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SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM 1
Subjective Idealism and its Implications for Reality
John C Hauk
American Public University System
English 110
Professor Corinne Tatum
October 11, 2020
SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM 2
Abstract
Subjective Idealism is a philosophical doctrine that has defined much of metaphysics throughout
its history. It is a view of reality that, before the discovery of quantum mechanics, was mere
speculation and philosophical debate. Now, subjective idealism has scientific backing that may
show that it is a legitimate idea.
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You take a bite of an apple, savoring its crisp flavor, while standing there smelling the
autumn air and enjoying the explosion of color of the leaves. There is a cool chill in the air, and
you know it is time to head to the car to warm up and go home. You then wake up. Was it a
dream? The sights, sounds, smells and tastes were so real; the dream so vivid, like you were
really in an apple orchard. Dreams like these are indistinguishable from reality; the same reality
that we as conscience beings experience every day. The question one can pose then is “how do I
know reality is real?”. One philosophical doctrine states that it may not be: subjective idealism.
Subjective Idealism, according to Encyclopedia Britannica is “the premise that nothing
exists except the mind and their precepts and ideas” (Encycl. Britannica, 2020). This is to say
that what we as people experience as reality is merely an illusion; that mind is independent of the
physical. Also known as immaterialism or biocentrism, subjective idealism states that what we
experience as every day objects are the mind’s interpretation of what they are; mere sensory data
that is interpreted by the being’s mind and thus made “real”. This doctrine has its roots in the
early 18th century to mid - 19th century, where philosophers like Berkeley, Locke, Hume and
Descartes were trying to describe how the mind works and interacts with the everyday world.
British philosophers were at the “cutting edge” of metaphysical debate in the early 18th
Century; known as empiricists ( the idea that knowledge can not be known without sensory
experience) were trying to figure out how we as a species gain knowledge, and how we
experienced the world. George Berkeley (1685-1753) was one of the “Big Three “British
empiricists. In two of his works, Principals of Human Knowledge and The Three Dialogues
between Hylas and Philonous ( 1710 and 1713, respectively) , Berkeley argued that “ idealism
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(the claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends on a mind for its existence) and
immaterialism (the claim that matter does not exist). His contention that all physical objects are
composed of ideas is encapsulated in his motto esse is percipi (to be is to be perceived).” (Flage,
2015). While Berkeley did not focus much on the knowledge gained by experience, the two
philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant did.
Both David Hume (1711-1776) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) picked up where
Berkeley left off. Although both of their works are similar, they speak volumes on how we see
the world. Hume, for example, believed that knowledge of objects could be categorized into two
sets: simple and complex, while Kant believed that our minds had a pre-existing structure that
knowledge would develop in a certain matter. Known as a priori and a posteriori knowledge,
both philosophers argued that we either gained knowledge thru experience (a posteriori) or that
knowledge is true without experience (a priori). Although both philosophers were trying to show
how our minds used knowledge, this idea was not new; John Locke (1632-1704) sought to show
that the mind organizes knowledge via sensory data. Locke thought that “things are what they are
in virtue” ( Uzgalis, 2018) meaning that physical object’s characteristics are what they are
because that is what our mind is perceiving. Berkeley saw a gap in Locke’s ideas of perception
and the perceived thing. Hume took this idea further, stating that objects are only real when
experienced by the senses. With these three philosophers, and those after them, subjective
idealism was argued, and counter argued. But, with the discovery of quantum mechanics and
knowledge of how the brain works, subjective idealism may have scientific backing.
Let us consider the Falling Tree Puzzle, a famous philosophical thought experiment that
asks the question “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a
sound?” According to John Locke, it does if and only if a conscious observer is there to hear it.
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But the question can be further asked (in the guise of subjective idealism) “what is sound?”.
Sound is a wave, that propagates through a medium, such as air or water from a source. We can
then take this experiment further with two subjects: a deaf person and a person with the ability to
hear. Dr. Robert Lanza, author of Biocentrism, explores this thought experiment: “ A deaf person
can readily feel some of these pulses of air on the skin…This according to simple science, is
what happens even when the brain-ear mechanism is absent – a series of greater and lesser air
passages. Tiny, rapid puffs of wind. There is no sound attached to them” and “Now let’s lend an
ear to the scene. If someone is nearby, the air puffs physically cause the ear’s tympanic
membrane (eardrum) to vibrate, which stimulates nerves only if air is pulsing between 20 to
20,000 times a second” (Lanza, 2009, pg.20). Here we see that sound is different for two people;
the deaf person only feels the movement of air while the person with hearing “hears” the tree
falling, because of the mechanisms in the ear. The sensory data (in this case, the ear) receives the
air movement, the nerves send a signal to the brain, and then the brain interprets it as sound.
