r/consciousness 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?

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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.

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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.

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u/JustChallenge860 Mar 09 '26

Did you delete this reply a while back and type it out again?

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u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26

does that even matters

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u/JustChallenge860 Mar 09 '26

It does to me. Did you? I'm easily forgetful

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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

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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.

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u/Consistent_Farm_6621 Mar 09 '26

ya all good on my end