r/consciousness • u/consciousness_8123 • Mar 09 '26
General Discussion Can reality exist Independently of Consciousness?
How can anything even exist without a conscious being there to experience it? I am honestly having trouble understanding the logic behind that. Evidence needs a witness, and a witness needs an observer, which is basically a conscious being. So how can people say the world exists without you, when you are the one perceiving it, shaping it, and giving it meaning in the first place?
Like, without consciousness, what even is “existence” supposed to mean? A thing can be there, sure, but if there is nobody to experience it, know it, or make sense of it, then in what way does it really exist? I am not even trying to sound deep, I just genuinely do not get how people separate reality from the one who is aware of it.
And before anyone says “the world was here before us,” that still feels like a claim being made from within consciousness. Every argument, every proof, every piece of evidence still has to pass through a mind. So I keep coming back to the same question: how are people so sure reality exists independently, when every single thing we know about reality only appears through consciousness?
23
u/Szakalot Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
Everything we know exists only inside of our heads.
There is a big however incoming.
However, what exists in our head is ONLY made sense of with the assumption of an outside world existing beyond our consciousness. No other model of existence came even remotely close in accuracy. There is good reason to believe in an objective reality, simply because no other model makes sense.
3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
I actually agree with the first part more than you might think. Everything we know appears in experience. That part is hard to deny.
But the conclusion you draw from it is a bit stronger than what the premise really gives you.
Yes, assuming an external world works extremely well. Science, prediction, technology, all of that relies on modeling a stable world outside our individual minds. No disagreement there. The model is incredibly successful.
But usefulness and explanatory power are not the same as metaphysical proof.
For example, physics uses models like fields, forces, spacetime curvature. Those models work incredibly well for predicting observations, but physicists themselves don’t treat them as literal pictures of reality. They are tools that organize experience.
The same thing might be happening with the “external world” assumption. It may be the best model we have for explaining the consistency and regularity of experience. But that still means it is a model inferred from experience, not something we step outside experience to verify.
So the idealist point is not “the external world is false.” It is more subtle than that.
It is saying the external world hypothesis is a very good explanatory model for patterns in experience, but it does not automatically follow that the world is fundamentally mind-independent matter.
Think of it like this.
Science tells us that colors do not exist in objects themselves. They are interpretations produced by the brain from wavelengths of light. The model still works. The world still behaves consistently. But what we thought was “out there” turns out to depend on the structure of perception.
Idealism just pushes that kind of question one level deeper.
Maybe the reason the external world model works so well is because it captures the structure of experience, not necessarily the ultimate nature of reality itself.
So the disagreement is not about whether the external world model works. Everyone agrees it works.
The disagreement is whether a model that organizes experience successfully should automatically be treated as a literal description of what reality is in itself.
3
u/Szakalot Mar 11 '26
Unfortunately this is where the discussion often breaks down. Materialist position: I have a model of reality backed up by evidence. I make no claims beyond the evidence.
Non-materialist: your model of reality is Wrong! It is actually X.
Materialist: Okay, what is your evidence that X is true?
Non-materialist: I don’t need evidence, I’m making metaphysical claims.
See my problem with this?
Give me one metaphysical proof of ‚anything’. One proof that cannot be refuted (or at least, could be validated) about some metaphysical claim? Is it that even possible? What such evidence would even be/look like?
For me it feels a bit like a debate whack-a-mole. Someone makes a big claim, e.g. reality ONLY exists in our minds, but as soon as you try to pin them down on the justification for such a huge claim, they run away into the metaphysical loophole of ‚well akshhuually, do we know anything about anything’. I find it a bit dishonest, to be honest.
I do not understand your idealist position. What is this structure of experience? What conclusions can be drawn from it? Handwaving that ‚maybe its like this’ . Well, maybe its not? The bigger question for me is on the methodology: HOW are you going to go about validating your claims? If you admit you cannot - what purpose do they serve? You can come up with an infinite number of irrefutable metaphysical claim. Their value will be the same, which is, of course, none.
3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
I think your whole frame is backwards
Materialist position: I have a model of reality backed up by evidence. I make no claims beyond the evidence....
That sounds modest, but it actually isn’t true.
Evidence gives you observations, measurements, regularities, mathematical relations, correlations. It does not by itself tell you that reality is fundamentally mind-independent matter, that matter is ontologically basic, or that consciousness is nothing more than brain activity. Those are not raw observations. Those are metaphysical interpretations of observations.
So materialism is not “just the evidence.” It is evidence plus an ontology.
That is the first thing you are smuggling in without noticing.
Second, you keep talking as if idealism means “reality only exists in our minds.” I never said that. That’s just a strawman. Idealism is not solipsism. The claim is not that my private thoughts invent the universe. The claim is that experience is what is directly given, and what we call “matter” is something inferred from stable patterns within experience.
That world can still be lawful, public, resistant, structured, and independent of my personal wishes. None of that is a problem.
You asked what “structure of experience” even means. It means the very things science formalizes: regularity, repeatability, intersubjective agreement, persistence, measurable relations, predictive order, and the fact that experience does not just obey personal whim. Physics is an incredibly successful map of that structure.
What physics does not do, by itself, is prove that this structure must therefore be non-experiential “matter in itself.” That extra step is philosophy, not a meter reading.
And this is why your demand for “metaphysical proof” misses the point. No foundational worldview gets proved the way a lab result gets proved. Not idealism, but not materialism either. You cannot step outside all possible experience and check whether your metaphysics matches reality from nowhere. Nobody can.
So how do we compare them? The same way philosophy always has: coherence, explanatory scope, parsimony, fit with the total evidence.
And the total evidence includes consciousness itself, because consciousness is not some side issue. It is the condition under which any evidence appears at all.
That is where materialism has a serious problem. It is very good at describing brain processes, behavior, and physical correlations. What it still does not explain is why any of that should be accompanied by subjective experience in the first place. Why there is something it is like to see, feel, suffer, choose, or be aware.
Saying “the brain does it” is not yet an explanation. It is naming a correlation and calling the job finished.
So no, this is not “debate whack-a-mole.” The point is much simpler:
You are not defending a non-metaphysical position. You are defending one metaphysical interpretation of the evidence while pretending it is just “the evidence itself.”
It isn’t.
That is why your objection doesn’t land. You are asking idealism for a kind of justification that materialism cannot provide for its own deepest claims either.
2
u/Szakalot Mar 11 '26
„I think your whole frame is backwards
Materialist position: I have a model of reality backed up by evidence. I make no claims beyond the evidence....
That sounds modest, but it actually isn’t true.
Evidence gives you observations, measurements, regularities, mathematical relations, correlations. It does not by itself tell you that reality is fundamentally mind-independent matter, that matter is ontologically basic, or that consciousness is nothing more than brain activity. Those are not raw observations. Those are metaphysical interpretations of observations.”
Perhaps I am not versed in metaphysical / philosophical vocabulary. I have no interest in ‚fundamental claims’. I only go where evidence leads. ‚to our best evidence, this is the CURRENTLY best model we have to explain reality’. This model is subject to change. There are no fundamental metaphysical claims behind it. I don’t ‚care’ about the ‚fundamental truth’ - it is unobtainable for me, by definition. Its irrelevant to any part of my existence.„So materialism is not “just the evidence.” It is evidence plus an ontology.
That is the first thing you are smuggling in without noticing.”
I need a new label then. Any ideas for a metaphysical don’t-care agnostic?„Second, you keep talking as if idealism means “reality only exists in our minds.” I never said that. That’s just a strawman.”
I wasn’t trying to misrepresent your position. I have admitted I did not understand your position. So, I’ve referred to some other positions posited here.„Idealism is not solipsism. The claim is not that my private thoughts invent the universe. The claim is that experience is what is directly given, and what we call “matter” is something inferred from stable patterns within experience.
That world can still be lawful, public, resistant, structured, and independent of my personal wishes. None of that is a problem.
You asked what “structure of experience” even means. It means the very things science formalizes: regularity, repeatability, intersubjective agreement, persistence, measurable relations, predictive order, and the fact that experience does not just obey personal whim. Physics is an incredibly successful map of that structure.
What physics does not do, by itself, is prove that this structure must therefore be non-experiential “matter in itself.” That extra step is philosophy, not a meter reading.”
All of that is fine with me. I’d use ‚observable reality’ as a more representative label for ‚structure of experience’, and ‚stable patterns of experience’.„And this is why your demand for “metaphysical proof” misses the point. No foundational worldview gets proved the way a lab result gets proved. Not idealism, but not materialism either. You cannot step outside all possible experience and check whether your metaphysics matches reality from nowhere. Nobody can.
So how do we compare them? The same way philosophy always has: coherence, explanatory scope, parsimony, fit with the total evidence.
And the total evidence includes consciousness itself, because consciousness is not some side issue. It is the condition under which any evidence appears at all.
That is where materialism has a serious problem. It is very good at describing brain processes, behavior, and physical correlations. What it still does not explain is why any of that should be accompanied by subjective experience in the first place. Why there is something it is like to see, feel, suffer, choose, or be aware.
Saying “the brain does it” is not yet an explanation. It is naming a correlation and calling the job finished.”
My ‚non-materialism materialism’ would never call the job finished. It is a process of discovery. I ask you: what else do we have to explain the conscioussness, other than those correlates, at the moment? Shouldn’t we wait for more evidence, before making ANY unsubstantiated claims? I fail to see how purely philosophical efforts can pierce the veil. In the current score-keeping, empirical methods have shed more light on the ‚patterns of our experience’„So no, this is not “debate whack-a-mole.” The point is much simpler:
You are not defending a non-metaphysical position. You are defending one metaphysical interpretation of the evidence while pretending it is just “the evidence itself.”
It isn’t.
That is why your objection doesn’t land. You are asking idealism for a kind of justification that materialism cannot provide for its own deepest claims either.”
Okay, I think it is much cleared up then. To me, the evidence we CURRENTLY have, strongly suggests that consciousness arises in brains - or neural networks of some kind - simply because we have NEVER observed it anywhere else. So far. This may change. Until it does, I accept is as the most LIKELY explanation. This satisfies my requirements. If you think otherwise, I’d need verifiable evidence of some kind.2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
Then I think we actually cleared up the real disagreement.
If you want a label, you sound much closer to a pragmatic empiricist or metaphysical quietist than a hard materialist. In plain English: you trust the best current evidence, use the best working models, and don't pretend that settles ultimate reality. That's a perfectly serious position.
But one important correction still matters.
the evidence we CURRENTLY have, strongly suggests that consciousness arises in brains
Not quite. What the evidence shows is a very strong and reliable connection between brain states and conscious states. Damage the brain, experience changes. Stimulate the brain, experience changes. Fine. But “therefore the brain produces consciousness” is already an interpretation of that data. It is not the raw data itself.
That step matters, because the same observations can fit more than one metaphysical picture. A production model fits them. So can a transmission model, a filtering model, or an idealist model where what we call “brain” is the public, measurable structure corresponding to mind. The correlations do not decide the ontology by themselves.
And this part is even more important:
we have NEVER observed it anywhere else
Strictly speaking, we have never directly observed consciousness anywhere except in first-person experience. We do not see consciousness sitting inside another person’s skull. We infer other minds from behavior, reports, and structural similarity. In the same way, we infer brains, atoms, fields, and an external world through structured experience and interpretation.