Therefore, the air movement does not “create” sound, the brain does! Sight can be thought of the
same way; a photon bounces off an object, enters the eye and activates a light cone in the retina.
A neurotransmission is then sent to the brain, and the brain interprets it as sight. We can look at
all the senses this way and conclude that all objects seen, felt, smelt and heard are mere
interpretations of neurotransmissions of the sensory organs to the brain and interpreted by the
brain itself.
Let us consider a well-known physical phenomenon called particle-wave duality. First
proposed by French physicist Louis de Broglie in 1924, he stated that light acts as both a wave
and particle. (Susskind, 2006) This is a direct response to the results of the Double Slit
Experiment. This experiment showed that light acts as both a particle and wave, yet there is one
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problem with the experiment: The Observer Effect. When light passes through two tiny slits, it
creates an interference pattern. This is indicative of waves. Yet, when one of the slits are closed,
the pattern disappears, therefore a straight line is seen, indicative of particles. Physicists wanted
to know what slits were being used, so they can figure out what was going on at the quantum
level. To their surprise, no interference pattern was seen, but two straight vertical lines. Often
known as the Observer Effect, it is like the particles “know” they are being observed. This
experiment has been repeated over and over, and with different configurations, yet the results are
always the same. This idea of the observer effect blends into another premise of quantum
mechanics called the wave function.
With the discovery of quantum mechanics, all sorts of strange phenomena were being
discovered: entanglement, virtual particles and the weirdest of them all the wave function. It was
first proposed by physicist Edwin Schrodinger in 1926. The idea is simple: a particle is in a
probability state until measured (Greene, 2003, pg. 107). The wave function shows that a particle
has a higher probability of being somewhere and a lower probability of another location, but the
particle is every where at once. It is by the probability and the act of measurement that the wave
function collapses, and the particle is “seen” or measured. This quantum mechanical observation
is yet more evidence of subjective idealism. Let us consider a simple thought experiment, based
on Schrodinger’s Cat: assume that you are in a room without windows. You know that 10
minuets ago, you pulled up into the driveway in your car. How do you know your car is there?
Subjective Idealism states that indeed the car is not there, only the mental construct of the car
(the sensory data taken in by the observation of the car). Taken a step further, let us interject the
wave function: because you can not observe the car, the particles that make up the car are in a
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probability state; therefore, the car only exists in the mind. It is not until you observe the car, that
its wave function collapses, and the car is made real.
Lastly, the sense of touch is without a demonstration of both quantum mechanical
phenomena and subjective idealism. Because tactile touch is yet another interpretation of nerve
signals to the brain, the sensations of cold, warmth, sharp and dull are all illusions of the nerve
signals of the fingertips. This can be demonstrated with yet another example: a person with sight
and a person who is blind. If we ask both people to hold a baseball, who’s interpretation of the
object is true? This is an example of mental construction; an object is only an object in the
conscience mind. Using the ball analogy, we can see that the quantum mechanical phenomena
called electromagnetism comes into play. Electrons are negatively charged particles that orbit the
nucleus of an atom. When we pick up an object, (not taking into effect gravity) we are
demonstrating electromagnetism. The electrons in the ball and our fingertips are repelling each
other (in simple terms), thus making the object seem solid. Yet, our brains interpret the object as
solid.
Subjective Idealism, with the physical phenomena of quantum mechanics shows that
reality as we know it is a series of interpretations of the conscience mind. We can not say with
certainty that any object is real unless we directly observe it; what we know through sensory
experience is our minds interpretation of that data and that interpretation gives reality and
everyday characteristics.
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Works Cited
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Subjective Idealism”, ( Feb 19, 2018), [online],
retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/subjective-idealism
Flage, Daniel E, James Madison University ( Date Unknown), “ George Berkeley, [online],
retrieved from: https://iep.utm.edu/berkeley/
Uzgalis, William, "John Locke", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), [online], retrieved from: https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-
bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=locke
Lanza, Robert MD, (2009), “Biocentrism”, Dallas, TX, BenBella Books
Susskind, Leonard (2006), “The Cosmic Landscape”, New York NY, Back Bay Books
Greene, Brian, “The Elegant Universe”, New York NY, W W Norton and Company
Bibliography
Lanza, Robert MD, (2009), “Biocentrism”, Dallas, TX, BenBella Books
Greene, Brian, “The Elegant Universe”, New York NY, W W Norton and Company
Guyer, Paul and Horstman, R.P, “Idealism”, ( August 30th, 2015, ed 2020) [online], retrieved
from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/
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Berkeley, George, “A Treatise Concerning the Principals of Human Knowledge”, (1878), [ Univ.
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