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Dear Carlos, Rocks do not exist in the world outside ourselves? Hmmmmmm …. Samuel Johnson had a similar problem with George Berkeley’s views. Berkeley argued that all existing things are either a mind or they depend on a mind to exist. He also argued that matter does not exist. Johnson disagreed. James Boswell (2008: 248) recorded Johnson’s refutation of Berkeley’s argument that matter does not exist. Much like your reply to Terry, Johnson’s demonstration involves a rock: “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it — ‘I refute it thus.’” No matter? Never mind …. Yours, Ken Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015 Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology — Reference Boswell, James. 2008 [1791]. The Life of Samuel Johnson. London: Penguin Books. — Terry Love wrote: —snip— In essence, visual input is simply a map of colour responses at our retinas and into our systems. It is internally that we have learned to project and identify particular groupings of patterns as rocks, windows, and states such as whole or broken. None of these exist of themselves in essence in the environments outside ourselves. Instead, they are theory constructs held so close and so familiar inside us that we have become so used to them we falsely assume they are existential properties of our external environments. —snip— [Carlos Pires responded] —snip— I'm terribly divided: should I laugh or should I cry? I think my eyes are bleeding from reading this. I am appalled by this kind of commentary. There is no possible way to continue this conversation, if you go down THAT path. This conversation, or any other. If all those are "theory constructs" that bear no relation to "existential properties of our external environments," then why can't you find a window that breaks a rock? Or a rock that throws you? Is it because "they are theory constructs held so close and so familiar inside us" ? Maybe rocks can walk and talk and throw windows at researchers. Only they do it at night, under the full moon every 200 years or so. Actually, the aswer I was reading and assuming you wrote is probably a theory construct. You probably didn't existentially replied, but only in theory. Come to think of it... are you sure you exist? Maybe you are a theory construct yourself. —snip— ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------