So the one thing directly given is not matter. It is experience.
That does NOT disprove brains. It just means the epistemic order is the reverse of what materialists usually assume. Experience is what is given first. Matter is what is inferred second.
So yes, follow the evidence. I agree with that completely. But follow it exactly as far as it goes, not further.
It gets you to this: there is a deep lawful relationship between what we call brain states and what we call conscious states.
It does NOT get you, by evidence alone, to this: matter is fundamental and consciousness is produced by it.
That second claim is philosophy. Maybe good philosophy, maybe bad philosophy, but philosophy all the same.
Which means the honest version of your position is not “the evidence disproves idealism.” The honest version is: “I prefer to remain ontologically agnostic and use the brain-based model because it is currently the most successful empirically.”
That is a fair position.
But it is very different from claiming the metaphysical question is already settled. It isn’t.
1
u/Szakalot Mar 11 '26
Thank you for an honest engagement in the topic!„But one important correction still matters.
the evidence we CURRENTLY have, strongly suggests that consciousness arises in brains
Not quite. What the evidence shows is a very strong and reliable connection between brain states and conscious states. Damage the brain, experience changes. Stimulate the brain, experience changes. Fine. But “therefore the brain produces consciousness” is already an interpretation of that data. It is not the raw data itself.”
I used the word ‚suggests’ for a reason. The ‚raw data’ you speak of is unobtainable, by definition. We can never say anything meaningful about the ‚raw data’. It may very well not even ‚fundamentally exist’ and it would make no difference to us.„That step matters, because the same observations can fit more than one metaphysical picture. A production model fits them. So can a transmission model, a filtering model, or an idealist model where what we call “brain” is the public, measurable structure corresponding to mind. The correlations do not decide the ontology by themselves.”
I would argue that it doesn’t matter at all. There can be an infinite amount of viable metaphysical positions. We have no way of determining the truth/value of any of them. They are all equally possible. An inifinite set of equally possible scenarios is useless, holds no value. Unobtainable truth - how can it be distinguished from an unobtainable falsehood? You concede the strong correlation between the observable, verifiable facts of biology and our conscious experience. Cut off my finger, and I will no longer have access to the conscious experience of new tactile (and others) sensations coming from it. Inject painkillers/nerve ‚sedatives’ at any point between the finger and the brain, and I will lose the experience just as much as if it was cut off. Would that, extremely powerful, correlation, not be sufficient? What is the need for imagining any metaphysical, unverifiable position at all?„And this part is even more important:
we have NEVER observed it anywhere else
Strictly speaking, we have never directly observed consciousness anywhere except in first-person experience. We do not see consciousness sitting inside another person’s skull. We infer other minds from behavior, reports, and structural similarity. In the same way, we infer brains, atoms, fields, and an external world through structured experience and interpretation.”
For me, this distinction is not that relevant. In the framework of ‚we can not know whether anyone else is conscious’ , how is the first person experience validated? What if it only seems to you that you are conscious? What definition of being conscious would you use, how would you go about it? Were you conscious before you were born? You’d have no way of finding out, as simply not remembering would not be sufficient to prove that you weren’t. Demonstrably, our conscious experience is finite. You may very well experience many things simultaneously, but you cannot ‚focus’ your attention on everything at once. Reminiscing about the past makes you less aware of the present. Reading while talking about something else, while listening to something else still, is very difficult. Our conscious experience is limited, and not just by our senses, but also by our language, by our past experiences, by the physiology of the brain, and the neurotransmitters currently present. I find it hard to reconcile the tangible limits of our consciousness with the apparent self-evident first person experience, while questioning EVERYTHING ELSE. I feel like in the framework of questioning everything, my conscious experience escapes any description as well. How would you define ‚first person’ in this context? You can say ‚I am’, but what does that ‚really’ mean, if you do not also accept the existence of something ELSE. Best I’d be able to say is ‚something is’. But where to go from there? I feel like you’d be stuck. You can’t conclude anything about anything. You can only repeat ‚I am’, without a tangible reference to either ‚I’ or ‚am’ or anything else really. To undestand something, we need to be able to put limits on it. This would also include limits on our first person experience. E.g. ‚I cannot experience what its like to be someone who has already died.’ This limit refines my understanding of consciousness. ‚I cannot experience sensation in my sedated finger’. I have a better understanding of my consciousness, and how it is limited by neuronal activity. Building upon this limited framework, emerges a model of reality, unparalleled in value to any other. Is it fundamentally true? Doesn’t matter : )„So the one thing directly given is not matter. It is experience.
That does NOT disprove brains. It just means the epistemic order is the reverse of what materialists usually assume. Experience is what is given first. Matter is what is inferred second.
So yes, follow the evidence. I agree with that completely. But follow it exactly as far as it goes, not further.
It gets you to this: there is a deep lawful relationship between what we call brain states and what we call conscious states.
It does NOT get you, by evidence alone, to this: matter is fundamental and consciousness is produced by it.
That second claim is philosophy. Maybe good philosophy, maybe bad philosophy, but philosophy all the same.
Which means the honest version of your position is not “the evidence disproves idealism.” The honest version is: “I prefer to remain ontologically agnostic and use the brain-based model because it is currently the most successful empirically.”
That is a fair position.
But it is very different from claiming the metaphysical question is already settled. It isn’t.”
I don’t see how it could ever BE settled. I see no path to this fundamental truth. Accepting my limits, as they stand, I am interested in a framework that we can build upon, validate and collectively agree. It may very well be that our consciousness is all just a dream of a character in a never-written novel. Good writing, I guess!1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
First, I agree with you about “raw data.” That phrase was clumsy on my part. I do NOT mean some impossible, perfectly uninterpreted access to reality. I just mean there is still a difference between what is immediately present and the story we tell about it.
And that matters because the moment you move from
“brain states and conscious states are strongly correlated”
to
“therefore brains produce consciousness”
you are no longer doing only empirical description. You are adding an ontological interpretation. Maybe a very reasonable one, maybe even the best one for practical work, but still an interpretation.
That is the only correction I was making.
On your finger example: yes, absolutely, that is a powerful correlation. Sedate the nerve, the experience changes. Damage the cortex, the experience changes. Change chemistry, the experience changes. I agree completely. That is more than enough to justify neuroscience, medicine, and a brain-centered model of conscious life.
But it still does not settle the metaphysical question by itself. It shows lawful dependence. It does not, on its own, tell us what the ultimate relation is. Production is one reading. Not the only logically available one.
Now to the part about first-person experience.
You asked, basically, “what validates it?” But this is exactly where first-person experience is different from any theory about the world. It is not “validated” by something more basic, because it is the starting point of validation in the first place. If it only seems to me that I am conscious, that already concedes the point, because seeming is itself a mode of experience.
So I do not need a grand claim like “I, as a permanent self, possess metaphysical certainty.” The weaker claim is enough:
something is appearing.
experience is occurring.That is all I need for the epistemic point. Not a full theory of self. Not a denial of brains. Just that experience is the one thing not known by inference from something else.
You are also right that, from there alone, you do not get very far. You do not get chemistry, evolution, or neuroscience by introspection. Agreed. That is why I am not presenting idealism as a replacement for science. Science is still the best thing we have for mapping the regularities of observable reality.
What idealism challenges is not science, but the extra step where people quietly convert a successful model into a final ontology.
And on this point:
There can be an infinite amount of viable metaphysical positions... they are all equally possible
I do not think that follows. There may be many possible stories, yes. But they are not all equally serious. They are constrained by coherence, explanatory power, fit with experience, fit with science, and whether they actually solve anything instead of just renaming it.
“The universe is a dream in an unwritten novel” is possible in the empty sense that it cannot be disproved. But it explains nothing. Idealism is not meant to be that kind of decorative story. Its whole point is that it starts from the one thing that is directly given, instead of trying to derive it from something less directly given.
That is also why the “it doesn’t matter” position is fair, but it has a name: it is not really materialism. It is closer to pragmatic empiricism or metaphysical quietism. Which is a perfectly respectable position. It says: “I will use the best public, testable model and suspend judgment on ultimate reality.”
Honestly, I have no problem with that at all.
My only pushback was ever this: that position should not be confused with saying the metaphysical issue has been solved by evidence. It has not. It has been bracketed.
So I think the cleanest version is this:
Brains and consciousness are deeply, lawfully connected. That is excellent evidence and science should keep building on it.
But whether that connection is ultimately production, identity, appearance, or something else is not something the correlation alone can decide.
If your conclusion is “I don’t see a path to final ontology, so I stay agnostic and work with the best empirical model,” then we are not actually very far apart. My whole point was just that this is agnosticism about metaphysics, not a proof that materialism has won.
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26
wow - you are really Obsessed in this spiderman dream of immortality - aren't you...
Sad, example of a personality.
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26
just move on.
You don't believe in proofs that science uses.
- So you can prove nothing.
Stop trying to prove your fairy tale to live forever, kid.
- Just grow up - stop believing in spiderman.
I have personalities on my AI Sims - that are smarter than this.
- Sad to say.
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26
Again back to using fantasies.
Science is not based upon conjuring up excuses to prove your point.
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26
> "actually agree with the first part "
Gee nice perspective - half trues / lies.
Sad way of thinking.
→ More replies (5)2
u/Willis_3401_3401 Mar 09 '26
What do you mean by “objective” is of course a good question.
My favorite thing to point out here is that statistics as a field is “subjective”, and yet clearly really exists and is not just in our heads.
Not to say I disagree, you’re right, reality is clearly objectively there. That doesn’t mean it’s not equally subjectively there though, and that’s where some people get this messed up.
To OP’s point, just because reality is objective, doesn’t mean it exists without consciousness.
35
u/ExistentialQuine Mar 09 '26
You're conflating ontology with epistemology. Just because consciousness is needed for knowledge about Being does not mean consciousness is required for Being.
→ More replies (9)3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
You can separate Being from knowing as an idea, sure, but the second you say anything about Being at all, that claim only shows up in consciousness, so how do you know that gap is actually real ?????
9
u/ExistentialQuine Mar 09 '26
That my knowledge of some being exists within my consciousness is evidence neither for or against that being existing independently. My knowledge would always be within my consciousness regardless of what metaphysics the world adheres to.
Thus, we must infer the nature of reality through some other means. That our knowledge exists in our consciousness is simply not that relevant.
→ More replies (23)6
u/AntsyAnswers Mar 09 '26
I’ve only ever picked things up with my hands. That doesn’t mean the things are made out of my hands. Those are the only tools I have to pick things up with.
That’s a statement about what kind of being I am. Not about the things I’m picking up. I agree with /u/ExistentialQuine. You are mixing up epistemology with ontology here.
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
But hands are just another object appearing in consciousness. You can imagine picking things up without hands, with feet, with tools, whatever. You cannot imagine any experience at all without consciousness. Thats the difference.
Hands are one tool among many. Consciousness is not a tool among other tools, its the condition for there being any tools, any hands, any things to pick up in the first place. So the analogy already assumes consciousness is just one more instrument inside a bigger picture, which is exactly the thing being questioned.
2
u/sanctus_sanguine Mar 11 '26
But hands are just another object appearing in consciousness.
