Can you imagine something existing unperceived? What does an unperceived dog look like? What does an unperceived book look like? So, and so forth...
Dog that has 6 legs, a book that has symbols that we have not yet seen. Its just something that has to be seen, why?
The Higgs-Boson particle was unperceived before we discover it, at least it was unperceived by humans. It is entirely possible there are more things that the human mind has unto yet never thought of.
How can i know something i havn't seen, you just ask what it would look like. I was just throwing an idea of an unknown dog out there. I can imagine a dog with flames for fur, and on some unknown planet, they could exist. You'd be better off asking what God looks like or for that matter what nothing looks like.
This is a contradiction, if something is not perceived it has no describable physical attributes. There could exist a great deal of things still unperceived. Their existence is not limited to humanities limited perception of the universe. Could you elaborate on the logical process that lead to your assumption? Why does an inability to answer that question imply that idealism exists?
1.) Yea, you can imagine this by CONCEPTUALLY putting together a collage of perceptions. 2.) God is just as invisible as your thoughts are...
Okay... we say something exists, now, please, define 'existence' without descriptions referring to perception? Inotherwords, we say 'something' exists... now, how do we define the 'existence' of this something without definitions rooted in sense-perception?
I think the idea is that existence itself relies entirely on perception. A simple idea with deep implications. If something is perceived it exists. Now what if something beyond the description of the senses is imagined?
I have no idea what a dog with 6 legs would like, i try to put the image of a lab with 6 legs in my head and it just doesn't stick. Well this is a philosophy thread, so God being invisible is just something you imagine, as it has yet to be perceived.
For, 'existence' is defined and understood in terms of perception, and not the other way around. P.S. The inability to answer these questions doesn't mean idealism exists (I don't know if you wrote that intentionally)... it means idealism is true.
You ask what an unperceived dog looked like, I said a dog with 6 legs. Its a very broad description, but a description still. I can't describe in detail what the dog looks like, cause i dont know.
I think you missed the point of the question... is a dog with 6 legs any different than a dog with 4 legs (other than the amount legs)?
Actually the Higgs boson was perceived before we discovered it. In fact, the search for it was entirely based on a preconceived conception of it.
I dont know maybe they have a pig nose. not really, if you asked me to draw it, i couldn't without just using a stick figure.
It is a result of the human condition that our understanding of the world around us is tied to our experience of it. If you want to get down to semantics you can't even talk about the idea of "something" without any type of perception based understanding. I'm not arguing that Idealism is impossible, in fact what I say here is even used as support by some ideological philosophers. I'm just saying that a simple, single question thought experiment is not the best way to prove it. It would also hep if the type of idealism was specified. There are idealist theories in multiple fields, philosophy, sociology, political. Even within philosophy, which is obviously the type of which you speak, has multiple schools of thought when it comes to idealism.