The assertion that existence is tied to perception comes from George Berkeley, an influential Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Berkeley, a key figure in British Empiricism, proposed this radical idea, famously encapsulated in his Latin phrase "esse est percipi," primarily in his 1710 work, "A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge." He developed this philosophy, known as idealism or immaterialism, to counter prevailing materialist views, skepticism, and atheism of his time, aiming to reconcile reason with religious faith by demonstrating God's essential role in reality.

At its core, the statement suggests that for non-thinking objects, their very being is dependent on being perceived by a mind. Berkeley argued that what we call physical objects are not mind-independent substances but rather collections of ideas or sensible qualities that exist only within a perceiving mind. For instance, the color, shape, and texture of an apple are not inherent properties of an external "matter" but are ideas in our minds when we observe it. This challenges the common-sense notion of a world existing independently of any observer, pushing us to consider how deeply our sensory experiences shape what we understand as real.

The deeper meaning of this philosophy extends beyond a simple denial of matter; it posits that perception is not a passive reception but an active foundation of existence itself. To address the question of what happens to objects when no human perceives them, Berkeley introduced the concept of an all-perceiving God whose constant perception sustains the reality of everything. Historically, Berkeley's ideas profoundly influenced later philosophers like David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and his work on vision continues to be relevant in discussions of visual perception. In a real-world sense, his philosophy can be seen in the development of psychological relativism, reminding us that each individual's experience of reality is unique and mediated through their own perception, fostering an awareness that our personal interpretations are not necessarily objective reality.