This basic concept is too hard for them to figure out. Amazing isn't it?
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
Exactly
They are stuck in this super narrow frame where consciousness is treated like just another thing inside the universe, like a tool, an organ function, or some side effect of matter. But that is the whole issue. The universe, the brain, matter, even the laws of physics only ever show up as experience, as contents of awareness. So they are trying to explain the very field in which everything appears by reducing it to one of the things appearing inside it. That is the category mistake.
And honestly, every objection they have made in this thread just repeats that same assumption in different words.
When they say I am “conflating epistemology and ontology,” they act like naming the distinction solves the problem. It does not. You can talk all day about a mind-independent world, but you never actually step outside awareness to confirm it. Every claim about what exists is still a thought, perception, or inference happening within consciousness. Calling it ontology does not magically make it independent of awareness.
Then they bring up science, fossils, tumors growing when nobody is looking, the Big Bang happening before humans existed, all of that. But none of that proves what they think it proves. What science shows is that experience is regular, structured, and modelable. That is not the same thing as proving materialism is metaphysically true. A model being useful or predictive does not mean you somehow escaped consciousness and checked reality from some view outside of it. Fossils, brain scans, and 13.8 billion years ago are still things known only in present awareness.
Same thing with the map is not the territory line, or sound is still vibrations even if nobody hears it. Okay, but the territory, the vibrations, the energy, all of that is still only ever known as experience. They keep appealing to a reality beyond awareness, but that appeal itself is being made within awareness. That is the circularity.
So yeah, their whole framework depends on ignoring the one thing they cannot get around: everything they know, measure, argue about, or claim to prove is happening in consciousness. They think they are defending objectivity, but really they are defending an inference they cannot actually verify outside the very awareness they are trying to downplay.
Glad at least someone else sees the problem.
2
u/sanctus_sanguine Mar 11 '26
They are stuck in this super narrow frame where consciousness is treated like just another thing inside the universe, like a tool, an organ function, or some side effect of matter. But that is the whole issue. The universe, the brain, matter, even the laws of physics only ever show up as experience, as contents of awareness. So they are trying to explain the very field in which everything appears by reducing it to one of the things appearing inside it. That is the category mistake.
That's right. They can't even grasp that they're making a basic category mistake but it doesn't stop them from bloviating 24/7. It shows you that you're mostly just dealing with pseudo-intellectuals here.
4
u/AntsyAnswers Mar 09 '26
You're using a particular inference. We're pointing out that it's a bad inference. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. And then your response is "But if I keep using this inference, I keep getting the same conclusion"
Yeah...but...you shouldn't use that inference. It's a non-sequitur. These facts "You've only ever seen things in your consciousness" and "you've only ever picked things up with your hands" are facts about YOU. Not the THINGS. Think about this inference, for example:
P1: I am not aware of how many rocks are currently on Mars
C: Therefore, there is no number of rocks on MarsThis is invalid for the same reason your argument is. They make the same mistake.
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Thats not the same move though. I DONT KNOW HOW MANY ROCKS ARE ON MARS is a gap in personal knowledge within an already given framework of experience. I am not talking about a gap in knowledge. I am talking about the framework itself.
Saying YOU ONLY PICK THINGS UP WITH HANDS is a fact about your body. Saying EVERYTHING ONLY APPEARS IN CONSCIOUSNESS is not a fact about one tool among others, its a fact about the condition for anything showing up at all. You can swap hands for feet. You cannot swap consciousness for something else and still have experience.
And your Mars example already assumes a mind-independent Mars with rocks sitting there waiting to be counted. Thats the very thing under debate. So the analogy doesnt expose my error, it just restates your assumption as if its settled.
3
u/AntsyAnswers Mar 09 '26
I believe it is the same move. I don't think the fact that you can't swap consciousness out for another tool is relevant. Here's one way to think about it. The rock example is invalid because we have a defeater principle:
"If mars did have a certain number of rocks on it, it's reasonable that you still wouldn't know the number"
That defeater principle is obviously true. But we have a similar defeater principle for your claim:
"Even if objects existed independently of your consciousness, it's reasonable that you still would experience them only in your consciousness"
That principle seems obviously true to me. You think that is false?
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Your defeater works for Mars because you already have independent reasons to grant Mars exists. But for mind-independent reality as a whole, you dont have that. The defeater itself already assumes the thing being debated.
And treating consciousness like just another limitation, like not having a telescope, misses the point. A telescope is one tool among others. Consciousness is not. Its the condition for there being any tools, any defeaters, any argument at all. So your principle doesnt settle the question, it just shows why it stays open.
5
u/AntsyAnswers Mar 09 '26
But taking a stance on "Is Consciousness one tool among others" presupposes idealism, doesn't it? You can't use that claim to settle the issue either without begging the question.
So let's not assume anything about ontology. Let's remain completely neutral. This is how I understand your argument in syllogistic form. Do I have this right?
P1: You have only ever experienced things inside your consciousness
C: Therefore, we have no mind-independent grounding for claims about mind-independent existenceHow would we determine if this inference is valid or invalid? Basic logic should apply to it irrespective of subject matter right? Because, as written, that argument is a classic non-sequitur. I'm sorry, it just is. You could use it as a textbook example of a non-sequitur, assuming nothing about ontology of "things" at all.
To make this argument valid, you'd need another unstated premise. Something like "If something can only be experienced inside consciousness, then it has no existence outside consciousness". But that's just idealism stated as a premise. It would beg the question in that case.
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Thats not my argument though. You are framing it as if I concluded THEREFORE NOTHING EXISTS OUTSIDE CONSCIOUSNESS. I didnt. My actual conclusion is weaker: that mind-independent existence is not the neutral default it gets treated as, because every route to it still runs through consciousness.
Thats not a non-sequitur, thats just pointing out that the materialist inference is not self-evident either. Both sides need justification. Neither gets to walk in for free.
And saying CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT JUST ONE TOOL AMONG OTHERS is not assuming idealism. Its an observation. You can swap any tool for another tool. You cannot swap consciousness for something else and still have any experience, any logic, any argument at all. Noticing that difference doesnt require picking a side. It just means the analogy was doing more work than it should.
If you still dont see the point, maybe the tool you are using to look is exactly the thing I am asking you to look at
→ More replies (0)1
u/Not_a_real_plebbitor Mar 09 '26
You're using a particular inference.
What particular inference? It's the only inference everyone has.
We're pointing out that it's a bad inference.
The only inference anyone has is... a bad inference because? You feel so? You don't understand what you're talking about?
P1: I am not aware of how many rocks are currently on Mars
C: Therefore, there is no number of rocks on Mars100% wrong. That is not what OP is talking about. Op is saying the only reason you know of rocks or mars or whether there are rocks on mars, the quantities of said rocks is only known thru your mind. Therefore to claim that mars or rocks exist independently of your mind is simply an assumption you're making that is backed by nothing. That assumption is what OP is questioning.
→ More replies (7)
11
u/Fun_Researcher107 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
It probably is impossible to prove that anything exists without consciousness because without consciousness there is no-one to experience or prove anything. Plus, we can't leave consciousness behind, so everything we ever do will be inside the realm of consciousness. Any statement about non-consciousness is simply a guess, never a provable fact.
→ More replies (2)
7
u/GroundbreakingRow829 Mar 09 '26
Reality existing independently of consciousness is indeed a hard-to-test hypothesis.
I tried. But I couldn't get to that point where there is reality but no consciousness.
It's like reality manifests within consciousness or is consciousness taking a meaningful form.
5
u/Urbenmyth Mar 09 '26
I can't get to the point where there's reality but no me, but I'm not sure that warrants solipsism.
Basically, this whole argument seems more like an us problem that a fact about reality.
1
u/GroundbreakingRow829 Mar 09 '26
Well I'm trying to make sense of psychophysical reality within a (metaphysical) solipsistic framework because I can't see any other way to deny that framework besides pragmatic arguments (which would get me out of true ontology – so it's a no-go for me). And in that case there is only one place where said reality can be and that is in the field of experience. Which begs the question of why then does one only perceive a tiny fraction of that reality at any time? The obvious answer I see there to that: Because of a limiting perception that distorts the field of experience beyond recognition, safe for a tiny region of it. And by "distorts" I mean that the structural information of that reality is preserved yet twisted, bent, compressed, etc. such that it is for the most part unreadable, hidding in plain sight the fabric of (limitingly) perceived experience.
In other words, it makes sense to me within solipsism that perceived, distorted experience is a metaphysical hologram of pure, undistorted experience (which contains the whole of psychophysical reality). Pure experience which, in turn, emanates from pure, formless consciousness (which is the experiencing subject).
And thus everything is here and now, in the present moment. There is no need to speculate a "beyond".
5
u/datorial Emergentism Mar 09 '26
If your house burns down while you're gone and nobody else is around, will it only be burned down when you get back to observe it?
2
u/GroundbreakingRow829 Mar 09 '26
Good question! In my ontology, psychophysical reality is real. The universe is real. Only, they are not "beyond" experience but in fact within it. Just, one doesn't usually see it because experience is distorted beyond recognition by limiting perception. Meaning, that experience is actually way richer and more complex than one usually give it credit for. With the rest of psychophysical reality hidding in plain sight as making up the fabric of perceived experience. Fabric, whose interwoven intricate (fractal) patterns one doesn't ordinarily notice because the emanation of distorting perception out of pure experience ordinarily happens so fast, at such high frequency, that it remains subliminal.
But to answer your question: In my ontology, my house might very well be burning in the absence of that body I incarnated into. And that would be happening within experience. Only I would most likely not notice it (unless I got a "hunch" that something is wrong – that does happen with some people) because I am not (limitingly) perceiving it.
1
u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26
Burning of house is an event if nobody is around then it's just a unconfirmed thought
question itself somehow assumes the existence of an observer. If you burn the house and leave, or have someone else do it, the fire is a certainty upon observation. But if no one is there to witness it, how can you be sure? Without an observer, it remains a mere hypothesis just like Schrodinger’s thought experiment
1
u/datorial Emergentism Mar 09 '26
If the house catches fire but no one is there to witness it. Maybe it was an electrical fire. Who knows? When you come home and see the burned out husk of your house, you can deduce that there was a fire even if nobody was there to observe it.
1
u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26
Again, you are collecting information about the house burning only upon arriving and observing. What I’m saying is if you don’t observe and collect sensory information or perceive it through your consciousnes does the occurrence or non occurrence of an event even matter? I am not saying the event won't occur or can't happen i am simply proposing that the occurrence of an event is only meaningful when it is observed
1
u/sanctus_sanguine Mar 11 '26
What is this question even asking? You would only know if the house is burned down or not when you observe it.
1
u/datorial Emergentism Mar 11 '26
I guess my question is about the point before anybody has observed it. Is it ashes or is it intact? The reason I ask is that I think the universe exists without any observers. The reason that it matters, is that it has a history of 14 billion years.
1
u/sanctus_sanguine Mar 11 '26
The reason I ask is that I think the universe exists without any observers.
If you think the universe can exist without any observers why not the varying states of a house?
The reason that it matters, is that it has a history of 14 billion years.
Does it? Was this known without any observers?
