Consciousness and the Cosmos The Cosmos contains all that exists or that can exist. We cannot doubt that if we exist then the Cosmos exists. If we believe that nothing can come from nothing then the Cosmos must be eternal. If it is eternal then ‘existence’ can have had no first cause, its regression of causes would stretch backwards through all eternity ('turtles all the way' as Terry Pratchet might say), or end in timelessness, which in this context we can assume to be the equivalent. This raises a question. If there was no reason why anything should exist then why does it? Why is there not just nothing, with nobody around to care? In an eternal Cosmos there's not much point in looking into the past to answer this question. We can study the early evolution of this particular universe and learn a lot about how the matter and energy we see around us now was arranged in the past. But this can never tell us anything useful about why or how any of it exists in the first place. It seems that there are just three simple possibilities. Either ‘extension’ has always existed, consciousness (which has no extension) has always existed, or something can come from nothing Like most people I refuse to believe that the last of these three is possible. At the same time I cannot believe that spacetime can have existed forever, partly because I can’t make any logical sense of the idea and partly because if it were true than the question of why anything exists is forever unanswerable, which would be annoying. There is a bit more to it than that. It is that that any proper explanation of existence would show existence to be inevitable. It's the only way an explanation can get around the 'first cause' problem. The idea that extended matter is what the Cosmos is made of does not even address this problem. This bit of logic, which I hope is correct, leaves me with consciousness as front runner for the honour of being the eternal substance. The idea seems ridiculous I know. However it seems to be a more elegant solution to the existence of existence than the idea that 'extension' has always existed but that there is no reason why it should have done so. As a hypothesis it seems much more useful than it ought to be if it is wrong. It explains all sorts of quirks of science, religion, philosophy, mysticism and everyday life, and does not seem to contradict any proven fact. To me there seems to be some reasonable evidence that it’s true and none that shows it to be false, other than the fact that it's extremely implausible. Of course I might be off my rocker, but I'll have to wait for you to prove that, I'm not in a very good position to judge. My question then is whether the hypothesis that consciousness is more fundamental than matter is possibly true, or whether by some rational method we can know that it's false, as is widely assumed to be the case. I'll do my best to make my hypothesis seem less ad hoc as we go. My reason for asking is that I really, really hate the fact that we bring up kids to believe that all there is to life is matter and determinism when we cannot prove this to be anything other than a completely temperamental assumption that entirely contradicts our personal experience as adults. Sorry the question was so long, but they don't come much bigger than this one. Cheers Canute
Yawn. If you want contribute yet another essay on "everything", at least write it logically. "Nothing can come from nothing" is apparently not what you want to say. Try phrasing it "something can not come from nothing". Oh why do I bother, it's just another wordy blather on "everything" that anybody and their mom can come up with given nothing else to do. Please tell me you don't live in a college dorm.
Well, thanks for making such a thoughtful start. Could you explain that nothing from nothing stuff that apparently wasn't what I wanted to say? Later Edit: I just thought about your strange reaction and added two words to the question to stop it sounding like I was in teen angst rather than asking a real 'grown up' question. Actually it's just a interesting question, whoever asks it.
There are many different levels of conciousness. Where would someone draw the line between the degree of conciousness that would be considered more fundamental than matter, and that which is derivitive of it? Do you consider an ant to be a "fundamental" conciousness?
