Qualities And The Theory Of Annihilation Of All Creatures
Humans, since the beginning of time, have perceived objects around us, and then we transform them into the knowledge we know. But what if, according to The Assayer by Galileo, “all the living creatures were removed, tastes, odors, and colors would be wiped away and annihilated.”, could we perceive anything else except for our existence? The problem has been raised; furthermore, it became popular among philosophers. And between the two English philosophers, John Locke, and George Berkeley, they both shared their ideas of what we could potentially perceive with our mortal senses. Within this paper, the author will dig into their theories, Locke’s indirect realism, Berkeley’s idealism. And based on their theories, we will see if they would agree to the claim of Galileo about the annihilation of all creatures on Earth.
In the author’s opinion, John Locke would agree with the claim about the annihilation of all creatures. According to his theory, we don’t exactly perceive things around us, and by that, the author means material objects. When we see something, our eyes continuously send out messages to our brain, which creates assembling images of the objects. And those images depending on what we perceive in such situations as temperatures, angles, or lighting environments. Later on, our brain can form its ideas on what, and how the objects exist in the material world. To Locke, human can be sure what the object might be looked like, or whether the object is moving or not. And he called these “primary qualities”. On the other hand, the ideas formed through senses in our mind are called “secondary qualities”. These properties probably do not resemble the objects. In other words, these properties do not come from the objects, it is likely observer-dependent. So if all creatures are removed, all the perception will be removed, and human has nothing left to perceive. Thus, it is likely that John Locke’s theory would go along with Galileo’s claim.
In addition to Locke’s indirect realism, Berkeley also came up with an idealism theory in favor of whether we could perceive the external world, or not. Based on Galileo’s claim, Berkeley would say that not only will our senses be annihilated, the external world also will not exist at all. It can be understood that everything we perceive, or every definition only happen in our minds, as we perceive them. Berkeley’s famous quote “Esse est percipi” also speaks up the truth that one thing must be perceived first to exist. This also leads to one of his theories on our ideas of things. His idealism presents the idea of God is the root of every knowledge, and ideas we perceive. It is God that gives us ideas of how the reality is. In short, in Berkeley's theory, perceptions are based on the senses of both mortal observers and God. Therefore, even though Berkeley rejects the existence of material creatures, especially primary and secondary qualities of John Locke, he would agree that the annihilation of all creatures would lead to the disappearance of all our senses.
From my point of view, I agree with the claim of Galileo that the annihilation of all creatures would lead to the disappearance of tastes, odor, and colors. However, my argument is based on direct realism. According to the theory of indirect realism, the external world exists independently in our minds. And we perceive them directly through our senses. The explanation for this is that tastes, odor, and colors come from the object itself, and those exist in the material world. Even though the experiences vary from people to people, it still comes from the objects. Thus, the objects stay the same regardless of the definition that we give them through our perceptions. Eventually, if Galileo’s claim is true, there would be no sources, or whatsoever for us to perceive. In other words, tastes, odor, and colors will disappear. But one might object that things do not exist since we do not perceive them directly. They consider the external world, and our minds as two separate realms. And creatures are not real since we perceive them differently. People taste, and see things differently under certain conditions of lights, or built-in senses. So let take the arguable dress for example. Some see it as dark and blue, but some perceive it as white and gold. And to this advocator of the objection, there is no such thing we can be sure of how the reality is. To this objection, I reply that even though we perceive things around us differently, the origin of the objects still stays the same. The dress is royal blue, which is its original color. However, it does not do anything to the fact that we still perceive the dress directly by our senses. The color remains the same even though no one perceives it, and it continues existing in this world. Therefore, once we remove all the creatures, all the qualities would go with them.
In short, Locke’s indirect realism, and Berkeley’s idealism agree with Galileo’s claim that the annihilation of all creatures will lead to the disappearance of tastes, odor, and colors. As we can understand that there is a relation between our senses and perceptions of objects. We perceive things around us through what they project to our eyes. And even though, we don’t experience things the same, the way we perceive objects are proof of the existence of reality and living creatures. Needless to say, if all living creatures stop existing, there would be no more perceptions.