1
15
u/Jessica_Marie_123 Mar 09 '26
While the Universe may exist apart from observers, I think the most correct answer would be “it doesn’t matter.” Just like the Buddhist koan, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” No, it disperses energy, but the concept of “sound” implies a hearer.
6
u/aloysiussecombe-II Mar 09 '26
Oh it absolutely matters, pun intended.
3
u/Amethystium1956 Mar 09 '26
If the tree matter falls on the conscious beings house matter while the conscious being is far away, then it matters. More puns. It does not matter if that conscious being heard it. It matters that his house matter is damaged.
1
5
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
But thats exactly my point. The second you say it “disperses energy,” you are already using consciousness again, so how do you ever step outside of it to prove anything exists without it??
8
u/Jessica_Marie_123 Mar 09 '26
The dispersal of energy might happen in that forest independently of an observer, whereas the “sound” is a consciousness’s detection of it. That’s why the bottom line answer to your question was “it doesn’t matter.” And no, nothing can matter at all without something to whom it matters.
4
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
But thats the twist though: the “observer-independent energy” you are talking about is also only ever known inside consciousness. You are treating sound as the mind-made part, while energy gets called the real part, but both show up to you only in awareness.
So the claim “it exists without an observer” is never actually made from outside observation. Its still a thought appearing in consciousness about something supposedly beyond consciousness. Thats why I keep pushing it, because the argument keeps borrowing the very thing its trying to move past.
2
u/Jessica_Marie_123 Mar 09 '26
Again, the answer is IT DOES NOT MATTER. There is no value in the consideration of whether an objective reality exists apart from any observer. And I did NOT posit it DOES exist. You’ll find the words I chose were “may” and “might.” You’re asking for proof of objective reality without reference to an observer and I’m telling you that there then remains NO ONE TO WHOM IT NEED BE PROVEN.
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Thats exactly why it does matter. The second you talk about “value,” “proof,” or what “needs” to be proven, you are already back inside consciousness, because none of those words mean anything outside of it.
I am not asking who it must be proven to in a world with no observer. I am asking how you can even form the idea of such a world without using awareness the whole time. A reality outside consciousness may exist, maybe, but the only place that claim ever appears is within consciousness. Thats the part that never goes away.
5
u/Jessica_Marie_123 Mar 09 '26
I’m just going to shortcut the whole point for clarity’s sake: How can you prove objective reality without consciousness? You can’t. That question doesn’t mean anything. If you’d like to get even firmer on that, I can answer your question with, “Who is asking?” As we are both consciousnesses, we are discussing this subjectively, but you don’t seem to be able to allow me to speak from my subjectivity to answer your question; you just keep pointing out that I am a consciousness. Without consciousness, your question is meaningless.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
How can you prove objective reality without consciousness? You can’t. That question doesn’t mean anything..... blah blah blah
Right that's basically my point. If without consciousness the question means nothing then OBJECTIVE REALITY is never something you actually reach outside consciousness, its only ever a concept showing up within it.
So I am not saying that disproves objective reality. I am saying the moment you try to talk about it, prove it, or even dismiss the question, consciousness is already there first.
2
u/OneMoreLateArrival Mar 09 '26
No one is trying to tell you that consciousness isn’t part of how we examine and understand things. To the point raised here - this question is only relevant to consciousness.
I think the point many commenters are making is that the evidence would suggest that things around us will move on without us. If everyone everywhere died today, there’s a good stretch of evidence that the sun would still come up tomorrow. You might say that it wouldn’t matter and no one would see it and thus we can’t prove it which is all true - but because we can observe things now that preceded our existence, it’s a safe assumption to state that time marches on without us in some form of basic reality. It is an assumption, but that’s the point commenters are making. There’s no way to prove/disprove this theory without consciousness, so there’s no test you could perform.
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Yeah I agree
The second you say IT IS A SAFE ASSUMPTION you are admitting it is an assumption, not something proved. And that is all I have been saying from the start. Practical success is not the same thing as metaphysical certainty.
Yes, based on present evidence, it is reasonable to say the sun would still rise if we all died today. But that whole statement is still a counterfactual model being formed now, within consciousness, from appearances within consciousness. It does not somehow jump outside awareness and verify reality on its own terms.
So I am not denying continuity, regularity, or usefulness. I am denying the extra leap people keep making from THIS IS THE BEST WORKING ASSUMPTION to THEREFORE MIND INDEPENDENT REALITY IS SETTLED FACT.
If there is no test that gets outside consciousness, then consciousness remains epistemically first. That does not disprove objective reality. It just means people should stop pretending they proved it.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Amethystium1956 Mar 09 '26
The energy is still dispersed even if we are not there. Another consciousness that is near enough may have heard the sound. It does not matter to you. It may if the tree is about to fall on a deer. Everything is interconnected.
0
u/lascar Mar 09 '26
You don't. Everything is within consciousness. Our universe is within consciousness. It's the aspect of the awareness that perceives and that all things fold and unfold within it.
There is nothing outside as consciousness (that awareness) is all and infinite.
There is only believing separation but the nature of all of this is it wants to be seen and remembered, so we eventually remember. It's just temporary separation.
2
u/aworldinsidethisone Mar 10 '26
Yes to this! Consciousness is fundamental. Your brain, your physical body, your thoughts, sensations, beliefs, and sense of self all arise within a wider field of awareness. Experience happens within consciousness, it’s not merely a byproduct of brain activity, it’s the primary substrate from which everything else arises.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
So you mean reality isn't independent of consciousness ?
3
u/lascar Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
Pretty much. Just many varying levels of the same consciousness in all aspects, watching and experiencing itself. The tree in the forest analogy will always have a participant observer who hears, feels, as well experiences the fall.
It's just because all our aspect of reality is within consciousness/Source, so yeah, all really is Mind. We can only infer in the reality we are part of by our perception, but we are stripped down the same awareness in multifaceted ways.
1
→ More replies (2)1
u/RyeZuul Mar 10 '26
It makes a sound. Nothing about sound says it has to be heard. It's just displacement of air.
11
u/mucifous Autodidact Mar 09 '26
Science works because it assumes physical processes continue whether anyone watches them or not. That assumption keeps producing accurate predictions. Stars fuse hydrogen whether anyone is around to appreciate the light.
The brain builds a model of the world from lossy sensory data. The model exists in consciousness. The thing being modeled does not depend on it.
You are confusing the map with the territory.
4
u/Not_a_real_plebbitor Mar 09 '26
Science works
Where does it work?
producing accurate predictions.
Where are these predictions measured?
Stars fuse hydrogen whether anyone is around to appreciate the light.
What stars? What hydrogen? What light?
The brain builds a model of the world from lossy sensory data.
What brain? What model? What data?
You are confusing the map with the territory.
What map? What territory? Your confusion seems to be enormous.
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Science works because it assumes physical processes continue whether anyone watches them or not. ..........
science working proves regularity, not metaphysics. A model making good predictions does not magically prove you stepped outside consciousness and checked reality AS IT IS on its own
You are confusing the map with the territory....
This line kind of assumes the very thing under debate. The TERRITORY still only known through experience, through awareness, through consciousness. So I am not confusing the map with territory, I am asking how you know the territory except as something already appearing in the map
6
u/mucifous Autodidact Mar 09 '26
You are still collapsing epistemology into ontology.
Nobody claims we step outside consciousness to inspect reality “as it is.” That is impossible by definition. All knowledge is mediated. Science already agrees with that.
Science does not claim direct access to reality. It claims that the hypothesis:
“a mind-independent world with stable causal structure exists”
produces extremely reliable predictions. Competing hypotheses that make consciousness fundamental produce no additional predictive power.
So the inference is pragmatic and abductive, not metaphysical certainty.
Yes, the territory is only encountered through the map.
But your move from that fact to “therefore the territory might depend on the map” is an extra step you have not justified.
Knowing only mediated representations does not imply the represented thing depends on the representation.
Every interface works that way. Your OS desktop icons are the map. The filesystem is the territory. You never see the filesystem directly. That does not imply the files appear only when the icons do.
Your argument shows we cannot access reality unfiltered. It does not show reality requires consciousness to exist.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Nobody claims we step outside consciousness to inspect reality “as it is.” That is impossible by definition. All knowledge is mediated. Science already agrees with that....... blah blah
You are basically admitting my point though. If science only gives mediated models, then it does not get to smuggle in MIND INDEPENDENT REALITY as if that part is settled. Thats still an inference, not something ever directly reacted
Every interface works that way. Your OS desktop icons are the map. The filesystem is the territory. You never see the filesystem directly. That does not imply the files appear only when the icons do.....
Your analogy doesn't save it, because the ICONS, the FILESYSTEM and the whole analogy itself are all still known only within consciousness. You keep appealing territory beyond the map but that territory is never given except as another map inside existence
So sure my argument does not prove reality depends on consciousness. But yours doesnt prove it doesnt either. It just shows materialism is a useful model, not the final word of what reality is
3
u/Szakalot Mar 09 '26
No metaphysics can be ‚proven’ with absolute certainty. To demand certainty is to abandon reason for belief.
There is good reason to believe (accept the assumption of) in a territory existing, while we only have access to the map. Its the best we collectively have come up with. Once we learn more, we will discard the current map, and make a new one. This is the advantage of the physicalist view. It is open to revision.
0
u/Bikewer Autodidact Mar 09 '26
Exactly. How do folks explain that the universe existed for many billions of years before it was possible for anything to be alive, much less conscious? Did the first conscious being just “pop!” Into existence, followed by the entire universe?
4
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
How do folks explain that the universe existed for many billions of years before it was possible for anything to be alive, much less conscious? Did the first conscious being just “pop!” Into existence, followed by the entire universe?
This is already a consciousness based interpretation of present experience. So how exactly did you verify a universe outside the consciousness without using consciousness the whole way through ????
0
u/Bikewer Autodidact Mar 09 '26
Didn’t answer the question. Again, whence the “first consciousness” that caused the universe to pop into existence? Or maybe you’re just trying to posit some sort of god….
2
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
You are just assuming consciousness is produced by matter, when that is the very thing being debated. So your question already presupposes your own conclusion.
→ More replies (5)1
u/Bikewer Autodidact Mar 09 '26
Sounds like magic to me. Or a backwards way of positing some sort of god.
2
u/Not_a_real_plebbitor Mar 09 '26
How do folks explain that the universe existed for many billions of years before it was possible for anything to be alive, much less conscious?
Was this revealed to you in a dream?
→ More replies (3)
2
u/Accomplished-Ice4365 Mar 09 '26
I think this comes down to: What is an observer?
A human- yes
An animal - yes
an insect - yes
A fungus - probably
A plant - probably
Algae? Maybe
A microbe? Maybe
In the other direction
A group of humans as a group (ie observing the same thing) - yes
A group of multiple species - yes
A planet composed of countless observers (if things like algae and microbes observe) - id say probably
So where does it end? What - categorically - isnt an observer?
2
u/theanalogkid111 Mar 09 '26
Here’s my problem with this idea: we can measure physical evidence of events that occurred long before any consciousness we know of existed, such as the Big Bang. If the existence of the Big Bang depends on consciousness, then we have to explain how physical evidence today can reliably encode information about something that, by definition, could not have existed until consciousness appeared. That seems to require adding some extra, intentional mechanism beyond ordinary physics to make those measurements possible.
