke said, aha, heat is not in the water. It 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:42.269 is in the mind. That seems like a pretty solid 00:19:42.269 --> 00:19:45.269 argument. It is. But Berkeley steps in and says, 00:19:45.430 --> 00:19:47.390 hold on. This doesn't just apply to heat and 00:19:47.390 --> 00:19:50.750 color. This applies to everything. He says, take 00:19:50.750 --> 00:19:54.029 size. If you look at a castle from 10 miles away, 00:19:54.230 --> 00:19:57.069 it looks like a tiny speck on the horizon. If 00:19:57.069 --> 00:19:59.410 you stand right at its base, it's a towering, 00:19:59.410 --> 00:20:02.069 immense wall. The apparent size changes dramatically 00:20:02.069 --> 00:20:04.289 based on your perception. Right, that's perspective. 00:20:04.549 --> 00:20:07.369 Or take shape. Look at a coin straight on. It's 00:20:07.369 --> 00:20:09.450 a perfect circle. Look at it from an angle. It's 00:20:09.450 --> 00:20:12.069 an oval. Look at it from the edge. It's a thin, 00:20:12.089 --> 00:20:14.950 flat line. So which one is the real shape? So 00:20:14.950 --> 00:20:17.109 if size and shape change, depending on where 00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:18.769 I'm standing and how I'm looking, then they are 00:20:18.769 --> 00:20:20.750 relative to the observer, just like heat and 00:20:20.750 --> 00:20:23.890 cold. They are mind dependent. And if size and 00:20:23.890 --> 00:20:25.650 shape are in the mind, then Locke's distinction 00:20:25.650 --> 00:20:28.230 between primary and secondary qualities completely 00:20:28.230 --> 00:20:31.509 collapses. Nothing is primary. Everything exists 00:20:31.509 --> 00:20:34.130 in perception. That is devastatingly simple. 00:20:34.289 --> 00:20:37.349 He just takes Locke's own weapon and uses it 00:20:37.349 --> 00:20:39.809 against him. It's a perfect logical judo move. 00:20:40.009 --> 00:20:42.730 He uses his opponent's momentum to flip the whole 00:20:42.730 --> 00:20:45.349 argument on its head. And this feeds directly 00:20:45.349 --> 00:20:47.990 into his work on vision, too. I was reading about 00:20:47.990 --> 00:20:50.869 his an essay towards a new theory of vision from 00:20:50.869 --> 00:20:54.369 1709. He made the radical claim that we don't 00:20:54.369 --> 00:20:56.890 actually see distance at all. This is one of 00:20:56.890 --> 00:20:59.009 his most lasting contributions, actually. It 00:20:59.009 --> 00:21:01.130 had a huge influence on the psychology of perception. 00:21:01.890 --> 00:21:04.109 Berkeley argued that the retina, the back of 00:21:04.109 --> 00:21:06.329 your eye, is a two -dimensional surface. It's 00:21:06.329 --> 00:21:08.700 flat. It can only register patterns of light 00:21:08.700 --> 00:21:10.940 and color. So it's like a movie screen. Exactly. 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:13.299 And you cannot see the third dimension depth 00:21:13.299 --> 00:21:16.259 on a 2D surface. A line coming straight at your 00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:18.440 eye just looks like a single point. It has no 00:21:18.440 --> 00:21:22.480 visible length. So how do I know that my coffee 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:24.640 cup is two feet away and the door is 20 feet 00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:26.819 away? I feel like I'm seeing that distance. Berkeley 00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:29.180 says you're not seeing it. You are inferring 00:21:29.180 --> 00:21:31.420 it. You've learned it through habit and association. 