Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Post 7. December 10, 2017

Foundation of Reality : Matter or       Consciousness?

Consciousness :   Emergent or Fundamental?

Most scientific and religious worldviews take the ontological status of Consciousness for granted. But when those belief systems are in conflict, their unstated presumptions are key to resolving the problem. Modern Science typically assumes, as an unproven axiom, that consciousness is an emergent property of physical processes. In other words, the human mind is a product of brain processes. And that hypothesis of mind as mechanical output makes sense from the the perspective of philosophical Materialism. But most religions are based on the principle of Divine Consciousness or Spirit or Will as the primordial creative force of the world. Unfortunately, centuries of debate have shown that it will never be easy to resolve such a stark black & white opposition of opinions.

Philosophy, though, is undaunted by irresistable forces and immovable objects. It thrives on head-knocking controversies. A recent post on the Quora Forum formulated this general topic as a technical question : " is consciousness a fundamental property of the universe like gravity  . . . ?" In other words, is mind essential to reality instead of an accidental emergence? Or restated in religious terms, did God create the material world by simply imagining it? Put another way, the question may be posed as "What is the basis of reality, matter or conscious-ness?" Here, it sounds more like a functional distinction between shape-shifting intangible Energy and stable palpable Matter, or like the difference between Mind and Body.

But, what is Energy or Force anyway? For scientific purposes, it is a general property (Causation) of the universe as a system, which causes changes in material substances. Some religions also view Spiritual Energy (Life Force or Soul) as a universal property, that manifests in changes not only to physical bodies, but also in non-physical minds. So which is it? Sadly, these are not physical, but metaphysical queries. Hence, any answers we propose can never be proven true or false by means of empirical evidence. In the Quora quotes below, Neuroscientist Rosseinsky, indicates that we can construct logical explanations, given specific premises, for both possibilities, but we can't prove that one is a fact and the other a fantasy. Each may be valid within its own purview. That's why I prefer to make a key distinction between mundane Reality and sublime Ideality.

As a hypothesis in the Enformationism worldview, our physical reality was actualized from among an infinite array of possibilities by an act of G*D. Those unreal maybes became real things in a manner similar to Plato's theory of eternal Forms. Although Plato didn't mention the role of a deity in that creative process, something had to cause the change from possible to actual, or as I like to put it, from ideal to real. Physicists might call that "something" a random quantum fluctuation. But the Hebrew myth of Yahweh speaking the world into existence by divine fiat  -- "let there be light" -- paints a picture that anyone can understand without getting into con-founding technical details.

Post 7 continued  . . . . click Next

I Selfie
therefore I am

 Naive realism leads you to believe that ‘matter exists as solid objects, because you can see those objects’. It’s trivial to demonstrate the fallacy in this reasoning.

 . . . . .

So science in its purest form is the identification and analysis of an order that we can talk about ‘as if’ matter existed.

Nicholas Rosseinsky

Neuroscientist