Posted on 04/04/2005 9:07:44 PM PDT by Ronzo
IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST
The indivisible link between consciousness and existence.
MAIN ARGUMENT:
An old rhetorical question goes: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Well, the correct answer is "no." Since "sound" is only possible given the following conditions:
1.) That there is a listener who has the ability to hear…his ears function normally.
2.) The listener knows what the definition of "sound" is, and can correctly identify a "sound" when he hears one.
If there is no "listener" then there is no sound. Sound is only given substance by a listener who can perceive sound.
Now, let's go one step further: can something exist (object) if no one exists (subject) who is aware of it's existence?
In order to answer that question, we must understand there is a strong relationship between consciousness and existence, they cannot be easily separated, if at all.
Our human sensory perception and our instrumentality is very, very limited; it is simply impossible for a single person to know of everything that exists. Nor is it possible for mankind, collectively, to know of everything that exists, and I'm speaking of just those things that are possible to detect given our limitations.
Nor can we say that we are the only conscious beings in this universe with absolute certainty, for we are simply incapable of perfect knowledge of this universe. Sadly, we are stuck, no matter how far we advance in our instrumentality, with limitations that we simply do not have the means to overcome.
But there is something we can be sure of: if we perceive that a being exists, it exists, even if that being is ourselves. Hence Descartes' axiom: "I think, there for I am." Or more accurately stated: I am conscious that I exist; I know what it means to exist (rationality); therefore I exist.
The only way we can know, for sure, that something exists is through our sense perceptions. But we already know that there are beings who's existence is not dependent upon our ability to perceive them. Most of us would not argue with the statement that "there are lions in Africa." Yet how many people reading this text are in Africa, in place where they are able to look up and see lions? You believe there are lions in Africa because perhaps you were in Africa once, and you saw lions when you were there. Or maybe you saw a television show or movie with lions, and were told that the location was somewhere in Africa. Or perhaps you saw lions at the local zoo, and the sign on the display stated that they came from Africa…
We, as human beings, rely very, very much on the testimony of others, and not on our own direct sensory perceptions. For some odd reason, we think this good enough, and it often is.
Now, back to the material world….
Imagine a non-conscious being that is completely impossible to perceive with our senses, could such a being exist? The answer is no. A non-conscious being's existence is very much dependent on it's ability to be perceived by a conscious, rational being. Why so? Because "existence" is only a concept in the mind of a conscious, rational being, and in order for existence to have any meaning what-so-ever, it is completely dependent upon the rational ability of a conscious being to think it and perceive it. Existence does not exist apart from consciousness.
Now imagine a non-conscious being that exists (object) without any conscious, rational being existing to perceive it (subject); can such a being exist? The answer is no. If there is no conscious rational being to perceive a non-conscious being, then it is not possible for that being to exist, it is a logical contradiction. The only way we can imagine a non-conscious being existing without ever being perceived by a conscious being is by our own rational consciousness. And if we are using our rational consciousness to perceive a non-conscious being, then that being is being perceived, if only in our mind's eye.
Existence only has meaning if there is a conscious, rational being who understands what "existence" means and can identify "existence" when he sees it. Surprisingly, without a rational, conscious being to perceive existence, then there is no such concept as existence! A statement like "imagine a universe where there are no conscious beings to perceive it's existence" is a logical contradiction. The only way such a universe can exist is if there is a rational, conscious being that can perceive it--if only through thinking--that such a thing exists!
This seems counter-intuitive, but it is a logical fact that existence is entirely dependent upon consciousness. However, it is not necessicarly dependent upon human consciousness. It is both possible and logical to assume other rational, conscious beings that are able to perceive things, but who we ourselves, as humans, are unable to perceive, given our tremendous limitations in sensory perception. As a matter of fact, such beings may, in fact, be a logical necessity.
For instance, we are often told that our earth, sun, and stars have existed for billions of years before the first conscious, rational human being ever perceived them. If we assume that humans are the only rational, conscious beings in this universe (which is a logical assumption given that we know of no other rational, conscious beings similar to ourselves), then we are faced with a bizarre dilemma: the earth, the sun, and even the stars never existed before the first conscious, rational human being! They literally did not exist. Why couldn't they exist before the first human? Because existence and consciousness are bound together, and cannot be logically separated.
But what about the fossil record, radio-metric dating, geological dating, and all those other measurements that point to the fact that the earth, sun, and stars were here long before us? Well, if human beings are the only conscious, rational beings in this universe, then all those measurements are utterly meaningless.