00:21:32.539 --> 00:21:35.039 Your brain sees a collection of visual cues, 00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:38.119 an object looking smaller or fainter in color 00:21:38.119 --> 00:21:41.539 or a bit blurry or how your eyes have to converge 00:21:41.539 --> 00:21:43.980 to focus on it. And your brain says, aha, based 00:21:43.980 --> 00:21:46.500 on all my past experiences of walking over to 00:21:46.500 --> 00:21:48.839 things and reaching out and touching them, this 00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:52.059 particular set of visual cues means far away. 00:21:52.259 --> 00:21:54.799 So vision is basically a language that our brains 00:21:54.799 --> 00:21:57.980 learn to read over time. Precisely. He used a 00:21:57.980 --> 00:22:00.140 wonderful analogy. He compared it to seeing a 00:22:00.140 --> 00:22:02.480 person with a red face and inferring that they 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:04.940 are embarrassed. You don't literally see the 00:22:04.940 --> 00:22:06.859 emotion of embarrassment. You see the color. 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:09.359 And through social learning, you infer the emotion. 00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:12.079 In the same way, you don't see distance. You 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:15.160 see light and patterns and infer space. He even 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:16.660 tried to prove this with a real -life medical 00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:18.740 case, didn't he? The so -called cataract boy. 00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:21.880 The Molyneux problem. This was a famous thought 00:22:21.880 --> 00:22:23.759 experiment that philosophers had argued about 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:27.460 for years. The question was, if a man who was 00:22:27.460 --> 00:22:30.079 born blind could suddenly be made to see, could 00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:33.500 he distinguish a cube from a sphere just by looking 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:36.319 at them without touching them first? And Berkeley's 00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:40.049 answer was a firm no. A firm no, because, he 00:22:40.049 --> 00:22:42.829 argued, the man has not yet learned the language 00:22:42.829 --> 00:22:45.769 of vision. He hasn't associated the visual idea 00:22:45.769 --> 00:22:48.529 of a cube with the tactile idea of a cube. And 00:22:48.529 --> 00:22:50.710 then a real -world test case came along. It did. 00:22:50.890 --> 00:22:54.849 In 1728, a surgeon named William Cheseldon performed 00:22:54.849 --> 00:22:57.309 a groundbreaking operation on a 13 -year -old 00:22:57.309 --> 00:23:00.109 boy, Daniel Dollins, removing his congenital 00:23:00.109 --> 00:23:02.210 cataracts. What happened when the boy could see 00:23:02.210 --> 00:23:04.450 for the first time? The report published by the 00:23:04.450 --> 00:23:06.529 surgeon claimed the boy was completely confused. 00:23:06.829 --> 00:23:09.269 He couldn't judge distances at all. He apparently 00:23:09.269 --> 00:23:11.569 thought all objects were touching his eyes, just 00:23:11.569 --> 00:23:13.809 as things he felt with his hands touched his 00:23:13.809 --> 00:23:16.390 skin. He couldn't tell a cat from a dog without 00:23:16.390 --> 00:23:19.009 touching them. Berkeley seized on this immediately 00:23:19.009 --> 00:23:21.250 and claimed it was total vindication for his 00:23:21.250 --> 00:23:24.329 theory. See, I told you so. Exactly. Although, 00:23:24.470 --> 00:23:28.960 I do have to add the expert caveat here. Modern 00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:31.519 historians and philosophers of science have looked 00:23:31.519 --> 00:23:33.859 at this and, well, the story is a bit murky. 00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.240 Some scholars have pointed out that Berkeley 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:39.460 knew the surgeon, Cheseldon. And the language 00:23:39.460 --> 00:23:42.240 in the final published report uses some very 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:46.240 specific Berkeleyan philosophical phrases. There's 00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:49.480 a suspicion that Berkeley might have, well, ghostwritten 00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:51.759 or at least heavily influenced parts of that 00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:55.200 report to fit his theory. No way. Are you serious? 