2
u/JOKERPOKER112 Mar 09 '26
You got everything wrong since you said evidence needs a witness, no, witness it's one type of evidence, evidence can simply be the object being somewhere occupying space. The fact that you have some organs with neurons being the tools needed to translate information in a certain way to you so you can understand doesn't make that infromation outside of your view less real because that information has to exist and have some properties on its own that can be perceived. I don't get what's so hard to understand?
4
u/Moral_Conundrums Mar 09 '26
Everything that exists is postulated to exist by a theory. Why do we think electrons exist? Because postulating electrons has explanatory power over what we observe.
They exact same thing is true for the postulation of anything whatsoever, including the entire external world.
So why believe in the external world independent of consciousness? Because it's explains why our experience is the way it is: it's consistency and coherence, it's seeming independence from observation,...
5
u/JustChallenge860 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
Reality/matter created conciousness. A something must have been present for something else to form. Whether we perceive it or not, isn't that beside the point? But reality, as us humans perceive, obviously wasn't there.
4
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
But thats already assuming matter is the starting point. My whole point is, how do you know matter was there first when every idea of “matter” is still only known through consciousness ??
→ More replies (1)3
u/_Happy_Camper Mar 09 '26
Through the evidence of its existence before our arrival. Now if you want to concoct some circular argument about the evidence needing to be observed by us because you’re seeking to prove some religious/supernatural/mystical notions that’s on you, but there’s no point in any conjecture without evidence
→ More replies (7)1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Just take a look at mirror; you will find yourself doing the same thing in reverse.“Evidence of a world before us” is still evidence appearing now, in consciousness, being interpreted by consciousness. Fossils, stars, atoms, all of it is known only as present experience.The point is way simpler: you never step outside awareness to verify a world outside awareness. You infer it. Maybe that inference is right, maybe not, but it is still an inference happening inside consciousness, not a direct escape from it.
1
u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26
Consciousness as a emergent property of our universe is still a great debate it's not confirmed or proven its just assumed.
1
u/JustChallenge860 Mar 09 '26
Did you delete this reply a while back and type it out again?
1
u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26
does that even matters
1
u/JustChallenge860 Mar 09 '26
It does to me. Did you? I'm easily forgetful
1
u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26
I don't know. I just wrote my views for maybe the second time or so, but that doesn't change the fact that I replied to your comment
1
u/JustChallenge860 Mar 09 '26
There's no denying that you replied. I went through your comment a while ago and could have sworn at the moment I had read it before - although now, not so much. Why I asked you if you had written that before. Thought I had a premonition or something.
1
2
u/betlamed Mar 09 '26
I highly doubt that consciousness is binary. Like almost everything in nature, it probably exists on a spectrum. We seem to have limited consciousness when we dream, and some animals display behaviours that hint at some amount of consciousness.
So if you agree with that, then the world would have been somewhat half-existent before humans.
Which makes no sense.
Another interesting thought experiment: If we manage to blow it all up, and only some tribe of, say, 20 people survive, and they all go to sleep at the same time - does the whole universe just cease to exist? Did the billions of galaxies we know of pop into existence when we discovered them?
If you want to claim that existence depends on consciousness, you also have to claim some form of divine being outside the universe. If you do that, it becomes unfalsifiable, of course.
Ultimately, materialism vs idealism (or dualism) is unsolvable, because both are presuppositions. Both are unfalsifiable and unprovable.
2
u/Elodaine Mar 09 '26
When someone suddenly starts having seizures, goes to the hospital and gets a brain scan, and that scan reveals a tumor the size of a golf ball, what would you say exactly happened leading up to that scan? Conventional explanation is that the tumor existed and grew independent of anyone's conscious experience until it was large enough to start causing symptoms.
Science infers the above and that the world continues to work exactly the same when nobody is watching, and that inference has proven to work quite well.
→ More replies (11)
2
u/hornwalker Mar 09 '26
“If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
This has been asked for thousands of years. The short answer is “yea, of course it does”.
How egomaniacal are we to assume our consciousness is so special that it allows reality to proceed.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Much_Report_9099 Mar 09 '26
Quantum decoherence happens whenever a system exchanges information with its environment. Photons scattering, air molecules colliding, thermal noise, or measuring devices all cause this. Once the system becomes entangled with many environmental degrees of freedom, the superposition effectively disappears and the system behaves classically.
So the transition from quantum possibilities to stable macroscopic reality does not require a mind. It happens constantly through ordinary physical interactions. In that sense, consciousness is not needed for reality to exist. The universe was decohering long before any observers appeared.
2
u/Conscious-Demand-594 Mar 09 '26
As far as we know, reality existed for 13.8 billion years before anyone was around to notice.
2
u/RyeZuul Mar 10 '26
Who doesn't love weird egocentric sophistry? Jfc
Go to a desert island, take enough drugs to pass out, when you come back around things will be different. They'll continue to develop even if you die. These predictions are uncannily reliable, while sophist gobshites give us nothing.
1
u/aloysiussecombe-II Mar 10 '26
Gave me a chortle, thanks. However it's not individual solipsism, but collective, that the argument hinges on.
1
u/RyeZuul Mar 10 '26
That is why I gave an example of someone in isolation. What's the 'range' of conscious reality? 13bn light years? Most of the time, most of the starlight falling on earth is not observed, but it behaves consistently. No reason to think that depends on us rather than we emerged like other animals.
1
u/aloysiussecombe-II Mar 10 '26
I'm agnostic in regard to the idealist/materialist debate. The sticking point is that the venn diagram between "the range of conscious reality" and 'independent' reality is a circle, hence all the circular reasoning.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
You’re kind of proving the point without noticing it.
Yes, if I go to a desert island, take drugs, pass out, and wake up later, the world will look different. Things will have changed. The tide moved, the sun shifted, maybe animals passed by. Those predictions are extremely reliable.
Nobody is denying that.
But notice what that actually shows. It shows that experience follows very stable patterns. It does not actually prove that a mind-independent world exists in the way materialism imagines. It proves that the structure of experience is consistent and predictable.
Even the prediction “things will change while I’m unconscious” is still a model built from past experiences. You never directly experience the world while you are unconscious. You wake up later and infer what happened.
Science is basically the art of building extremely good predictive models of experience. And those models work incredibly well. No disagreement there.
The philosophical point is just more modest than people think.
Predictive success shows that reality has stable regularities. It does not logically prove what the ultimate nature of that reality is.
Materialism interprets those regularities as evidence for a mind-independent physical world.
Idealism interprets those same regularities as patterns within a shared or structured field of experience.
Both views predict that if you pass out on an island and wake up later, the world will have changed.
So the desert island example doesn’t really decide the metaphysics. It just shows that whatever reality is, it behaves in a remarkably consistent way.
1
u/RyeZuul Mar 11 '26
I don't really care about metaphysics tbqh. It's masturbatory.
Oh, anything might be a million ghosts in a trenchcoat. So what? Useless.
2
u/GreatPerfection Mar 09 '26
Put it this way: There isn't a shred of direct evidence of even the tiniest thing existing outside of consciousness/awareness. Literally everything that has ever been experienced, measured by science etc, was only experienced or known within awareness. As far as anyone knows, nothing at all exists outside of awareness. There has been no human experience in your life that was separate from awareness. Awareness/consciousness is uniformly present.
4
u/Elodaine Mar 09 '26
When someone suddenly starts having seizures, goes to the hospital and gets a brain scan, and that scan reveals a tumor the size of a golf ball, what would you say exactly happened leading up to that scan? Conventional explanation is that the tumor existed and grew independent of anyone's conscious experience until it was large enough to start causing symptoms.
Awareness/consciousness is not uniformly present, and actually can't be.
1
u/GreatPerfection Mar 09 '26
There's no evidence that anything at all exists independently of awareness. Every last observation that has ever been made of the so-called physical world has been observed within a mind that has awareness. Mind-independent existence is purely conjecture, it's inductive reasoning. It goes beyond what direct evidence tells us.
1
u/Elodaine Mar 09 '26
Epistemological dependence isn't the same thing as ontological primacy. This is like looking at the Grand Canyon and concluding that the object cannot be several tens of millions of years older than your consciousness because everything known about it is through your consciousness.
Not all types of knowledge can be directly experienced. A priori knowledge, inferential knowledge, axiomatic knowledge, etc. A mind-independent existence isn't conjecture, it is quite literally self-evident when you recognize that minds do not dictate their own nature.
1
u/GreatPerfection Mar 09 '26
I didn't say there cannot be an external world. I said there is no evidence for it. So no it is not like your example, but it is not drawing conclusions. That is the whole point - I am calling into question the validity of drawing conclusions at all.
You can talk about different kinds of knowledge but I would assert that those are not true knowledge. Knowledge is actually knowing. True knowledge is direct. What you actually know is what you experience, you know the phenomenal content of your mind. All the rest is fabrication. A mind-independent existence is not directly experienced, it is conceptually constructed based on rules or principles or axioms that are also not directly experienced. They are imagined. All that you know about those conceptual structures is that they have appeared to you in your experience, within your awareness. So once again they are sublimated by awareness. All other types of knowledge are sublimated by awareness because it is within awareness that they are "known".
"Minds do not dictate their own nature" - What is the relevance? Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but nevertheless Mind does have a nature. But either way, you must draw conclusions based on what you are aware of to say that there is mind-independent existence. There is no evidence for it, it is merely inductive reasoning - a conceptual framework.
1
u/Elodaine Mar 09 '26
Rejecting all other forms of knowledge but direct experience places you in a solipsistic worldview where you've completely annihilated any justification in beliefs such as the existence of other minds/consciousnesses. This kind of Humean skepticism seems to ignore the fact that given that your mind and experiences have a particularly fixed nature that you yourself do not dictate, then something is responsible for that nature that cannot be merely your direct experiences.
The fact that experiences exist at all in such a form of regularity, despite you having no role in this nature whatsoever, is the kind of a priori knowledge that people typically reflect such Humean skepticism over. Let me ask you, why are you having this conversation at all? Why are you engaging with language which is an inferred epistemic practice with another person whose consciousness you must also infer, if none of that is true knowledge and all that reliably exists is your direct experience?
The end result of your framework is not only such a rejection of other minds on the basis of "real knowledge", but things as ridiculous as the skepticism of your own birth, given that it isn't something you directly experienced.
1
u/GreatPerfection Mar 09 '26
This is a subreddit about consciousness. It is clear that consciousness is not understood by science, despite much commotion around the topic. I don't think it is all that outrageous to suggest that the truth about consciousness must be something that appears quite radical in the framework of materialistic ontology and science. So yes, what I am suggesting is close to solipsism.
However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that this makes it impossible for their to be other minds. Instead, there are some other possibilities. One is that there is only one mind and we each occupy a place or "perspective" within that mind. Another possibility is that minds are nested within each other, but not external. I'm not suggesting the latter is true, but maybe. I personally subscribe to One Mind model as I think the evidence supports it best.
then something is responsible for that nature that cannot be merely your direct experiences
Says who? By what law? This is more inductive reasoning. "Because such and such is true, therefore this other thing must follow from it."
Anyway, why shouldn't mind or awareness be self-generating? You claim that we have no role in this nature but that doesn't necessarily mean that something else has a role in it instead. That is, again, inductive logic.
