The Coherent Causality Argument

[William]

For years, I've seen Christians argue for a supernatural creator - an entity outside nature, beyond scientific understanding, uncaused and eternal.

But if "supernatural" means beyond understanding and evidence, how does that explain anything rather than simply labeling the unknown as unknowable?

Here is an alternative argument that retains a first cause but removes the incoherence of supernaturalism. I welcome thoughtful engagement, particularly from theistic perspectives, on the following:

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Definitions (Oxford Languages):

Supernatural: (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Supernaturalism: the belief in a supernatural agency that intervenes in the course of natural laws.

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The Coherent Causality Argument

P1: Everything that begins to exist within nature has a natural cause.

P2: It is generally accepted in modern cosmology that this universe (our spacetime reality) had a beginning.

C1: Therefore, this universe has a natural cause.

P3: A “natural cause” means a cause that operates within some framework of consistent laws, is potentially understandable in principle, and is part of a broader causal reality.

P4: A supernatural cause, by definition, is beyond natural laws, understanding, and evidence, thus it cannot function as a causal explanation.

C2: Therefore, the cause of the universe is not supernatural - it is part of a broader natural reality (a “source reality”).

P5: This source reality may be eternal, timeless, or uncreated relative to our universe, but it is still natural in the sense of being coherent, consistent, and conceptually describable.

C3: Since an infinite regress of contingent causes provides no ultimate explanation, the source reality must be eternal (or necessary).

Overall Conclusion:
The universe was caused by an eternal natural entity - not by a supernatural one. This avoids the explanatory dead-end of supernaturalism while still satisfying the demand for a causal origin.
(By “natural,” I mean “operating within some consistent framework of cause and effect, even if outside our observable universe.”)

Note on Consciousness:
If the natural source-entity is intelligent and consciously creative, this would provide a coherent origin for consciousness itself, potentially resolving the "hard problem" by grounding subjective experience in a fundamental, conscious cause. This is not required by my argument, but it is a logically consistent possibility if one accepts both an intelligent source and the principle that consciousness cannot emerge from purely non-conscious substrates.

A Clarification on Terms:

If “supernatural” simply means existing outside our universe but still operating by consistent, higher-level laws, and is not being used in its strong, classical philosophical sense here, then it becomes a subcategory of the natural - understood broadly as any reality operating within a coherent framework of cause and effect.

If, however, “supernatural” means wholly beyond understanding, outside any consistent laws, and intrinsically inexplicable, then it cannot meaningfully explain anything—including the origin of the universe.

This argument proceeds under the second definition, which is both standard in philosophical discourse and necessary for the term “supernatural” to retain any distinct meaning. If you hold the first definition, then your “supernatural” cause aligns with what I term the eternal natural source-entity—and we are largely in agreement on the nature of the first cause, differing only in terminology.

Q1: If a cause is supernatural - beyond understanding and evidence - does it actually explain anything, or does it merely relabel an unknown as unknowable?

Q2: Can a Christian (or any theist) coherently define God as both supernatural (in its strong, classical philosophical sense) and personally interactive without contradiction?

[William]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #68]

Presently you are only engaging with the consciousness-matter side of the synthesis - Mithrae's Ground Consciousness Argument (GCA), while completely ignoring the ontological necessity argument (the CCA core).

This is a critical strategic gap in your response. Treating the proposal as just a "consciousness fundamentalism" and attacking it on those grounds (demanding evidence for interaction, calling it a "different hard problem"). You are not addressing why a necessary ground is required in the first place, or why a brute material totality is less rational.

Your framing assumes a dualism ("consciousness interacting with matter") which my integrated model explicitly rejects. To evaluate the CCA/GCA integration fairly, we need to address both its logical steps. Currently, your critique focuses on the second step, while the first step establishes the framework that makes the second necessary.

A necessary, coherent ground is required (CCA).

The most parsimonious identity for that ground is consciousness (GCA + parsimony).

You need to engage with both steps. If you reject step 2, you must propose a better identity for the necessary ground. If you reject step 1, you must defend an infinite regress or brute contingent totality as more rational.

So, does your alternative model—whether brute materialism or a non-conscious necessary ground—offer a more coherent and parsimonious explanation of both existence and consciousness than the CAA/GCA integration model?

[William]

To Mithrae, a direct and necessary clarification:

Your Conscious Ground argument is compelling, but it remains incomplete without answering the ontological question I posed. To reiterate:

"Does your Conscious Ground function as the necessary ontological foundation for all contingent reality, or is it merely the first contingent cause in an infinite chain?"