00:23:55.460 --> 00:23:58.019 It's a plausible theory. Also, the poor boy's 00:23:58.019 --> 00:24:00.200 vision was never very good even after the surgery, 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:02.460 so the data was messy from the start. But in 00:24:02.460 --> 00:24:04.299 the 18th century, Berkeley definitely took a 00:24:04.299 --> 00:24:06.500 big victory lap with it. He really was a fighter, 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:08.599 wasn't he? Which brings us to his battle with 00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:11.240 the mathematicians. Because he didn't just stay 00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:13.680 in his lane of metaphysics and theology. He went 00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:16.039 after the hard sciences. This is my absolute 00:24:16.039 --> 00:24:19.460 favorite Berkeley era. In 1734, he publishes 00:24:19.460 --> 00:24:21.220 this book called The Analyst. And that's the 00:24:21.220 --> 00:24:22.660 one with the incredible subtitle. That's the 00:24:22.660 --> 00:24:25.140 one. A discourse addressed to an infidel mathematician. 00:24:25.339 --> 00:24:28.480 So subtle. Who's he mad at? He was angry at the 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:30.740 whole scientific establishment, but the infidel 00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:33.599 mathematician is widely believed to be Edmund 00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:36.180 Halley, the astronomer of Halley's comet fame. 00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:39.279 Okay, so... What was the argument? Well, scientists 00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:41.359 and mathematicians of the day were starting to 00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:44.279 get very cocky. They were mocking religion, saying 00:24:44.279 --> 00:24:46.819 things like, you religious people believe in 00:24:46.819 --> 00:24:49.240 mysteries and invisible things you can't prove. 00:24:49.380 --> 00:24:52.720 Like the Trinity. That's irrational. We scientists 00:24:52.720 --> 00:24:56.720 only deal in cold, hard, logical proof. And Berkeley 00:24:56.720 --> 00:24:59.059 decided to flip the script on them. He basically 00:24:59.059 --> 00:25:01.319 said, you want to talk about believing in irrational 00:25:01.319 --> 00:25:04.359 nonsense? Fine. Let's take a close look at your 00:25:04.359 --> 00:25:07.559 new holy scripture. Calculus. He went after calculus, 00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:10.519 the greatest invention of Isaac Newton. That's 00:25:10.519 --> 00:25:13.640 bold. Incredibly bold, but he had a point. At 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:15.880 the time, the logical foundations of calculus 00:25:15.880 --> 00:25:19.359 were, frankly, a mess. Newton and Leibniz used 00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:22.319 these concepts called flexions and infinitesimals. 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:24.099 Infinitesimals. I've heard the term. What are 00:25:24.099 --> 00:25:26.640 they? Well, they're meant to be an infinitely 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:30.180 small quantity. To solve a problem, a mathematician 00:25:30.180 --> 00:25:33.339 would take a quantity, let's call it O, and treat 00:25:33.339 --> 00:25:36.519 it as a tiny but non -zero amount so they could 00:25:36.519 --> 00:25:38.579 do algebra with it, like divide by it. Okay, 00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:40.279 so it's a very, very small number, but it's not 00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:43.000 zero. Correct. But then, and this is what Berkeley 