What hold Primacy?

[bernee51]

What holds primacy – consciousness or existence?

There are two opposing position which I believe are exclusive and exhaustive.

"Existence" - i.e the phenomenal universe holds primacy (is ontologically independent of) consciousness. This is the primacy of consciousness.

The primacy of consciousness holds the opposite; the universe is somehow dependent upon some form of consciousness. This consciousness the theist calls ‘god’.

Is it possible for consciousness to exist independent of existence? If we consider the world and our awareness of it we discover objects in our awareness such as a mountain, a lake or another person, we do not experience these objects as "coming into" existence with our initial awareness of them. We experience them as stable parts of reality, as unalterable facts of reality that exist independent of our awareness, but still perceivable by a means of perception. It would appear then that for consciousness to exist it requires something to be conscious of – consciousness is the awareness of existence.

Can consciousness be aware of itself? For any individual x, is it possible for x to be aware of nothing but its own consciousness? FWIW my personal experience with meditation would suggest not. It is not possible to observe the Witness because any observation is an object in awareness. Consciousness cannot observe itself for it would then be an object in the awareness of itself.

Consciousness, in my view, is an evolutionary development our of physical existence.

[QED]

You have an a priori assumption that there is meaning and purpose of the universe and of man which needs an explanation.

On what basis is can this assumption be justified - other than faith (i.e. wishful thinking)?

It doesn't interest you so don't bother with it. You wouldn't understand.

Nick_A, earlier in this thread I alluded to "cosmic ambiguity". I think Bernee appreciates what I meant by this. In my experience some things simply do not have any objective meaning. While I can see how "transdisciplinary thinking" (or whatever) might be the best hope of determining meaning if it exists in an appropriate sense -- it does nothing to remove the ambiguities that prevent us from knowing if it's actually appropriate or not.

I'm not sure if you appreciate the relevance of my way of looking at this. It seems to me that searches for meaning are a kind of "audit of intent". If I pick up any item and study it I can attempt to trace its origins along a chain of intention. If it's a man-made artefact I will soon arrive at intent, probably a whole series of intentional choices from which a great deal of meaning may be extracted. But if I pick up a natural object like a rock (let's suppose it's a moon rock uncontaminated by the intent of any being likely to fashion it) then our audit trail most likely leads us directly to whatever intentional element "nature" contains.

Now I think it can be safely said that it is possible that "nature" has no such element. The mere existence of nature is insufficient to establish intent and in the absence of intent I would argue that there can be no objective meaning.

[bernee51]

You have an a priori assumption that there is meaning and purpose of the universe and of man which needs an explanation.

On what basis is can this assumption be justified - other than faith (i.e. wishful thinking)?

It doesn't interest you so don't bother with it. You wouldn't understand.

Nick_A, earlier in this thread I alluded to "cosmic ambiguity". I think Bernee appreciates what I meant by this. In my experience some things simply do not have any objective meaning. While I can see how "transdisciplinary thinking" (or whatever) might be the best hope of determining meaning if it exists in an appropriate sense -- it does nothing to remove the ambiguities that prevent us from knowing if it's actually appropriate or not.

I'm not sure if you appreciate the relevance of my way of looking at this. It seems to me that searches for meaning are a kind of "audit of intent". If I pick up any item and study it I can attempt to trace its origins along a chain of intention. If it's a man-made artefact I will soon arrive at intent, probably a whole series of intentional choices from which a great deal of meaning may be extracted. But if I pick up a natural object like a rock (let's suppose it's a moon rock uncontaminated by the intent of any being likely to fashion it) then our audit trail most likely leads us directly to whatever intentional element "nature" contains.

Now I think it can be safely said that it is possible that "nature" has no such element. The mere existence of nature is insufficient to establish intent and in the absence of intent I would argue that there can be no objective meaning.

I don't pretend to answer for Nick but I gather from other posts that he would hold that there is meaning and purpose because there is intent. His 'god' or 'consciousness' intended the universe to come into existence through involution with the meaning and purpose of evolving back to 'god' or 'consciousness'.

'nature' is just a by product of this involution/evolution.

This it would appear, he has gleaned from the 'six hundred dollars worth of books' he appears to hold in such high esteem.

IOW it a supposition and opinion which takes his fantasy because it offers a 'rational' explanation to the mystery of existence.

Does that sum it up Nick?

[William]

What holds primacy � consciousness or existence?

There are two opposing position which I believe are exclusive and exhaustive.

"Existence" - i.e the phenomenal universe holds primacy (is ontologically independent of) consciousness. This is the primacy of consciousness.

The primacy of consciousness holds the opposite; the universe is somehow dependent upon some form of consciousness. This consciousness the theist calls �god�.

Is it possible for consciousness to exist independent of existence? If we consider the world and our awareness of it we discover objects in our awareness such as a mountain, a lake or another person, we do not experience these objects as "coming into" existence with our initial awareness of them. We experience them as stable parts of reality, as unalterable facts of reality that exist independent of our awareness, but still perceivable by a means of perception. It would appear then that for consciousness to exist it requires something to be conscious of � consciousness is the awareness of existence.

Can consciousness be aware of itself? For any individual x, is it possible for x to be aware of nothing but its own consciousness? FWIW my personal experience with meditation would suggest not. It is not possible to observe the Witness because any observation is an object in awareness. Consciousness cannot observe itself for it would then be an object in the awareness of itself.

Consciousness, in my view, is an evolutionary development our of physical existence.

My own understanding of Consciousness is that it determines reality.
It is also self aware so in that sense it can observe itself, even in the sense that we are conscious and can observe our consciousness in the form of thought, but often this has to do with what we think we are - we do not think of ourselves as consciousness but as the human body for the most part, but it is not impossible to shift the awareness to thinking we are the consciousness within the human form.

It would appear that consciousness can be defined as self awareness but can also be used to mistake its own identity.

In this sense yes, consciousness is an evolutionary development of our physical existence in that it thinks it is human rather than that it is consciousness experiencing a human life.