In the meantime, most scientists believe, dead or alive (whatever that means) things existed when consciousness did not exist. .

Im not trying to win an argument either;. Just to represent a point of view and to clarify my own thinking and to understand yours better. Our points of view our quite similar in many ways but we do have some important and significant differences.

I understand the anthropic principle. I just do not interpret it to mean that the purpose of the universe was to bring about human consciousness. I suppose the traditional view is so anthropomorphic (earth center of the universe, man the crown of creation only creature with a soul or a mind or reason, the entire universe as a stage for the human drama of sin and salvation) that I object to anything that sounds like that. Man is part of creation, not the purpose of creation.

materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself."[3] He claimed that an observing subject can only know material objects through the mediation of the brain and its particular organization.

Pretty much working on what jeeprs has already said, I would argue the following. I think it is silly to say that things exist (chairs, ducks, black holes) only as long as we exist, for that amounts to claiming that when we are absent a thing would vanish or that reality is dependent upon it being encountered by a human.

But...if we were to vanish, then what would vanish from the world would be the ability to understand these things as we happen to understand them. Ideas such as 'chair', 'history', 'processes of radioactive decay, the orbit of the planets and formation and death of stars', would disappear to the extent that we have understood these things in these terms.

Under such circumstances, it could not be asserted that entities exist or that they do not, because quite simply there could be no assertion about such things. The only correct thing to say is that entities may exist as the entities they are, but it would not be possible to state anything, and so it could not be said that entities continue to be or not :shocked:

for mind and rationality are present throughout and within nature.

There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.

This supports the idea that time itself is actually a function of consciousness. As Kant said.

What a peculiar thing to say! And before there was consciousness, how much time elapsed before there was consciousness?

Still thinking about this. I still believe that whatever kind of thing we consider, it exists in relation to a perspective. It is not possible that it exists from no perspective. I don't mean that if you close your eyes, or die, the universe ceases to exist. What I mean is that reality itself is our experience of the universe. It is true to say it is an experience of something. But what it is an experience of cannot be disclosed because we cannot get outside our experience of it.

Reality itself is the reality of experience. Our brain itself combines all of the sensory input and weaves it into the coherent whole which it calls 'universe'. This does not mean it is unreal or phantasmagorical or a figment of our imagination. But it does mean that it is not completely objective. It does not have inherent reality or inherent existence. It is objective in relation to a subject. There is no such thing as absolute objectivity.

This philosophical attitude is not my invention, incidentally.

---------- Post added 05-07-2010 at 08:27 PM ----------

and also, experience is not ours alone. There is a level of experience which is specific to the individual, but the deeper you go into the nature of experience, the less individuated it is. So it is not a matter of solipsism.

But...if we were to vanish, then what would vanish from the world would be the ability to understand these things as we happen to understand them. Ideas such as 'chair', 'history', 'processes of radioactive decay, the orbit of the planets and formation and death of stars', would disappear to the extent that we have understood these things in these terms.

Under such circumstances, it could not be asserted that entities exist or that they do not, because quite simply there could be no assertion about such things. The only correct thing to say is that entities may exist as the entities they are, but it would not be possible to state anything, and so it could not be said that entities continue to be or not.

However, we do have to be 'present' for our distinctions to exist. So, if we have to be 'present' for our distinctions to exist, then the only thing that 'makes a difference' on this planet is our 'presence'. Right?
'Faith' is letting go of all the 'concepts' and 'be-ing' you.Dasein (be-ing there)

The real question is would it make much difference to the universe at large?

What 'universe at large'? The universe at large is a conceptual construction (or 'vikalpa').

I think I am back with Kant's 'noumenon'. I don't think the universe is 'something that exists in your mind'. Neither did Kant. He was not a subjective idealist, he was an empirical realist and a transcendental idealist. He believed that science provides a true account of the real world, as do I. But he said we cannot know this world as it is in itself. The act of knowledge relies on our primary intuitions of space and time, which we bring to the party, so to speak, and within which phenomena are encountered. Phenomena exist from a point of view. I suppose we can presume that they also exist outside a point of view. But the way in which they exist, independently of a point of view, is not known to us. That is why he said we cannot know the thing in itself.

It is in this sense that that I think that all we know is our experience of the universe (although even that is not right, because it is not as if 'knowledge' is one thing and 'experience' another). What we call the universe - or whatever else we are looking at, or talking about - is manifestly a combination of sensory inputs - seen, heard, felt - combined by the human intelligence into a whole. This is what I mean by 'conceptual construction'. It is something much more inclusive and deeper than 'a concept'. It is more like a gestalt.