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:45.920 spotted, at the very end of the equation, to 00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:48.980 get the clean final answer, they would just treat 00:25:48.980 --> 00:25:52.200 that same quantity O as if it were zero and throw 00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:55.200 it away. Wait a minute. You can't do that. It 00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:57.440 can't be not zero at the start of the problem 00:25:57.440 --> 00:25:59.980 and then zero at the end of the problem. That's 00:25:59.980 --> 00:26:02.299 a contradiction. That was Buckley's entire point. 00:26:02.539 --> 00:26:04.920 He said it was logically incoherent. You can't 00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:07.180 have it both ways. And this is where he coined 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:09.920 one of the greatest insults in the entire history 00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:12.740 of mathematics. He called these infinitesimals 00:26:12.740 --> 00:26:15.220 the ghosts of departed quantities. The ghosts 00:26:15.220 --> 00:26:18.259 of departed quantities. That is beautiful. It's 00:26:18.259 --> 00:26:21.299 poetry. It's perfect, isn't it? A quantity that 00:26:21.299 --> 00:26:24.170 was just there. doing mathematical work, and 00:26:24.170 --> 00:26:26.369 then it vanishes without a trace like a ghost. 00:26:26.970 --> 00:26:29.269 He argued that the mathematicians were accepting 00:26:29.269 --> 00:26:32.089 just as much mystery and bad logic in their own 00:26:32.089 --> 00:26:34.650 field as they accused theologians of having in 00:26:34.650 --> 00:26:38.309 theirs. And the really crazy thing is, he was 00:26:38.309 --> 00:26:41.430 right, wasn't he? He was completely 100 % right. 00:26:41.509 --> 00:26:44.150 The calculus worked. It gave the right answers 00:26:44.150 --> 00:26:46.109 for building bridges and predicting the orbits 00:26:46.109 --> 00:26:48.950 of planets. But the logical foundation it was 00:26:48.950 --> 00:26:52.009 built on was broken. So what happened? It took 00:26:52.009 --> 00:26:55.210 mathematicians nearly another century, people 00:26:55.210 --> 00:26:58.009 like Cauchy and Weierstrass in the 19th century, 00:26:58.130 --> 00:27:01.549 to formally develop the concept of limits, to 00:27:01.549 --> 00:27:03.890 fix the very logical holes that Bishop Berkeley 00:27:03.890 --> 00:27:06.410 had pointed out. So the philosopher who didn't 00:27:06.410 --> 00:27:08.490 believe in matter actually corrected the foundational 00:27:08.490 --> 00:27:10.809 logic of the greatest scientists on Earth. He 00:27:10.809 --> 00:27:13.089 demanded rigor. And he didn't stop there. He 00:27:13.089 --> 00:27:15.289 also went after Newton's physics, specifically 00:27:15.289 --> 00:27:18.170 the ideas of absolute space and time. Right. 00:27:18.250 --> 00:27:20.250 Newton believed that space was like a giant, 00:27:20.329 --> 00:27:22.450 invisible container that existed on its own, 00:27:22.470 --> 00:27:24.930 even if it was completely empty. And Berkeley 00:27:24.930 --> 00:27:27.869 applied his, if it can't be perceived, it's meaningless 00:27:27.869 --> 00:27:31.670 rule. He wrote a work called Dimotu, or On Motion, 00:27:31.890 --> 00:27:34.650 and he argued that motion is always relative. 00:27:34.990 --> 00:27:37.470 How so? He used a simple thought experiment. 00:27:38.009 --> 00:27:40.829 Imagine a universe with only one single body 00:27:40.829 --> 00:27:43.849 in it, just one ball floating in an infinite 00:27:43.849 --> 00:27:50.309 void. Could that ball move? Um... No, I guess 00:27:50.309 --> 00:27:52.470 not, because there's nothing for it to move towards 00:27:52.470 --> 00:27:55.089 or away from. There's no reference point. Exactly. 00:27:55.230 --> 00:27:57.269 Motion is a relationship between at least two 00:27:57.269 --> 00:27:59.910 objects. If you remove the objects, the concepts 00:27:59.910 --> 00:28:02.390 of motion and space cease to have any meaning. 