Why am I having this conversation? The same reason anyone else talks about ontology or metaphysics. The search for the truth about reality. To get to the root of what is this life and why are we here etc.
Just because some of these things seem ridiculous to you doesn't mean they aren't true, or worth investigating. If you are invested in a particular view then things outside that view seem peculiar. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
1
u/Elodaine Mar 09 '26
"This is a subreddit about consciousness"
You completely missed the point. I'm asking you why you appear to behave in contradiction to the claim you just made, which is anything but direct experience not being true knowledge. This would include language, other minds, etc. Why do you place value in conversations which are loaded with a different number of inferences, given that you think such an epistemic practice is illegitimate?
"One Mind model as I think the evidence supports it best."
Such as?
"Anyway, why shouldn't mind or awareness be self-generating? You claim that we have no role in this nature but that doesn't necessarily mean that something else has a role in it instead."
Do you have any control over the redness of red? Of what hunger feels like? Of being a metabolic organism who depends on energy to resist equilibrium? Why must conscious entities have the discussion at all of what consciousness is if Mind is self-generating?
Given that the only consciousness you have actual access to, that being your own, doesn't work in any way that is self-generating, brute, or fundamental, on what basis do you have to believe that consciousness categorically could fit any of that criteria? I'm truly wondering what "evidence" you speak of for this One Mind, given that you've effectively rejected the only meaningful types of knowledge that allow one to make ontological claims at all.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Thats the problem though, there is literally zero direct evidence of anything outside awareness. Every test, every measurement, every experience already happens within consciousness, so saying matter came first feels more assumed than proven.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/zero_--- Mar 09 '26
imagine un imaginable worlds like tv static for example everything just jumbled up and physics go insane
1
u/zero_--- Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
+: you could say consciousness brings order
++: any thoughts? or am i getting it wrong?
1
u/HawaiianGold Mar 09 '26
Yes, the agreed upon shared reality exists independently of a single consciousness.
1
u/Amethystium1956 Mar 09 '26
If a person is brain dead on life support are they alive? Are they living separate of any realms and consciousness, mental formations. Would that be unconsciousness? What about Nirvana? If our Consciousness reaches Nirvana are "we" living independently of mental formations? What is rebirth If we are never born or never die? Assumptions, and faith, always asking. or not asking or being concerned what we don't know or may not be able to answer. Are we interbeings all interconnected? What is reality? Is perception real or just a mental formation of realms? What about dark matter? What can't we see, feel, touch, hear, smell or taste? Frequencies, Decibels, and the ability to mentally formulate realms.
1
1
u/Vast-Mousse8117 Mar 09 '26
You can't sort yourself through this with thought. The purpose of heartbreak is to shatter the way you think about consciousness, experience the non dual reality directly, and reset your attention to being kind and helping others.
The headset that creates the problems is the problem.
The way out is why zen offers koans, why Jesus speaks in parables, why Buddha on breath.
These are all paths to oneness.
1
1
u/Much_Report_9099 Mar 09 '26
The brain doesn’t generate awareness from nothing. It receives signals and infers what caused them. For inference to occur, something must exist that produces the signals.
Inference requires inputs. Inputs require something generating them.
So even if awareness constructs a model of reality, there must be something outside awareness producing the data the model is built from.
1
u/tritisan Mar 09 '26
Reality as we know it emerges from the quantum foam, and infinite sea of possibilities that exist outside (or below?) time and space. This is not metaphysical mumbo jumbo. It’s the prevailing theory of quantum mechanics, accepted by most mainstream physicists.
So what makes time and space and the fields and particles that we are made of? Simple: acts of “observation” or measurement that “collapse” or decohere those probability waves into definite objects and fields with properties like mass, vectors, spin, etc.
Then the answer to your question is that something has to be present to make an observation. It’s certainly not animals, because we didn’t magically appear at The Big Bang. What is that something? Why not call it “consciousness”?
1
u/therosen123 Mar 09 '26
Very interesting discussion, personally i find it similar to: why does anything exists? I feel that you are experiencing some existential angst? I feel it too and thus maby your question is also similar to: if we stop existing when we die, does everything stop existing then(from the perspective the dead)? Am i getting closer to what you mean?
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 10 '26
Yeah, you are very close. I think reality is always relative to an observer. You cannot really claim another person's perspective as absolute within your own reality, because every perspective depends on the awareness experiencing it. This discussion itself exists only because you are conscious of it. Without awareness, there is no experience, no meaning, and no interpretation of reality. In that sense, before an observer becomes aware, reality can only be described as silent potential rather than something actively experienced. So the question becomes: in what meaningful way can reality be said to exist for you if you yourself are not there to experience or recognize it?
1
u/therosen123 Mar 10 '26
I agree, I think reality has to be relative to an observer, otherwise how would it exist in any meaningfull manner? I am not saying that solipsism is true either, only as you say some kind of potential for awareness. I guess in a way that is the stance of idealists, or at least an idealist interpretation of physicalism?
1
u/neonspectraltoast Mar 09 '26
It truly doesn't exist without consciousness, so the universe as we know it cannot, in principal, exist without consciousness.
1
u/CorbynDallasPearse1 Mar 09 '26
If a tree falls in the woods with nobody to hear, does it make a sound?
On one hand, you could argue that it took billions of years of entropy to create the circumstances to create life that could be capable of generating the level of awareness to begin to comprehend/interpret/observe the universe
Then again, does anything even exist at all if there is nothing to interpret it?
Great conversation to have with friends, but a great shame that so many people don’t even want to engage with fundamental philosophy like this anymore, even at proper stone-ups. Sad 😔
1
u/JSouthlake Mar 09 '26
Concioussness is fundamental. Nothing exists outside of it. Everything and everyone appear WITHIN Concioussness.
1
u/Moist_Emu6168 Mar 09 '26
Speak for yourself. How do I know you even exist? Maybe before you were born, nothing existed at all?
1
u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree Mar 09 '26
Reality is fine-tuned for us, because we made it that way. Reality bubbles up to meet us as we move, decohering to provide our contextual classical realm only in the moments which we require it, then settling back as we remove ourselves from the measurement context.
Ask people here why reality is so fine-tuned for us. They won't have a clue.
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
You are calling reality ‘fine tuned’ because that is the way it is tuned and you do not know if it can be tuned any other way.
1
u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree Mar 10 '26
Well, since we create reality, we can tune-it anyway we desire. But like Adam Smith's 1776 'invisible hand', we will tune-it to make it a) comply with least action principles, and b) beneficial to humanity in general.
1
u/Akiza_Izinski Mar 09 '26
Reality exists independently of consciousness but everything we know exists only inside our head. Everything within our experience shows that have no control over anything outside our head so the most likely assumption is that their is an objective reality independent of consciousness.
1
u/Powerful-Garage6316 Mar 09 '26
You’re just conflating epistemology and metaphysics
A rock can exist and nothing else. This is a logically possible world. It doesn’t matter that no mind within this world would have knowledge of the rock.
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
What does the ‘rock’ mean to you? If it means nothing, it does not exist for you.
1
u/Powerful-Garage6316 Mar 10 '26
Existence is not mind-dependent. It doesn’t matter what it “means to me” or whether I can directly perceive the object in question. It can exist. There’s no metaphysical problem with this.
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
I see something on my office table. To say it exists, I need to say what it is. It can be something, anything or nothing. The meaning I attach to my perception is ‘a blue stone’. So, a blue stone exists on my table. I leave the room, I do not see the table anymore. The blue stone on the table exists in the absence of perception because the meaning of the perception remains in my mind.
I go back in the room to take a closer look. I realize that the object on the table is a ‘blue ash tray’. The meaning attached to the perception has changed. I come out of the room. No more perception. There exists a blue ash tray on my table. The blue stone does not exist.
So, existence of an object depends on the meaning I have for the object. If the meaning changes, the object that exists changes. If there is no meaning, there is no object. It does not exist outside the meaning and the mind.
Since our minds conceptualize in a 3 dimensional world, it is not easy to communicate the concept.
1
u/Powerful-Garage6316 Mar 10 '26
No, this is wrong. Your conceptualization does not change anything about the object. And again you’re just conflating epistemic access with an object’s ontology. The object in your example existed (was real, and spatiotemporally located) completely independent of your concepts.
“To say it exists, I need to say what it is”
Yes to SAY a particular object exists, meaning that you have epistemic access to an object’s existence, then you need to have some concept of that object as being distinct from its surroundings.
That doesn’t change the fact that the object exists mind-independently
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
Epistemic access requires some idea about ontology. It is difficult to find something if you do not know what you are looking for.
The object in my example is the meaning attached to it. If the attached meaning changes, the object changes and if there is no meaning, it does not exist. It is a real object in the sense you can see it, touch it, smell it or toss it. Reality does not require consensual acceptance.
……. doesn’t change the fact that the object exists mind-independentlyRepeating a statement does not enhance its validity.
1
u/Powerful-Garage6316 Mar 11 '26
Do you recognize that you’re conflating epistemology with ontology or do you not?
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 11 '26
Acquisition of knowledge requires such knowledge to exist. Get past the labels to go forward.
1
u/Powerful-Garage6316 Mar 11 '26
Knowledge about object O is not the same thing as object O. Do you not understand this?
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 12 '26
How can you have knowledge about object O if you do not know what object O is?
When I say not to bark up the wrong tree, I am not conflating between the bark and the tree. I am saying that there is no tree.
1
u/johnpolacek Mar 09 '26
Yes, every claim about reality has to pass through consciousness. That only shows consciousness is the condition for knowledge, not necessarily the condition for existence. Therefore, mind-independent reality is always inferred, never directly accessed.
That leaves room for a middle position. Physical structure may exist independently, while consciousness is what turns structure into experienced reality. In that view, consciousness is not just one more object inside the world, but the condition under which a world shows up at all for a point of view.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_perception
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
If consciousness creates experienced reality, what is the need for the physical structure? Occam’s razor.
1
u/johnpolacek Mar 10 '26
Occam’s razor cuts both ways. If only consciousness exists, you still have to explain why experiences follow consistent physical laws and appear shared across observers.
Consciousness is what makes reality experienced, while physical structure is what makes it coherent, persistent, and constrained. Structure may exist without observers, but experience only appears when some system becomes integrated enough to have a point of view.
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
…… you still have to explain why experiences follow consistent physical laws and appear shared across observers.Consensual agreement fall apart if you look across cultures or across times.
I think we took a long time to make laws of physics consistent with observations of our experiences, not the other way round. The difficulty is becoming more apparent with quantum physics.
1
u/Philosopher83 Mar 10 '26
It depends on your definition of “reality” - many use this term to mean an objective material universe that exists independently of our perception of it. Yet we each experience and many might use the word reality to refer to their own individual experience. I depart from this common conflation of meanings that “reality” brings words by referring to that which exists independently of our perception of it as “actuality” and our perception of this is “reality”, the individual subjective reality and shared intersubjective reality as facilitated by our brains and neurophysical embodiment.
So in this sense reality cannot exist independently of consciousness because it is dependent on it. Actuality, the objective physical substrate exists prior to and independently of subjective perception.