But it's not only the history of the universe that becomes suspect, but even human history! I've been told that there was once this person named George Washington who existed, but no longer does. Can I used any of my sensory perceptions to verify that George Washington existed? No I can not, because my sensory perceptions are bound to time, and George Washington, I am told, existed before I did. Hence, my only recourse is to believe the testimony of others, whether it be through their words or their art. Even if someone were to show me George Washington's bones, I could only believe it were George Washington through someone's testimony, not being able to go back in time and watch George decay for myself.
Hence, there must be something beyond our rational, conscious sense perceptions if all these historical accounts have any truth to them. This something must necessarily even be beyond a collective human consciousness. Otherwise, we face the dilemma proposed by the famous Bertrand Russell thought experiment: suppose everything we perceive were just created five minutes ago, including our perception that we've been here much longer; can we prove such a proposition wrong? The answer is no. The problem is due to our limitations as creatures of time.
In order for history to be true, in order for the earth to have existed before we did, then there must be rational, conscious beings who are able to perceive things beyond our own very limited perceptions. Such beings must necessarily live outside of the constraints of time and must be capable of perfect knowledge of everything in our universe. In fact, they would have to live beyond the constraints of our universe, as it seems our physical laws would impair their ability to know our universe perfectly. It is logical and possible to propose that their exists "something" beyond our own universe, a place where our universe can be perfectly perceived but not be bound to our laws and limitations.
These beings must necessarily be rational (capable of logic) and conscious, for beings that do not have the properties of rationality and consciousness can not possibly exist without some conscious, rational being to perceive them. It is a logical impossibility.
The reason why these beings must necessarily exist is because consciousness and existence are logically bound together, and our own world and it's history could not logically exist unless there are rational, conscious beings who are, in effect, perceiving it for us! In other words, their perception of our existence (and our universe) allows our universe to exist, and to even have a past and future. Our very limited consciousness and knowledge does not allow us to sustain our own universe.
It is also necessary for these beings to be complete in themselves: they do not need yet another set of beings beyond them to perceive them, but the are capable of perfectly perceiving each other, there universe, and our universe. Otherwise, we are just begging the question.
Surprisingly, it might be necessary for there to be more than one of these beings, otherwise a lone being, living outside of time and before our universe (or any universe), would have nothing to perceive but himself, which is a possible logical contradiction. Can a being be conscious of just itself, or must there must be something beyond yourself to perceive, even if it is just another being?
It is necessary that these beings always existed, and have never not existed. While that is seemingly impossible given our limitations, it does not violate any laws of logic.
One cannot speak of existence existing before consciousness. If there is no consciousness, there can be no existence of any kind. Surprisingly, you cannot even speak of "nothing existing", for that is a logical contradiction, for the only way "nothing" can exist is for a consciousness to perceive it, hence a consciousness would exist, therefore something exists. You either have existence or you do not.
One also cannot speak of consciousness existing before existence, since if consciousness exists, then so must existence.
And, most surprisingly, rationality must co-exist simultaneously with existence and with consciousness, and not precede nor come after them. In order for a being to know it exists and know it is conscious, it must necessarily be able to understand non-existence and non-consciousness, even if it is impossible for it to have those traits! For instance, if two of these beings co-exist, they would know there are two, and not three, or one, or twelve million. (It may even be necessary for there to be more than two of these beings, perhaps at least three or more, for if there were just two you might have a bizarre situation where the one being, seeing the other, thinks he is perceiving himself! Having three or more would eliminate that problem.)
To summarize:
1. Existence and consciousness cannot be logically divided, they are necessarily bound together due to the laws of logic.
2. Surprisingly, rationality, often described as a property of consciousness, cannot be logically separated from consciousness and existence, for you cannot even know what existence and consciousness is without being aware of non-existence and non-consciousness.
3. Since our own ability to perceive our universe is extremely limited, we, as human beings, do not have the ability to sustain our universe's existence through our own consciousness and rationality. If everything that exists must, by logical necessity, be perceived and known, then there must be a rational, conscious set of beings who are able to perfectly know our universe for our benefit. This would include both tangible (i.e. material) and intangible (i.e. laws of logic) elements.
4. Since our physical laws and limitations of our universe make it highly unlikely (if not impossible) for these beings to exist within our universe, they must necessarily exist outside of it, not bound by our limitations.