00:28:02.490 --> 00:28:05.130 You can't perceive an empty space. That sounds 00:28:05.130 --> 00:28:07.589 a lot like Einstein's theory of relativity. It's 00:28:07.589 --> 00:28:09.529 a direct precursor. The great philosopher of 00:28:09.529 --> 00:28:11.970 science Karl Popper explicitly called Berkeley 00:28:11.970 --> 00:28:14.690 a forerunner to both Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein 00:28:14.690 --> 00:28:17.430 for this insight. Wow. Popper even coined the 00:28:17.430 --> 00:28:19.970 term Berkeley's razor. Like Occam's razor, the 00:28:19.970 --> 00:28:22.410 simplest explanation is usually the best. It's 00:28:22.410 --> 00:28:25.869 similar, but sharper. Berkeley's razor says we 00:28:25.869 --> 00:28:27.869 should eliminate all essentialist explanations. 00:28:28.710 --> 00:28:31.890 Don't invent mysterious, unperceivable things 00:28:31.890 --> 00:28:35.450 like absolute space or gravity as a force. Just 00:28:35.450 --> 00:28:37.930 describe the observed regularities in a mathematical 00:28:37.930 --> 00:28:40.849 way. Don't invent invisible stuff. He really, 00:28:40.930 --> 00:28:42.970 really hated invisible stuff. If he couldn't 00:28:42.970 --> 00:28:45.369 perceive it, he wanted it gone from the explanation. 00:28:45.650 --> 00:28:48.630 Consistency was his absolute superpower. Consistency 00:28:48.630 --> 00:28:51.490 was his superpower until we get to the very end 00:28:51.490 --> 00:28:54.259 of his life. Because now... I think we have to 00:28:54.259 --> 00:28:56.779 talk about the tar water. Ah, yes, the tar water 00:28:56.779 --> 00:29:00.539 phase. The final strange chapter. This part of 00:29:00.539 --> 00:29:02.400 the story feels like a plot twist that the writers 00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:05.019 just threw in at the last minute. We go from 00:29:05.019 --> 00:29:07.000 dismantling calculus and predicting Einstein 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:11.039 to selling snake oil. It is genuinely bizarre. 00:29:11.259 --> 00:29:14.859 In 1744, he publishes a book called Cirrus, a 00:29:14.859 --> 00:29:17.140 chain of philosophical reflections and inquiries 00:29:17.140 --> 00:29:19.500 concerning the virtues of tar water. So what 00:29:19.500 --> 00:29:21.859 on earth is Cirrus about? It is a chain of philosophical 00:29:21.859 --> 00:29:24.039 reflections concerning the virtues of tar water. 00:29:24.140 --> 00:29:26.079 You're not joking. It's literally about pine 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:29.819 tar mixed with water. Yes. The recipe was to 00:29:29.819 --> 00:29:32.819 take pine tar, mix it with water, let the heavy 00:29:32.819 --> 00:29:34.859 tar settle to the bottom, and then you drink 00:29:34.859 --> 00:29:37.619 the clear water that's left. Berkeley became 00:29:37.619 --> 00:29:39.960 utterly convinced that this was a panacea. A 00:29:39.960 --> 00:29:42.359 cure -all. A cure -all. He claimed it could cure 00:29:42.359 --> 00:29:45.740 smallpox, ulcers, asthma, indigestion, scurvy, 00:29:45.859 --> 00:29:48.740 you name it. He thought tar water could fix it. 00:29:49.180 --> 00:29:52.220 Was he? OK. I mean, what prompted this? Why was 00:29:52.220 --> 00:29:54.000 he pushing this so hard? It actually started 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:56.799 from a humanitarian impulse. He was serving as 00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:59.200 a bishop in a very poor part of Ireland called 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:02.200 Cloyne, and he saw terrible poverty and disease 00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:05.180 all around him. He wanted to find a cheap, accessible 00:30:05.180 --> 00:30:07.819 medicine that anyone could make at home. He had 00:30:07.819 --> 00:30:10.380 heard reports from colonists in America about 00:30:10.380 --> 00:30:12.559 the supposed medicinal properties of tar, and 00:30:12.559 --> 00:30:14.599 he just he convinced himself it was the answer. 