Now at this point, you will say 'but you are talking about the representation of the reality, not the reality itself'. What I am saying is that the object is a representation. It is not ultimately possible to differentiate the thing known from the act of knowing it. We will then try and look at the representation, the act of cognition, to differentiate it from the object. But representation itself cannot be directly cognized. Everything is a representation, including one's attempt to conceptualise the act of representation. We are always, actually, in the relationship of knower-act of knowledge-object.

The reason this seems so counter-intuitive is because we have a kind of 'master concept' which is the idea of the individual in the world, within which we represent objects in the interior theatre of consciousness. I think this is a form of Cartesian dualism. But it is an abstraction from the real nature of experience.

Reality is the act of knowing, not simply the things which we see. That is why I have said, reality is not what you see when you look out the window. Reality is you looking out the window. When you do that, you do it with all kinds of presuppositions, expectations, understandings, and so on.

This is all provisional at this time. Obviously it has a lot on common with World as Will and Representation, but I haven't read that yet. Nevertheless I think Schopenhauer was really onto something. But it is just something I am still thinking through. Thanks.

Frankly I have a lot of trouble with this concept. I guess my thinking is a little too concrete for it. For the universe has been plodding along engaging in process and change for 14 billion years or so and we have been around maybe the last 200,000 or so. So I fail to see how time conceived as process depends on human consciousness. If one thinks there is some universal mind that creates time (and Davies in some ways does) that would be a different question. To assert however that time (conceived of as change) does not exist without us to observe it reminds me of the eternal omniscient diety of religion and the 6.000 yr. old theory of creation and history.

Now at this point, you will say 'but you are talking about the representation of the reality, not the reality itself'. What I am saying is that the object is a representation. It is not ultimately possible to differentiate the thing known from the act of knowing it. We will then try and look at the representation, the act of cognition, to differentiate it from the object. But representation itself cannot be directly cognized. Everything is a representation, including one's attempt to conceptualise the act of representation. We are always, actually, in the relationship of knower-act of knowledge-object.

The perfection belonging to one thing is found in another. This is the perfection of a knower insofar as he knows; for something is known by a knower by reason of the fact that the thing known is, in some fashion, in the possession of the knower. Hence it is said in The Soul that the soul is "in some manner, all things," since its nature is such that it can know all things. In this way, it is possible for the perfection of the entire universe to exist in one thing.(De veritate 2, 2.)

Intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent beings in that the latter possess only their own form; whereas the intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower

Form is made finite by matter, inasmuch as form, considered in itself, is common to many; but when received in matter, the form is determined to this one particular thing... Form is not made perfect by matter, but is rather contracted by matter.

Isn't that last sentence a beauty? Universe in a grain of sand, eh? I am growing to love Thomas.

Hence it is said in The Soul that the soul is "in some manner, all things," since its nature is such that it can know all things. In this way, it is possible for the perfection of the entire universe to exist in one thing.(De veritate 2, 2.)

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.


But, is it true?

The ONE. It won't change your flat tire, but it's worth thinking on. I can only interpret a rejection of the beauty in such a line as a sort of hatred of the poetic, a preference for the prosaic. The prosaic will always be with us, whether we will or no. The poetic, or inspired (in-spirited), makes the prosaic worth tolerating, or shall we say it leavens the prosaic. To reference another quote, if the salt has lost its flavor, switch to pepper, right?

I argue that all culture is in-spirited. But "spirit" can turn on itself. And we get paradoxes like the knowledge that knowledge is impossible. Or a fanatical reductiveness that questions everything but its own motives. Always, in any "cultural" conversation, the implication of value, and the concept of this value. For me, this is spirit. An anti-wizard is still a wizard.

Part 2:

I also think of "existential time" as man's experience of the notion of mortality. This is as big a part of life perhaps as physics time, or social time, which tends to be conceived spatially. We say things like backwards in time, etc. And this makes sense, as we are faced beings. We see and walk in one primary direction. Therefore that which is behind us, is also often behind us temporally. (Which can only be conceived spatially, perhaps, because time arguably exists only as "nonbeing" by which certain philosophers only mean concept. What is concept? Is it spatial? I don't think so, excepting that the spatial is experienced conceptually. But what can we make of memories? Of projects not yet realized? Etc. )