5. Since they exist outside of our limitation of time, they have always existed and have never not existed.
6. And since it is a possible contradiction for a single being to have a consciousness awareness of only himself, there might be a multiplicity of these beings.
7. Assuming our universe had a beginning, these beings must act as our "witnesses" to sustain our universe's existence. It could be rightly said that their perfect knowledge of our universe is the foundation that allows our universe to exist!
8. Whether or not these beings created this universe of ours, or even want us to know who they are, is beyond the scope of this argument. However, there is an implied causality, and if there is an effect (our existence as humans), it is logical to assume a cause.
The most important point to remember is this: consciousness and existence are inseparable, but since our knowledge as human beings of all that exists is very limited, then there must be other beings who are perfect in knowledge, and who act as the means by which our universe exists.
My previous post was inspired by an old episode of Police Story from years ago (I realize there are adults who have been born since that old series was on TV; yikes!) In this episode a young cop is married to a hippie philosophy major, and as time goes along they have less and less in common. Finally, he comes in from a particularly horrifying crime scene to find her discussing this particular conundrum with her other college friends, and as a put-down they ask him "if the tree falls ...." to which he replies "if a girl is beaten to death in the forest, and there is no one there to hear her scream, is she really dead" (and from the look on his wife's face we can imagine their marriage is pretty much over).
In any case, it pays to keep in mind that events exist outside your ability to perceive them.
If there is no "listener" then there is no sound. Sound is only given substance by a listener who can perceive sound.
This is true. To look at it another way, if there is an event that you wish to monitor, you must find a way to sense the event. If the event makes some physical change, we can devise an instrument that will sense that change, and translate it into a form that our eye and brain can recognize. We can devise a way for the shock wave to generate an electronic signal that will be displayed on my monitor as a sine wave or a flashing red icon. If there is no instrument to sense the event, and translate it into an electronic signal, then there will be no graphic display. But the tree did fall, and the shock wave that our instrument captured or (failed to capture) did occur.
it is simply impossible for a single person to know of everything that exists. Nor is it possible for mankind, collectively, to know of everything that exists, and I'm speaking of just those things that are possible to detect given our limitations.
That would be a truism.
Imagine a non-conscious being that is completely impossible to perceive with our senses, could such a being exist? The answer is no.
I don’t think my existence is contingent on your ability to see me, and atoms didn’t spring into existence in this past century. I might seem deliberately obtuse here, but it isn’t deliberate (I am obtuse, as my friends will attest), but I will reject this point. Those things that exist, existed prior to and independently of my ability to instrument them.
If there is no conscious rational being to perceive a non-conscious being, then it is not possible for that being to exist, it is a logical contradiction.
No.
And if we are using our rational consciousness to perceive a non-conscious being, then that being is being perceived, if only in our mind's eye.
Imagine the shock to the space-time-continuum that must occur each and every time we blink.
The only way such a universe can exist is if there is a rational, conscious being that can perceive it--if only through thinking--that such a thing exists!
No.
the earth, the sun, and even the stars never existed before the first conscious, rational human being! They literally did not exist. Why couldn't they exist before the first human? Because existence and consciousness are bound together, and cannot be logically separated.
This is what happens when you shoot long range with open sights. A very tiny error in your sight picture can lead to a man-sized error at 300 yards, and a Volkswagen sized error at a thousand yards. Existence and consciousness are not bound together. Only your existence and your consciousness are bound together.
The rock does not exist because I saw it. It moved because I kicked it, but it existed whether or not I was ever born.
I am also a platonist, I suppose, I believe that there are principles by which this universe is designed. But those principles and the universe designed by them exist separately from my ability to draw breath or conceptualize them.
Tag, you're it.
Well, the correct answer is "no." Since "sound" is only possible given the following conditions:
The writer begins with the above axiom, as if it were a universal Truth; whereas, it is actually only a tenet (Article Of Faith) within his philosophy/religion.
But there is something we can be sure of: if we perceive that a being exists, it exists,
Dreams, hallucinations, products of the human imagination: all of these can cause us to perceive “beings” which have no counterpart in objective reality.
The only way we can know, for sure, that something exists is through our sense perceptions.
Hallucinations, magician’s tricks, etc.
This piece may be a useful tool for showing those who are mired in Platonism that extra-temporal, extra-material intelligences exist, but it leaves them open to reverence (or worship) spiritual entities which pretend to be, but are not, those beings: which are, in truth, the triune God of the Bible, and His angels.