00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:16.519 So his heart was in the right place. He was trying 00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:19.339 to help people. He was. But he didn't just write 00:30:19.339 --> 00:30:23.039 down a recipe. The book Syrus is one of the strangest 00:30:23.039 --> 00:30:26.059 texts in all of philosophy. It starts with the 00:30:26.059 --> 00:30:28.660 chemical makeup of pine tar, then it moves on 00:30:28.660 --> 00:30:31.619 to discuss the vital fire of the universe, which 00:30:31.619 --> 00:30:33.700 then leads him to the ancient Greek philosophers, 00:30:33.940 --> 00:30:36.220 and the book ends with a contemplation of the 00:30:36.220 --> 00:30:38.980 Holy Trinity. I'm sorry, he connected pine sap 00:30:38.980 --> 00:30:42.039 to the nature of God. He did. He had this whole 00:30:42.039 --> 00:30:44.880 theory that the tar coming from pine trees that 00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:47.359 reach for the sun contained a concentrated form 00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:50.579 of the sun's vital spirit, which ultimately flows 00:30:50.579 --> 00:30:53.359 from God. It was a grand unified theory of tar. 00:30:53.599 --> 00:30:56.650 So... Did people actually buy this? They went 00:30:56.650 --> 00:30:59.470 absolutely crazy for it. Get this. Cirrus was 00:30:59.470 --> 00:31:01.670 actually his single best -selling book during 00:31:01.670 --> 00:31:03.890 his lifetime. You're kidding me. Not at all. 00:31:04.069 --> 00:31:07.029 Far more people in the 1740s knew him as the 00:31:07.029 --> 00:31:09.849 Tarwater Bishop than as the Matter -Doesn't -Exist 00:31:09.849 --> 00:31:12.809 Bishop. Tarwater became a huge fad in London 00:31:12.809 --> 00:31:15.009 society. People were drinking it everywhere. 00:31:15.410 --> 00:31:17.450 It's almost humbling, isn't it? You can be one 00:31:17.450 --> 00:31:19.670 of the most brilliant logicians in Europe, and 00:31:19.670 --> 00:31:21.609 your biggest hit is a recipe for tree juice. 00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:24.400 It just goes to show that even geniuses are not 00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:26.579 immune to wanting a magic bullet for their health 00:31:26.579 --> 00:31:29.380 problems. So we have the man, the wild philosophy, 00:31:29.460 --> 00:31:31.920 the takedown of math, and the tar. Look at the 00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:35.339 legacy. How did the world react to his core idea, 00:31:35.460 --> 00:31:39.099 his immaterialism? In his own time, mostly with 00:31:39.099 --> 00:31:42.440 mockery and confusion. The most famous story, 00:31:42.660 --> 00:31:45.819 the one everyone knows, involves Dr. Samuel Johnson, 00:31:46.140 --> 00:31:48.440 the great man of letters and dictionary writer. 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:50.619 The rock kicking story. The rock kicking story. 00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.480 Johnson is walking with his biographer, James 00:31:53.480 --> 00:31:55.740 Boswell, and they're discussing Berkeley's theory 00:31:55.740 --> 00:31:58.480 that matter doesn't exist. Johnson gets frustrated 00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:00.700 with the whole idea, so he kicks a large stone 00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:03.019 with mighty force until his foot rebounds and 00:32:03.019 --> 00:32:05.960 he shouts, I refute it thus. I refute it thus. 00:32:06.059 --> 00:32:08.750 It's such an iconic common sense comeback. It 00:32:08.750 --> 00:32:10.809 is iconic, but as a philosopher, I have to point 00:32:10.809 --> 00:32:13.230 out, Johnson completely and totally missed the 00:32:13.230 --> 00:32:15.369 point. How so? I mean, he proved the rock was 00:32:15.369 --> 00:32:18.589 hard and solid. Berkeley never, ever denied that 00:32:18.589 --> 00:32:20.950 