Perhaps the two are always paired. That would mean matter is always consciousness-bearing, and consciousness is always matter- bearing. The relationship is a biconditional. — ucarr

No, I don't buy that. We know that consciousness evolved long after the inanimate formed. We know that causation was working perfectly well during all that time, even though consciousness did not yet exist.

But I have to concede that we only know that because we've been able to assemble the evidence and formulate hypotheses and theories.

If you adopt a strong definition of existence, such as "to be is to be perceived" or, more gently "to be is to conceived", then your thesis would follow. But you have a big problem explained where we came from. Berkeley supplied that by positing God. How would you do it?

I do accept that anything that exists can be known, conceived, perceived and that there will always be more to know, conceive, perceive than we have discovered, conceived, perceived. (I think).

The pair are indeed closely linked. Consciousness or awareness is always consciousness or awareness of something - subject and object. The object can (usually) exist without a subject. I don't think that consciousness can exist without an object, but I'm not dogmatic about it.

If morals correspond to real things and thus they are objective, then the “what” of life, that is, the facts of life (ha ha!) can generate a type of science, the science of morality. This is what the world religious try to teach.

The enemy of morals is adaptation. Adjusting to a situation for sake of survival often scuttles morals.

Proceeding from the belief morals are objectively real, the morals and behaviors of the good are what the wise person seeks to own.

This argument is hard to sell because it’s so hard to concretize what is meant by goodness,

Interesting that you assume a world without consciousness is inanimate. I know you don’t mean a world without motion. I think you mean a world without self-willed motion.

In a world without consciousness, when the wind pushes a rock and it rolls downhill, is that causation, or is it a potential event among infinite possible events?

If we divorce consciousness from matter, does time lose its ability to parse infinite possible events into the intelligibility of distinct events causally sequenced?

With this speculation, I imagine time in the role of universal solvent. It dissolves unintelligible infinite possibilities into the world as we perceive it, and that world is real because of our presence in it.

Existence doesn’t exist without consciousness; without consciousness it is only potential existence.

This might tell us something about the “what” and its linkage to science: consciousness in its essence is measurement; it pairs with the existential solvency of time to render a realm of discrete things causally linked; this extracted from unintelligible infinite possibilities .

Where do we come from? The void, which, as I’ve been guessing, might be the infinite possibilities of potential existence.

With this conjecture, the origin of things, including humans, might be an irreducible mystery in its particulars: every discrete, causally linked thing might necessarily be incomplete because that’s the nature of being from uncontainable potential existence.

Continuing in this vein, the beginning and end of existence can only be approached, never arrived at .

The object can (usually) exist without a subject.

Can something be a self without consciousness?

Can something be an object without being an object to itself, which means it’s also a subject?

These questions make me wonder if there ca be discrete and real things without the consciousness of an observer.

Does causality exist in a world without consciousness? — ucarr

Of course. "Consciousness", such as it is, at least is an effect – output – of neurologically complex body-environment interactions. In other words, imo, mind is nonmind (i.e. causal nexus)-dependent, or causally emergent phenomenon. How can it not be (sans woo-of-the-gaps idealism (e.g. "disembodied consciousness"))? :chin:

With all due respect, man, you're confusing yourself with a buttload of semantic gibberish (i.e. mismash of epistemic and ontic terms) and pseudo-scientific assumptions (e.g. "observer" = "measurement" = "consciousness"). Bad philosophy derived from bad physics. :roll:

:up: :up:

Okay, mind is emergent from non-mind.

Is causation an emergent phenomenon? Or Is it just part of the physics of nature?

When the wind moves a rock, and it rolls downhill, and we say the wind caused the rock to roll downhill, are we describing another part of the physics of the event, thus making causation somehow physical (and teleological), or do we assemble a continuity, a narrative, that is strictly a cognitive event?

Is causation an emergent phenomenon? — ucarr

No, it is inferred (read Hume ...)

Or Is it just part of the physics of nature?

It could not be anything else (read Epicurus or Spinoza ...)

Might causation be mind dependent, and perhaps emergent thereof? In a world without consciousness, might there only be sequencing of events?

Does consciousness mandate causation as a part of the pattern recognition it can’t live without?

The teleology of human consciousness inserts causation into a neutral glob of things?

I'm pretty sure I've directly or indirectly answered these already .

I’m wondering if conventional wisdom thinks causation a part of physics, and if it’s thought causation directly the report of empirical experience.

It’s hard to think about the world without consciousness or causation, and that’s why this thought experiment is fun.

Consciousness and existence being linked biconditionally is radical conjecture.



You don’t allow that causation is a part of the physics of nature.

What might it be a part of?

When hydrogen interacts with oxygen and water is the result, that this is a chemical reaction that is not also a case of causation as a part of the physics of chemical reaction gives me something to think about.

Consciousness and existence being linked biconditionally is radical conjecture. — ucarr

Yeah, that's ancient neoplatonism ... subjective idealism (Berkeley), monadology (Leibniz) or absolute idealism (Hegel). This anti-realist thesis is conceptually incoherent (like 'panpsychism'). Read Hume & Q. Meillassoux/R. Brassier.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/584/what-are-the-major-points-of-meillassouxs-critique-of-correlationism

Also, this "conjecture" is, like teleology, without modern scientific significance, imho.

You don’t allow that causation is a part of the physics of nature.

I've neither claimed nor implied this.

I’m wondering if conventional wisdom thinks causation a part of physics, and if it’s thought causation directly the report of empirical experience. — ucarr

Pinpointing a previous event that would be the cause of a next one, the effect, is often too restrictive.

The next state in a system may be predictable from the previous state without resorting to such precise pinpointing.

I think that the notion of causality fails to allow for complex system-wide inputs leading to a particular output.

I think that the notion of causality fails to allow for complex system-wide inputs leading to a particular output. — Tarskian

The notion of causality or simplistic thinking about causality?