The initial axiom is a pile of sand, upon which it is unsafe to build a useful edifice.
DG
The most important point to remember is this: consciousness and existence are inseparable, but since our knowledge as human beings of all that exists is very limited, then there must be other beings who are perfect in knowledge, and who act as the means by which our universe exists.
If saying it made it so, you'd be correct. Alas, it doesn't.
Thanks for pinging me.
Yes, but is it green?
As a Flatlander, my first "clue" that space/time is not 2 dimensional - is when the angles of the triangle don't add up to 180.
We, of course, are those flatlanders.
And we are prejudiced because of our limitations. For instance, it is the inability to observe (vision/mind) additional dimensions which causes the presumption that the additional dimensions are compactified strings (Kaluza-Klein theory). Some theorists however do consider the possibility of higher dimensional dynamics. In these calculations, matter of all kinds arise in four dimensions as a result of vacuum in higher dimensionality.
Some physicists - such as Lisa Randall as I recall - also suggest that the reason gravity is so small by comparison to the other fields is that it is interdimensional. Following this open string theory - positive gravity is a space/time indentation and thus negative gravity would be a space/time "outdent" (which curiously corresponds to the acceleration of the inflation of the universe, i.e. dark energy).
Other physicists, such as Cumrun Vafa - suggest that there must be an extra temporal dimension which unifies the various string theories. Again, an extra dimension of time would go a long way to explain non-locality and superposition - but it is vigorously resisted because it would also do injury to physical causality (time being a plane instead of a line).
At bottom, our "vision" into such things is computational - like the Flatlanders in your story who discover their world is not two dimensional after all when they add up the angles on the triangle and it is not equal to 180 degrees.
It seems clear that spatio-temporal existence does not and cannot define “all that there is.” And yet all spatio-temporal existents seem to possess some form of consciousness, be it simple sentience or awareness, to self-awareness, all the way up to self-consciousness – which is generally thought to be the exclusive property of the existents at the very “top” of the hierarchy of being, that is, of man. For if being itself is ultimately conscious – and preeminently so – then its manifested existents will also have a form of consciousness, which enables us to see in 4D the image or likeness of ultimate reality. But what we see is not ultimate reality itself, merely a reflection of/participation in it.
If existence is “restricted” in the spatio-temporal sense, then the types of insight rational existents can have into the nature of universal being, or truth, will be correspondingly restricted. The terms being and truth are synonymous in both the classical and Christian traditions, each of which in their own way recognizes that being is divine – infinite, eternal -- and existence mortal – finite, contingent. This would especially be the case if perception is imagined to be the primary (some might say exclusive) tool of any such investigation. For direct perception deals with physically-manifested bodies only.
Yet it appears the human mind can apprehend realities that are not physically-manifested bodies, realities that transcend our 4D forms/categories. I imagine the reason for this is the self-conscious mind (operating within the existential realm) has extension in a dimension or dimensions that surpass the 4D of common experience. That is, mind can intelligibly, reasonably access the realm of being that transcends the 4D block. Mind has timeless, transcendent dimension and thus extension; similarly, existence has timeless, transcendent dimension and extension – which is called infinite being.
I am beginning to suspect that people need to think in categories/dimensions outside of 4D to come up with even a rough understanding of the world and our place in it. It seems the materialists/metaphysical naturalists want to confine their investigations to the “tip of the iceberg,” so to speak – the visible, i.e., material part of nature only. They refuse to recognize that the very structure of reality may come from depths that the eye can never perceive. (Though it seems the mind can.) Commonly when people say “perception,” what they inevitably mean is “sense perception,” or mental processing of data coming in from the outside (material) world. But it seems clear to me that the source of order/organization in the material world and of the Universe is absolutely undetectable to sense perception.
That’s part of the problem of the “observer”: There is always much more going on than he can physically observe, even within the confines of 4D spacetime alone, let alone its extension in other space/time dimensions. Of course, another key sense of “observer” is the quantum physical one, and it’s a duzey, too: the observer “decides” what to observe; and this is what causes “state vector collapse,” or the reduction of an astronomically large probability distribution of all possible events to one single outcome. I see similar transactions occurring in the macroworld, summed up in statements such as “the thinker intends the object of his thought” (i.e., decides what he will think about, leaving all other possibilities aside at the time).