the rock was hard. He never denied the sensation 00:32:20.950 --> 00:32:23.410 of solidity or the sensation of resistance or 00:32:23.410 --> 00:32:25.289 the sensation of pain in your toe if you kick 00:32:25.289 --> 00:32:27.430 it. Berkeley would just say, yes, of course, 00:32:27.450 --> 00:32:30.529 God gave you the idea of a solid rock. And when 00:32:30.529 --> 00:32:33.369 you kicked it, he gave you the idea of pain. 00:32:34.180 --> 00:32:37.000 Johnson proved he had a sensation. He did absolutely 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:39.380 nothing to prove there was an unperceivable material 00:32:39.380 --> 00:32:42.720 substance causing it. So Dr. Johnson just stubbed 00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.319 his toe for nothing? Pretty much. He refuted 00:32:45.319 --> 00:32:47.519 a position Berkeley never held. Other writers 00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:50.920 took shots at him too, right? I think Lord Byron 00:32:50.920 --> 00:32:52.900 wrote a little jab about him. He did. In his 00:32:52.900 --> 00:32:55.539 epic poem Don Juan, he wrote the lines, When 00:32:55.539 --> 00:32:58.910 Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, And 00:32:58.910 --> 00:33:01.589 proved it was no matter what he said. That's 00:33:01.589 --> 00:33:04.569 a solid 19th century pun. A very solid pun. And 00:33:04.569 --> 00:33:08.329 Herman Melville in his novel Marty has some characters 00:33:08.329 --> 00:33:10.890 joking about being on a ghost ship, but still 00:33:10.890 --> 00:33:13.309 having palates perfectly capable of appreciating 00:33:13.309 --> 00:33:16.269 a good plum pudding. It's a clear nod to the 00:33:16.269 --> 00:33:18.230 idea that even if the world is just an illusion, 00:33:18.470 --> 00:33:20.529 the pudding still tastes good. But his legacy 00:33:20.529 --> 00:33:22.650 isn't just a series of literary jokes. I mean, 00:33:22.650 --> 00:33:24.950 his name is literally on the map of the United 00:33:24.950 --> 00:33:26.970 States. The University of California, Berkeley. 00:33:27.230 --> 00:33:29.269 Yeah. and the city of Berkeley that surrounds 00:33:29.269 --> 00:33:33.630 it. It is just wild to me that the absolute epicenter 00:33:33.630 --> 00:33:37.250 of the 1960s counterculture is named after an 00:33:37.250 --> 00:33:41.269 18th century slave -owning Irish bishop. How 00:33:41.269 --> 00:33:43.589 on earth did that happen? It goes all the way 00:33:43.589 --> 00:33:46.170 back to his failed Bermuda Project. To promote 00:33:46.170 --> 00:33:48.930 the idea, he wrote a poem called Verses on the 00:33:48.930 --> 00:33:51.509 Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America. 00:33:51.769 --> 00:33:54.170 He was a poet, too. Is there anything he didn't 00:33:54.170 --> 00:33:56.710 do? He was a decent one. And that poem contains 00:33:56.710 --> 00:33:59.970 one very, very famous line. Westward, the course 00:33:59.970 --> 00:34:02.150 of empire takes its way. Westward, the course 00:34:02.150 --> 00:34:04.289 of empire takes its way. Yeah. I've heard that. 00:34:04.329 --> 00:34:06.690 That sounds like the unofficial slogan for manifest 00:34:06.690 --> 00:34:09.449 destiny. It essentially became that. And in the 00:34:09.449 --> 00:34:11.849 19th century, when the founders of the new University 00:34:11.849 --> 00:34:14.469 of California were looking for a site, they stood 00:34:14.469 --> 00:34:16.349 on a hill overlooking the Golden Gate and the 00:34:16.349 --> 00:34:19.010 Pacific Ocean, the ultimate West. And one of 00:34:19.010 --> 00:34:20.809 them recalled that line from Berkeley's tome. 00:34:21.340 --> 00:34:23.599 They named the site Berkeley in his honor. So 00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:25.980 despite the spectacular failure of his college 00:34:25.980 --> 00:34:28.500 in Bermuda, his educational legacy succeeded 00:34:28.500 --> 00:34:30.420 in a way he never could have possibly imagined. 