Re: Re: Consciousness and the Cosmos Hmm. I took some time on this. The first one is tricky. It has to be answered in terms of consciousness and not in terms of matter if my hypothesis is true. If consciousness is fundamental then in its fundamental state it must be uniquely subjective, the very simplest experience of existing. This must a state even beyond having any sense of subject and object, of me and it, there would just be the experience. It's not too hard to imagine being in such a state, it is not an impossible state of consciousness, so it could exist. It would have to be just the experience of existing, and not one jot more than that. What comes next? As you say 'what is derivative'. A sudden concept of 'object' perhaps, an sudden awareness of oneself as the thing that is doing the experiencing, something other than the experience, a splitting into subject and object, into something more like our normal state of subject and object consciousness perhaps? The beginning of an explosion of subjects and objects? One day we wake up and there are zillions of objects and subjects and us, completely seperate, conscious of it all, asking how it all started. This sounds a bit crazy but it's a difficult question and that's actually the best I can do with it. I find it hard to imagine that we'll ever be able to answer it. I've simplified down to 'which came first , subject or object'. If my hypothesis is true the it is subject, and objects are 'derivative', not fundamental. But how on earth does a 'state of being' turn into houses and footballs? I haven't a clue really. It's hard to make sense of it, but at least we can conceive of these states of consciousness, they seem to be possible. (It's a crazy topic but at least one doesn't get beheaded for talking nonsense these days). If none of that made any sense then say so. The whole topic is a bit confusing to talk about. I don't know what you mean by the second question
In maths 'nothing' can be expressed as 0. Then you create number eg. 1 If you want to come to the original state of 0 you create -1. Maths is a system. Lets suppose that the nothing (and everything else for that matter) is subjected to a (comparable) system. In maths if you 'create' 1 you are doing nothing new: the maths exist eternally (at least as a possibility of an abstarct concept). Even if there were (absolute) nothing the maths would exist anyway. Ideas/ concepts are immaterial, have no mass, weith or any physical quality. Still the immaterial ideas can influence the matter On basis of ideas, acting on them something which previously never existed can be created eg. a yellow plastic bag. The ideas do not need consciousnes to exist though the consciousness can act on them. Therefore I would prefer a model as 1 Ideas/conceps /eternal 2 Arisal of consciousness /finite 3 Consciousness forming matter out of nothing (a sort of blue plastic bag - or a universe) 4 Consciousness runs all possible ideas through all possible possibilities 5 Consciousness gives it up - realising that it itsefl is a (part of)system (complex system realising itself) 2 - 5 can be cyclical
Canute If what your saying is that the consciousness exists apart from the cosmos and is what gives order to the cosmos, I would agree with you. Because IMO for us to be self aware we must have an “outside” perspective. Of course this doesn’t answer the question of where the consciousness started, or how some “quantum connection” links the brain to some “conscience dimension” but it does explain the order in our universe.
I can't really understand the angle of this but I have to ask what is consciousness? I always thought it was an activity the brain does, why is it given so much universal importance here?
Canute: Without it the absurd reigns supreme. Heidegger adressed this quasi brilliantly and blamed it all on time. Something tells me you've recently razed through the philosophy section at Books-a-Million. Everything done in the natural sciences nowadays is invariably doomed to be ad hoc. Time wastes, Canute. Dr. Lou: Conscious is not the "knowing", but knowing that you know. Which is why we're the most incredibly miserable mammals alive, no?
You seem to agree with Plato on 'Ideas'. But how do explain how ideas can exist, be real, before a consciousness to contain them. Doesn't the concept of an idea' presuppose consciousness of the idea? I can't make sense of that. 2,3 and 4 I agree with, expecially 4, which suggest that all possible experiences exist, but 1 seems illogical and unnecessary and 5 I'm still getting my head around.
Re: Re: Consciousness and the Cosmos For reasons given I find the former illogical, or perhaps logically untidy is a better way of putting it. It leaves loose ends. The latter idea does not. But please don't call it 'mind'. By this hypothesis mind and consciousness are quite different things. (In fact in a way they're the only different things, as in Procops 'blue plastic bag' universe. By assuming that consciousness is (ultimately) immatarial and thus equivalent to physical nothing. It therefore appears to us that something came from nothing, whereas in fact true nothing is a human concept that never existed and never will. It is that that any proper explanation of existence would show existence to be inevitable. It's the only way an explanation can get around the 'first cause' problem, what I would call the 'why does anything exist' problem. The idea that extended matter is what the Cosmos is made of does not even address this problem. (Which is why I call it logically untidy). Not a mind, but a very fundamental state of being. It exists because that's as near to nothingness as its possible to get. It is one slight step beyond physical nothingness since it is without extension. It's not designed to be unpfalsifiable, it just is. I can't really help that. A hypothesis is not untrue just because it is unfalsifiable, this is a fact we know from mathematics.
