Friday, February 5, 2010

Useful philosophy

Berkeley is perhaps best known for his saying: “Esse est percipi”, the Latin for "To be is to be perceived". In other words -- an object can't exist in the absence of the observer. He argues that the knowledge we have about objects is based exclusively on our perception, and the existence of objects is questionable in the absence of an observer. I agree with his idea that the qualities of all physical objects are only in us, are mental entities, and not powers possessed by the objects themselves. However, I would go even further, and state that this principle stands for emotions as well. Anger, love, fear, happiness, and the objects surrounding us are only a sum of subjective pictures projected in our mind, and nothing exists outside of it.  So, as long as everything is in your mind, you have control over it. You can control your emotions and sensory perception. Thus, overcoming fear, love, regrets, temptation is a mental exercise.