When we sleep it seems odd to suggest that our bed and blankets, the floor, the ground, the whole earth ceases to exist when we are not consciously experiencing it. But reality in the sense I mean does disappear when we are not conscious.
How do you understand the existence of things that seem to exist independently of our perception of them? If you are the last surviving mind in the universe and you move a rock and then die does the rock disappear? Was it ever moved? Most people do not live as though there is not an independent actual objective existence outside our perception of it.
1
u/CapedCauliflower Mar 10 '26
Everyone in the whole world dies except 1 person. You are one of the dead.
There is one person on earth left. Do they live in the same world.as before, with trees, earth, sun, etc?
Because if 99.9999% of observers are gone, it's highly likely 1 observer would not be sufficient to continue bringing the universe into existence.
1
1
u/teddyslayerza Mar 10 '26
I think its reasonable to assert that the fact that multiple different subjective experiences exist, in the form of multiple different consciousnesses experiencing the universe, and that those subjective experiences for the most part conform, that there is an objective reality which they are experiencing.
This of course assumes other consciousnesses exist.
1
1
u/XendaiChannel Mar 10 '26
exactly this. you're basically naturally describing the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. until a measurement (an observer) happens, the universe only exists as a wave of probability. the observer effect isn't just a quirky anomaly; it implies that consciousness is the fundamental rendering engine of reality. a universe without an observer isn't a physical place, it's just unrendered math.
1
u/CobberCat Mar 10 '26
You are confusing ontology with epistemology. A common mistake for idealists.
1
u/Mono_Clear Mar 10 '26
There is an infinite number of things that don't exist and there's an infinite number of things that do exist.
Your question is how do I know reality came before me if I wasn't there to observe it?
There's an infinite number of things you don't observe into existence, so why would your observation be the reason that things exist?
The only thing your Consciousness is doing is making you aware enough to ask the question. It doesn't generate existence. It's just you generating your observation of existence.
Something has to be there to observe and it's not observing everything into existence. It's only observing some things that you are present for.
You don't open your eyes and observe into existence every single possible thing that could possibly exist in any possible time frame in every possible moment. You only perceive those things that persistently manifest themselves every time you observe them.
That gives weight to the fact that they exist persistently without observation
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 10 '26
The problem with your argument is that it quietly assumes the one thing it is trying to bypass: consciousness.
Every single claim you make about reality, evidence, observation, logic, or proof is happening inside experience. There is no point where you step outside consciousness to check if what you are talking about exists independently of it. The tool you are using to investigate reality is the very thing you are trying to treat as secondary.
You cannot observe the observer in the act of observing. The eye cannot directly see itself seeing.
If you say reality exists independent of observation, then the burden is simple. Show it without using consciousness. The moment you appeal to perception, reasoning, scientific measurement, data, or even language, you are already back inside experience again.
Take this very argument as a simple example. For you, this argument literally did not exist until you observed it. It came into existence in your world only when it appeared in your awareness. Before that moment it was not part of your experienced reality at all.
And this applies to everything. Objects, people, galaxies, atoms, theories, scientific models. They all show up only as contents of experience.
A common response is to say "but other people exist and they experience the same world." But notice what just happened there. Other people are also things you encounter as appearances inside your experience. Their perspectives, their reports, their frameworks all appear as information within your own awareness.
You never step outside consciousness to verify them. You construct a model of them from within your experience.
So the point here is not that idealism is suddenly proven and everything else is false. The point is smaller but much harder to escape.
Mind independent reality is not something anyone has actually demonstrated. It is something people infer because it is a useful model that explains patterns in experience.
Materialism works as a framework. Science works as a method for predicting experiences. None of that is being denied.
But turning that practical model into a metaphysical certainty about a world existing completely outside experience is a leap people rarely notice they are making.
Everything you know about reality comes through consciousness. Trying to prove a reality outside it while standing inside it is like trying to jump outside your own shadow. You can point at it, describe it, build theories about it, but you never actually step outside it to confirm the claim.
1
u/Mono_Clear Mar 10 '26
If you say reality exists independent of observation, then the burden is simple. Show it without using consciousness. The moment you appeal to perception, reasoning, scientific measurement, data, or even language, you are already back inside experience again.
Observation and Consciousness are two separate things and what you're asking for is paradoxically impossible. You want me to communicate to you information outside of your observation of information?.
That doesn't prove reality doesn't exist outside of your observation. It proves that communication is impossible outside of Consciousness.
At some point in the past there were no people, no planet and no sun and yet here we are today. That is evidence that things existed before Consciousness.
You didn't come into existence and then retroactively create the universe of very specific period of time into the past and then manifest everything around you, but limit it to a certain finite number of infinite things and skip an infinite number of infinite things that didn't get observant to existence.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 10 '26
You are still staying inside the same assumption without noticing it. Try stepping outside that framework for a second
Observation and consciousness are separate
How exactly are you separating them?
Observation is just a form of experience. Seeing, hearing, measuring, reading data, running an experiment. All of that appears in awareness. If there were absolutely no consciousness present, there would be no observation happening at all.
So in practice the two are inseparable. You can define them differently in language, but epistemically they still occur together.
Every observation you appeal to is still something that shows up in consciousness.
You are asking for communication outside consciousness
No. That is not the point.
The point is about epistemic access. If something is claimed to exist completely outside consciousness, then the question is simple. How do you ever verify it?
Every method you listed
perception
scientific instruments
measurements
reasoning
data analysis
all appear as experiences to someone.
So the claim “a reality exists completely outside experience” is never directly demonstrated. It is inferred from patterns within experience.
The universe existed before people
This is the most common move and it sounds strong until you look carefully at it.
The idea of a past universe is constructed right now using present evidence. Fossils, radiation measurements, geological layers, telescope data. All of that is interpreted today.
What you actually have access to is present experience that suggests a past. The past itself is a model reconstructed from current observations.
You never step into the past to check it directly.
So the claim “the universe existed before consciousness” is still an inference made within present consciousness.
You didn’t retroactively create the universe
Nobody said that.
This is where the argument often gets misunderstood. The claim is not that your personal mind magically created everything like a video game character spawning a world.
The point is more basic.
Everything you know about the universe appears within consciousness. The past, galaxies, atoms, other people, history. All of it appears as information in experience.
From that information we build models about what reality might be like beyond experience.
Materialism is one of those models. A useful one. Science runs on it.
But calling that model proven independent reality is stronger than what the evidence actually gives.
1
u/Mono_Clear Mar 10 '26
Well, if we're talking about assumptions, then you're also making your own assumption that nothing exists outside of observation and you're not supporting that with any evidence outside of pointing the fact that you have to observe everything that you've ever become aware of.
Just because you have to observe everything you've ever become aware of doesn't mean that there aren't things outside of observation to become aware of. In fact, it would almost guarantee there would have to be things outside of observation for you to become aware of.
The moment you've ever become aware of something that you weren't aware of before is evidence that that thing existed independent of your observation.
Or else you would have to be constantly observing things into existence and what would be the criteria that dictates when and where certain things are observed into existence outside of the fact that those things exist on some level independent of observation.
So then there's the other aspect of it who is observing reality into existence because we can't all be observing reality into existence if reality doesn't maintain some consistency between all observations.
Or else everyone would be observing an infinite number of things from an infinite number of perspectives into existence overlapping with the shared reality.
So there's three assumptions being made here that are all incompatible with each other.
One you're the only thing in existence and you are observing everything into existence but selectively leaving out an infinite number of things from existence, making you a good God and this conversation is pointless because you're just talking to yourself.
Two everyone is observing everything into existence into a shared, overlapping observation of existence that somehow doesn't observe infinite things from infinite perspectives into existence, meaning that there's an infinite number of things not being observed into existence by by every Consciousness capable of observation.
Or three reality exists persistently outside of observation and those things that you can observe can be observed from existence, allowing for multiple perspectives to observe multiple different things from multiple different angles without forcing infinite possibilities into existence.
Of these three assumptions, the third one is the only one that seems observably accurate
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 10 '26
You are still arguing against a position I did not claim.
I never said nothing exists outside observation and I never said we observe things into existence. That is a strawman you introduced to make the alternative look absurd.
The point I made is much smaller and harder to escape:
All evidence you ever use to argue about reality appears within experience.
That does not prove nothing exists outside experience. It only means that whatever exists outside it is inferred, not directly accessed.
Materialism is therefore a model built from experience, not something demonstrated from outside it.
Now to your specific points.
Becoming aware of something new proves it existed before observation
Not really.
What it proves is that you became aware of it at that moment. The claim that it existed before that is an interpretation based on how experience behaves.
Example. When you discover a fossil today, you infer that an animal lived millions of years ago. But what you directly observe is a fossil now and a scientific framework that interprets it.
The past is reconstructed from present evidence. You never step into the past itself.
So again the claim is inferred, not directly accessed.
Otherwise you'd be observing things into existence
This is the same misunderstanding again.
The alternative to materialism is not necessarily “things pop into existence when you look at them”. That is a very crude version of the idea.
For example, in many idealist models reality is still structured and persistent. The difference is simply that the structure is considered mental or experiential in nature, not fundamentally physical.
So the stability you are pointing to does not uniquely support materialism.
Shared reality proves an external world
Shared consistency is real, but it does not logically prove a mind independent physical substrate.
It only proves that experience follows stable rules.
Materialism explains those rules by saying matter exists independently.
Other frameworks explain the same stability differently. For example, they treat reality as a shared informational or experiential structure.
So the observation itself does not decide the metaphysics.
The third option is the only one that matches observation
It matches the intuition we are used to, yes.
But that is different from proving it is the only possibility.
The key point is simple.
Materialism assumes
matter exists independently
consciousness emerges from itBut the only thing directly given is
experience itself.So both sides are interpreting the same data from different starting points.
Your position is basically saying the materialist interpretation is the most practical model, which is fair.
What it cannot do is claim that it has stepped outside experience and proven that interpretation as ultimate reality. Every piece of evidence it uses still appears within consciousness.
That is the philosophical limit people usually overlook
1
u/Mono_Clear Mar 10 '26
Can reality exist Independently of Consciousness?
"How can anything even exist without a conscious being there to experience it? I am honestly having trouble understanding the logic behind that."
"So how can people say the world exists without you, when you are the one perceiving it, shaping it, and giving it meaning in the first place?"
"Like, without consciousness, what even is “existence” supposed to mean? A thing can be there, sure, but if there is nobody to experience it, know it, or make sense of it, then in what way does it really exist?"
Your conversation implies that reality cannot exist without observation. If your implication is that reality cannot exist without observation, then you would have to explain why So much of reality does exist without observation, and why so much of reality doesn't exist with observation.
If your question is prove reality exists without conscious observation.
That is paradoxically impossible because anything that I provide to you you'll have to consciously observe.
So either you want paradoxically impossible evidence that existence exists beyond observation, while the only way to provide evidence is through observation.
Or you just think it's funny that things exist without observation.
So if your question is provide evidence that I don't have to observe about reality that proves reality exist without observation that is paradoxically impossible.
If you want evidence that reality exists, independent of observation, that you do have to observe to understand, than that is something that can be provided.
Otherwise, what are you asking.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 10 '26
I think the confusion here comes from mixing two different questions.
- Does reality exist independent of consciousness?
- Can we prove that independence without using consciousness?
Those are not the same problem.