You're right in a way, it does not explain where consciousness comes from. However I take it as axiomatic that true nothingness cannot exist since consciousness IS nothing (physically speaking), so it must exist, which explains why it does. I cannot prove this, and I have conclusded it's unprovable. But I believe that it may be possible to know it. It is the only postulate required by the hypothesis I'm proposing, the one and only undecidable in the system.
RE:Canute I think that a statement such as 1=1 is always and everywhere valid and even God can do nothing about it (eg. to make it 1>1). Therefore God (consciousness) is secondary to Ideas. Suppose your proppose that the statement 1=1 will come to being only when 'encountered' by a consciousness but then I think if the consciousness ceases to exist the validity of the statement would not 'disappear" Lets say we have a Realm of the abstract(ideas/concepts) R a Consciousness C then the relation between C and R would be R>C You want to say C=R?
Re: RE:Canute Another tricky one. I agree with you that there seems to be something fundamental about logic. I feel that you're talking about the origins of epistemology, of rationality if you like, rather than of consciousness or matter, but I'm still thinking about it. It does seem necessarily true that conscious existence must seem to logical (comply with some idea of logic). It's hard to see how one could be conscious in a universe with no logic (no logical ideas). But does this mean that 'ideas' must pre-exist, or does it mean that 'ideas' are a necessary property of any subject-object consciousness. I think it's the latter, and that in the hypothetical state before subject-object duality of consciousness arises 'ideas' (including any idea of logic) are not yet necessary, i.e.they are not a logically necessary condition for the existence of consciousness. Looking at it this way it is self-aware consciousness that imposes order on the world, order does not pre-exist. It seems to me that logic and rationality are more likely to be properties of mind (of rational thinking) than of consciousness or the void. If this isn't true then it's very hard to see why the physical universe should end up capable of being so well described by mathematics, a fact that has long puzzled people.
Re: Re: Re: Consciousness and the Cosmos Ok, so long as we're not confusing terms here. On that note, let'sw not misuse the word "logical". If something is illogical, it is not self consistent. It does not mean anything you find strange or hard to grasp is illogical. Either a theory is logically consistent or it's not. There is no in between, or middle ground. That being said, what inconsistencies do you think show up in the idea of spacetime existing forever? I can just as easily say that spacetime can be equivalent to consciouss nonexistence. In other words, spacetime can exist while nothing conscious does. So what? It doesn't seem to add anything, ontologically. No one is proposing a state of "nothing" exists, or least not such a thing that has anything to do with the question of why there is something rather than nothing. That question is equivalent to "why does anything exist?". The "nothing" in this case is just negation of "something existing", not a state itself. But you haven't stated how consciousness addresses this either. You're saying that consciousness is less existence than the physical universe? If you were to list the properties of a complex consciousness and compare it to say, a unified field, you might be surprised to see which one is simpler. At any rate, it still doesn't answer the question of why that "something", regardless of how simple it is, exists in the first place. That's right, so there should other reasons why it should be considered as a probable ontology. The way I see it, if idealism is true, someone has gone through a lot of trouble to convince us otherwise. And as it stands, I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories.
Nothing is a state of (absolute) harmony (only absolute eternal truths) exist in the nothingness (no noise). It is a question how a chaotic world (such one as we experience) can arise from it. My guess is that consciousnes is of different cathegory, an opposit of truth and harmony. The appearance of this "oposit" lead to the Big Bang, to the creation of energy. (Do not worry if you do not understand this, neither do I but) consciousness is capable of mistakes (unique capacity). I rearrange my formula as follows: (R>C) R+C < R
You mean to say that it is not true that "something can come out of nowhere"--and thus conclude that the cosmos must be eternal. "Nothing can come from nothing" could mean just that this "nothing" can create more "nothing". The rest doesn't improve much--remember more words does not make something more insightful.