Your “tree in the forest” example suggests that, for some people, if there is no one to perceive the tree crashing down, then it’s still standing up. Which is to say that if an observer wasn’t there, then the event didn’t happen. Yet it seems the most we can really say about this is, if an observer wasn’t present, there would be no way for us to learn about the supposed happenstance, or to validate it. To say more than that would be to make all of phenomenal reality dependent for its existence on a consciousness “exterior” to itself, and a human one at that. Yet the human observer is never really “external” to that which he perceives. That is an illusion, “albeit a persistent one,” as Einstein might say. For human existence is “internal” to the world process, a part of it.
And so I like the way George Berkeley, the Irish empiricist, handled this problem: He said that all the existents in the universe are what they are because God is observing them. If God were to withdraw his constant observation/perception of his creation, then immediately it would cease to exist. All of reality would instantly fall apart, dissolving into the nothingness from which it originally arose. I hear resonances to Sir Isaac Newton’s sensorium Dei in Bishop Berkeley’s insight here.
Well, so much for my maunderings. Thank you ever so much, Ronzo, for your penetrating and provocative essay!
Thanks for the ping!
BTW, I figured out in 5th grade that only I exist and everyone else is just a figment of my imagination.
No offense...
Oooooops!
No offense...
None taken, RobRoy. :^)
Dinosaurs leave fossil tracks too, even no one made plaster casts at the time. Fossil wind patterns can be seen at Canyon de Chelly (which has an interesting pronunciation.) Fossil bark beetle tracks in petrified wood is amusing as I just had to remove 13 piñons due to beetle damage (fortunately FEMA paid and put a restriction on planting more); seems like beetles have been eating bark for a long time.
PING!
Just thought you'd like to see that someone is boldly going where we have already transcended before.
"The initial axiom is a pile of sand, upon which it is unsafe to build a useful edifice."
I believe you have it. Sound is a physical phenomenon and the sounds made by non animate objects are independent of animate objects. A rock roling down a hill on Mars is making a sound whether we are there to hear it or not.
As to whether consciousness and existence are separable, consider brain dead, but otherwise "alive" people - a topic related to certain recent news. A brain dead person that is still biologically alive, exists, without consciousness.
Then there are so many organisms that have no way of being conscious such as bacteria, but they certainly do exist (I know BB and AG may not agree).
If one were to say that Man loses his humanity when he loses his consciousness, I might buy that.
Perhaps the biblical among us will remember why Peter was chosen to build Christ's church. DG - you are right, the foundation for this whole thing in not only rotten, I don't think it actually exists.
I assert that the color red cannot be destroyed, regardless of whether all manifestations of "red" are destroyed.
"Red" refers to a range of frequencies of light. Light is composed of photons. Although it is not always (or, in a finite universe, ever) possible to talk of THE frequency of a photon, nevertheless I can confine its spread of frequencies so that they are contained within the red band, thus, a "red" photon.
Now assume a universe where, in your frame of reference, all "red" photons cease to exist. Does "red" exist? Of course it does: any given photon can become, for you, a "red" photon, if only you move in the right direction at the right velocity. You simply Doppler shift the photon to the proper band.
So in order to destroy "red", we must first destroy all photons. Unfortunately, this is also impossible, because the vacuum itself is, in a deep sense, composed of virtual photons. As long as there are charged particles around in the universe, it is inevitable that some of the virtual photons will become realized, sprayed from the vacuum like a wake on the Dirac Sea. Every charged particle will have to go too, in order to destroy "red".
But if there are no charged particles, the weak force must go, too, because the W bosons are charged. Even the neutrinos must go, now, because in principle, they can radiate W's.
The strong force, I'm afraid, must also be lost, because in order to be finite, the gluons must pry quark loops from the vacuum, and quarks, being charged, must be forbidden, lest "red" exist.
So what's left? Gravitons. That's pretty much it. But if the Grand Unification Theories are correct, they too will couple to electromagnetism, so they may have to be eliminated to destroy "red". At that point, I submit that it is tantamount to a nonexistent universe.
The animals in the fossil record, could we say they were able to perceive their environment? The creatures studying the fossil record, can we say they are conscious and intelligent enough to understand their research? ... Are we so certain that our perception level is as far as it will ever rise?... If there are Angels, we certainly don't perceive them on a regular basis, but that doesn't preclude their existence, it just defines the limits of our perception abilities.
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