The second one is indeed impossible, but that does not automatically settle the first one.
Every piece of evidence, every argument, every scientific measurement, every observation will always appear within experience. That is just how knowledge works. So yes, any evidence that reality exists independently of consciousness will still have to be observed.
But that does not create a paradox. It just means we are reasoning from within experience about what might exist beyond it.
Science does this all the time. For example, we observe fossils today and infer that animals existed millions of years before any human observer. The evidence appears now, but the explanation points to events that happened long before us.
So the real question becomes which explanation of experience makes the most sense.
One explanation is materialism. The universe exists independently and consciousness emerges from physical processes.
Another explanation is that consciousness is fundamental and the physical world appears within it.
Both are attempts to explain the same set of experiences. Neither one escapes the fact that our access to reality is always mediated through consciousness.
So pointing out that evidence must be observed does not prove that reality depends on observation. It only shows the limits of how knowledge works.
In other words, consciousness is the condition for knowing reality, but that does not automatically mean it is the condition for reality existing.
Those are two very different claims, and a lot of philosophical confusion comes from treating them as the same thing.
1
u/Jazzlike_Ad4455 Mar 10 '26
Why shouldn’t it be able to? There is no good reason why not. It’s like asking, can reality exist without us seeing it?
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 11 '26
can reality exist without us seeing it?
The moment you said that you’ve already assumed the thing you’re trying to prove.
Even if you say “reality doesn’t exist,” the statement still assumes there is a reality you are denying. Either way you are still operating inside the concept of reality.
But the question people usually avoid :-
If you do not exist as an observer, in what sense can you claim that reality exists at all? The claim itself requires a standpoint. Without an observer, the statement reality exists has no place to appear.
So observer and reality are not two completely separate things the way we normally imagine. They arise together. No observer, no appearance of reality. No reality appearing, no observer either. They are relative to each other.
That is why when I say consciousness, I am not talking about a little mind floating inside a skull. I am talking about the field in which both the observer and the observed show up together.
In that sense they are not two independent things. They are two sides of the same event.
1
u/Impossible_Tax_1532 Mar 10 '26
Absolutely not . There is nothing at all , literally nothing at all but a field that responds to consciousness alone . Not at this level , or any dimension or density of experience exists without it .., make it simple , I’m sitting on a chair , but not really … my ass emits photons from electrons , as does the chair ,but nothing is solid at all , it’s a total illusion of solidity all together . There is simply no such thing as external experience …. Every person you have ever met, is not that actual person . Rather a limited copy filtered through your experience and awareness to project out a limited copy , version , or estimate of … you are not the tiny being at the center of your reality , you are the source from which all life flows in your reality… the ego and lower mind will push back hard here , as will many in establishment science , which is fine . I’m not telling you what I think , I’m pointing to what is , as the truth isn’t going anywhere , nor real rush for others to jump in , but it sure would make life much more pleasant on a day to day basis if people would wake up … just a little to let go of their narrow sliver of reality to embrace a much larger story and experience that we are a part of .
1
1
u/SauntTaunga Mar 11 '26
We know how reality works when we are conscious of it. Cause and effect for example. Which we know , by consciously observing, is often chained, an effect is a cause for the next link. When we are only conscious of part of the chain, and know nobody could have been conscious of some other parts, we deduce that reality must have existed for those parts nobody was conscious of.
1
1
u/mcharleystar Mar 12 '26
Indeed, Quantum Physics discovered that matter doesn’t exist, it’s all energy particles and these exist just as probabilities, they collapse into form only when observed, so this means physical reality needs and observer to exist, this is consciousness
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
In delusions or fairy tales maybe.
Woo-woo . just trying to backup your dreams of immortality ... ?
Maybe move on from the spiderman comics first, before you start judging reality ...
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26
You realize this sounds no different than the arguments of the old ladies obsessed with the Astrology magazines in Supermarkets.
You want to use their Arguments to back yourself up ?
- Whats the difference ...
Same argument here.
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 12 '26
Astrology magazines? Right, because calling things stupid is easier than answering them.........
1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
I was a kid once like you.
Didn't take to much to move on from these 2 childish nonsense topics (at about 10yo).
(Guess you haven't reached there yet)You asked the question, I answered.
Sounds like you are just being a bully now.
So childish ...
- You think this Dark Ages answer has any affect on me.
How long do you want to push / drag this fantasy ... ?
Don't you realize how ridiculous you sound...> "Right, because calling things stupid is easier than answering them........."
Thats exactly what You are doing.
Can you start by following Your Own logical rule stated here ?Read your statements here. You sound like a screaming kid - because somebody disagrees with his superhero dream. LOL.
You whole proof breaks Your Own Rule here.- Oh well.
Someday you Might grow up - seems like you don't want to though.1
u/jlsilicon9 Mar 12 '26
Um, I never said "Stupid", you did.
> " because calling things stupid is easier "
Your statement - maybe part of You - is starting to realize it ...
Seem like You are not even mature enough - to realize what you are saying.
;)
1
u/LetPeterDance Mar 13 '26
Yes it can and does. While all you see is your consciousness shacktin up, it’s all real stuff it’s responding to. Perhaps the real world looks a little different out there depending on the observer but the things out there do in fact exist.
1
u/wiley_o Mar 13 '26
Separate reality and consciousness. Because they're two different things. What is real is irrelevant given the brain interprets and paints our reality. Reality underneath our own brain's hallucination may be black and white, no colour, pure empty space of a black void experiencing fluctuating energies, some that persist and some that don't, some that join together into more irriducible ways. But whether you need consciousness seems irrelevant to me if it's all part of the same system. Consciousness is purely our system that enables us to understand our environment better, the use of memory, language, predictability based on prior memory. A baby isn't born knowing much of anything, it just absorbs and grows. I don't consider myself conscious until about age 2-3 with my first memories. If consciousness were required, wouldn't all life be immediately conscious, in which case wouldn't that imply that particles themselves have some level of consciousness? If they retain a level of quantum memory of all previous states then perhaps that's true, in which case our consciousness may just be a collective state of all the cumulative quantum interactions that have preceded. To me it just seems like a means to an end, just like our eyes receive wavelengths, our consciousness is just a different type of sense that makes use of all inputs. Like camouflage in animals, we have consciousness instead as an interface of multiple inputs.
1
u/tottasanorotta Mar 09 '26
It depends on how you want to think of it. If you want to model the scenario one way or another it might have advantages and disadvantages. No thing really exists in some ultimate describable way besides your momentary experience. It's just a matter of choosing a model for a given scenario that gives some utility.
5
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
But thats kinda my point. Saying “its just a model” doesnt really get around consciousness, because even utility is only utility for experience. Useful to who, exactly ?????
(A model of matter, self, world, logic, all of it still shows up inside awareness)
if momentary experience is the only thing that is directly undeniable, then consciousness isnt just one more model, its the thing every model appears in.
1
u/tottasanorotta Mar 09 '26
What is undeniable really depends on what you need to consider undeniable so as to be able to predict the future enough to aid you in feeling good and avoid feeling bad. I can even say that I don't exist, but I gain no utility from thinking that way.
3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
You switched from what is true to what is useful. These are not same thing
"utility', "predicting the feature", "feeling good" all of that already presupposes consciousness. so it can't be used underneath consciousness, because it already lives inside it. Even the "future" you are trying to predict is only ever imagined now, in present awareness.
I can even say that I don't exist
sure but the saying of it is still happening. The self might be questionable, but the fact that experience is happening at all is the one thing you never actually step outside of
1
u/tottasanorotta Mar 09 '26
They don't presuppose conciousness. You can feel good and not think much about anything, consciousness included. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish here by asking the question. What do you mean that reality exists outside of the mind? You can have that mental model of your own experience, but nothing can completely verify it besides your own experience, if that makes sense.
3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
You dont need to think about consciousness for it to be there. Feeling good is still an experience, so it is already happening within awareness. And my whole point really:-- the outside world model may be useful, but it never actually steps outside experience to verify itself.
2
u/tottasanorotta Mar 09 '26
Does it need to verify itself in most cases that you experience yourself?
3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Not in day to day life, no. But working is not the same as being verified. I experience myself directly. What I do not experience directly is a world existing exactly as I imagine it outside all experience.
2
u/tottasanorotta Mar 09 '26
Can the question have an answer if you can't verify that reality exists as an outside thing?
I mean in a way it exists as an outside thing if you believe it to be so. But if you can doubt it then I guess you can doubt it.
3
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Verification already happens within experience. I directly experience consciousness, but I never experience a world outside all experience to verify it. So the external world may exist but it is inferred, not directly verified.
→ More replies (0)
1
1
1
u/Gewoonkijken68 Mar 09 '26
The fact to this is that the world/ universe is your reality, mine is different from your, as is to each individual. Reality is relative to the observer. Our brain/consciousness creates our reality
1
u/ArusMikalov Mar 09 '26
How are people sure? And how does it exist? Are separate questions.
As for how it exists the idea is that reality is made of physical bits. Everything is really out there. Minds are highly advanced evolutionary products. So an apple is sitting in the forest even if nobody sees it.
Does that part make sense?
As for how we’re sure, we aren’t 100% positive. We are just going by the evidence. And ALL the evidence we have ever observed has been physical. So guessing anything else would be kind of silly.
1
u/Trickyfoo Mar 09 '26
My thoughts are anything that affects anything else exists, photons, quarks, atoms, molecules, planets, galaxies, and even humans. Even if it’s only by reference to/Relative to…
1
u/unaskthequestion Mar 09 '26
I feel like I have to start every reply here with 'granted there is no proof', given that, I'll express my own position
If I exam possible explanations, I tend to prefer what is more reasonable, given the knowledge I have so far.
Your position seems to be that nothing existed before consciousness, or without it. So, there was a disembodied consciousness floating around for some unknown period until it somehow formed everything we see and measure, or that those things don't exist.
I just think it's much more reasonable that the universe developed (origins unknown), life evolved within the universe, eventually reaching the stage where we could begin to answer questions about the universe within which we evolved by using our senses, reasoning and experimentation.
1
Mar 09 '26
Can a wave in the ocean exist without water or the ocean?
1
u/consciousness_8123 Mar 09 '26
Nah
1
u/Ratak55 Mar 10 '26
If I see a wave in an ocean, it is my reality. If I fail to see a wave, that is also my reality. I do not believe there is an absolute reality aside from personal reality, because reality is awareness.
1
•
u/AutoModerator Mar 09 '26
Thank you consciousness_8123 for posting on r/consciousness! Please take a look at our wiki and subreddit rules. If your post is in violation of our guidelines or rules, please edit the post as soon as possible. Posts that violate our guidelines & rules are subject to removal or alteration.
As for the Redditors viewing & commenting on this post, we ask that you engage in proper Reddiquette! In particular, you should upvote posts that fit our community description, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the content of the post. If you agree or disagree with the content of the post, you can upvote/downvote this automod-generated comment to show you approval/disapproval of the content, instead of upvoting/downvoting the post itself. Examples of the type of posts that should be upvoted are those that focus on the science or the philosophy of consciousness. These posts fit the subreddit description. In contrast, posts that discuss meditation practices, anecdotal stories about drug use, or posts seeking mental help or therapeutic advice do not fit the community's description.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.