00:34:30.739 --> 00:34:33.300 And of course, Yale still has a residential college 00:34:33.300 --> 00:34:36.280 named after him to honor that massive donation 00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:38.480 of his farm and his books that helped build the 00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:41.000 university. And Trinity College in Dublin has 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:44.099 the stained glass window, but not the library 00:34:44.099 --> 00:34:47.099 anymore. A complicated legacy, as we said. So 00:34:47.099 --> 00:34:49.519 let's try to wrap this up. We have a man who 00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:53.300 is just... A bundle of contradictions. A bishop 00:34:53.300 --> 00:34:56.420 who fundamentally questioned the nature of physical 00:34:56.420 --> 00:34:59.340 reality. A slave owner who gave up a personal 00:34:59.340 --> 00:35:02.380 fortune to try and build a utopian college. A 00:35:02.380 --> 00:35:04.940 fierce critic of calculus who accidentally paved 00:35:04.940 --> 00:35:08.059 the way for its modern logical foundations. And 00:35:08.059 --> 00:35:10.320 a seller of tar water who also happened to be 00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:12.320 one of the sharpest metaphysicians in history. 00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:14.880 That about sums it up. So what is the big takeaway? 00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:17.719 Why should you, listening right now, care about 00:35:17.719 --> 00:35:19.820 George Berkeley in the 21st century? I think 00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:21.960 Buckley challenges us to do something we rarely 00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:24.900 do. Question our most basic assumptions. We go 00:35:24.900 --> 00:35:26.760 through our entire lives assuming we know what 00:35:26.760 --> 00:35:29.519 reality is. We think we see the world objectively 00:35:29.519 --> 00:35:32.400 as it truly is. Berkeley grabs us by the shoulders 00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:35.619 and says, no, you don't. All you ever have and 00:35:35.619 --> 00:35:37.980 all you ever can have is your own perception. 00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:40.400 It's a profound lesson in intellectual humility. 00:35:40.969 --> 00:35:43.750 We are all locked inside our own experience of 00:35:43.750 --> 00:35:46.150 the world. And in our modern world with virtual 00:35:46.150 --> 00:35:49.210 reality, with AI generated images, with deep 00:35:49.210 --> 00:35:52.269 fakes, the line between perception and reality 00:35:52.269 --> 00:35:54.829 is getting blurrier and more confusing every 00:35:54.829 --> 00:35:57.550 single day. Berkeley was asking these questions 00:35:57.550 --> 00:36:00.369 300 years before the Apple Vision Pro. He really 00:36:00.369 --> 00:36:02.449 was. Yeah. And I'll leave you with a final thought, 00:36:02.530 --> 00:36:06.050 listener. If Berkeley is right and if to be is 00:36:06.050 --> 00:36:08.750 to be perceived, what happens to all the parts 00:36:08.750 --> 00:36:10.699 of the universe we haven't seen yet? The bottom 00:36:10.699 --> 00:36:13.940 of the Marianas Trench, the dark side of a planet 00:36:13.940 --> 00:36:16.980 orbiting a distant star. Exactly. Does the unobserved 00:36:16.980 --> 00:36:20.239 universe exist right now in all its detail only 00:36:20.239 --> 00:36:23.280 because God is watching it? Or is it all waiting 00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:25.699 there in some state of non -existence, just waiting 00:36:25.699 --> 00:36:29.199 for a conscious mind, one of us, to look at it 00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:31.619 and in that very act, bring it into being? That 00:36:31.619 --> 00:36:32.920 is a thought that will keep you up at night. 00:36:33.719 --> 00:36:36.239 Thanks for listening to The Deep Dive. Keep receiving, 00:36:36.460 --> 00:36:36.679 everyone.