This is not a minor detail. If your ground is contingent, it becomes another brute fact in a series, failing to provide an ultimate explanation for existence and leaving the Hard Problem unsolved (as a contingent consciousness would itself require explanation). If it is necessary, then it must be ontologically immediate—the foundational ground of being—and your view logically converges with the CCA's first step.

Your argument requires the CCA's logical framework to secure the necessary foundation it needs. Without it, your consciousness-first view lacks ontological grounding and risks being assimilated into Alexx's infinite regress.

To all three interlocutors (Mithrae, Difflugia, Alexx):

The CCA/GCA integrated - what we can term the Conscious Necessary Ground (CNG) thesis—proposes a two-step, integrated model:

Necessary Ground Axiom: A necessary, uncaused, and coherent terminus to reality is required to avoid an infinite explanatory regress.

Consciousness Identity Thesis: The most parsimonious and explanatorily powerful identity for this ground is consciousness itself, as it directly satisfies the epistemic primacy of experience and dissolves the Hard Problem.

The challenge remains: Does your alternative model - whether brute materialism, emergent physicalism, or a non-conscious necessary ground - offer a more coherent and parsimonious explanation of both existence and consciousness than the CNG thesis?

I invite you all to engage with the complete model. If you reject step 1, defend an infinite regress or brute totality as rationally superior. If you reject step 2, propose a better identity for the necessary ground and justify its superiority. If you accept both, then we are in agreement.

Please move beyond piecemeal criticisms and present a positively stated, complete alternative that outperforms the CNG thesis on the criteria of coherence, parsimony, and explanatory scope.

This thread was initiated to present and examine the Coherent Causality Argument and its synthesis with consciousness-based arguments—the Conscious Necessary Ground thesis. To continue productively, the discussion must engage with this complete model. I invite you all to do so directly by addressing the challenge above. If the focus shifts permanently away from evaluating this thesis, then the purpose of the thread has been sidestepped, and those interested in a different debate (e.g., the specifics of emergence vs. fundamental consciousness) may wish to continue it elsewhere.

[William]

[Replying to William in post #56]

William,

I'm sorry for the confusion. If I understand you correctly, I'm saying I think the principle is foundational. I also believe a supernatural (in the 'immaterial' sense) cause operates within a framework of consistent causality, so I'm saying it would be a coherent, necessary ground, your C.

Tanager,

Thank you for the clarifying reply. This is very helpful.

We now have clear agreement on the first and most critical step: the terminus of explanation must be a Coherent, Necessary Ground (your Option C). This aligns perfectly with the core conclusion of my Coherent Causality Argument (CCA).

A note on terminology: Your description of a "supernatural (in the 'immaterial' sense) cause" that operates within a framework of consistent causality aligns with what I would term "weak supernaturalism"—a transcendent ground that is nonetheless coherent and rational. This is distinct from "strong supernaturalism" (a lawless, incoherent cause), which the CCA rules out as Option B. So, we are agreed we are discussing Option C.

The discussion in the thread has since evolved to integrate this with another key argument, presented by Mithrae. This synthesis forms what I'm now calling the Conscious Necessary Ground (CNG) thesis. It proceeds in two integrated steps:

The Necessary Ground Axiom (from CCA): A coherent, necessary, and uncaused ground is required. (We agree here.)

The Consciousness Identity Thesis (from Mithrae's Ground Consciousness Argument): The most parsimonious and explanatorily powerful identity for this ground is consciousness itself.

Reasoning: Conscious experience is the primary, irreducible datum of existence. To posit a non-conscious necessary ground would reintroduce the "Hard Problem" of consciousness (how experience emerges from non-experience) as an ultimate, unexplainable brute fact. Identifying the necessary ground as conscious dissolves this problem at its root and satisfies the epistemic primacy of consciousness.

Therefore, the complete CNG thesis posits that reality is grounded in a necessary, coherent, and conscious foundation.
This is also why my note on consciousness was part of the Opening Post - anticipating the argument that a necessary ground, to be truly explanatory, would have to account for the fundamental reality of consciousness.


Your "supernatural" appears to be a specific version of a conscious necessary ground, one with added attributes like personhood and intentional will.

The refined question for our debate now becomes a comparative one:

Given our agreement on Step 1 (the need for a necessary ground), which identification is more parsimonious and explanatorily powerful?

(A) A Non-Conscious Necessary Ground (e.g., an abstract principle, a brute physical totality).

(B) A Conscious Necessary Ground, fundamental and without additional attributes (the core CNG thesis).

(C) A Conscious Necessary Ground with specific personal attributes (a divine will, as you suggest).

My argument is that (B) is the most parsimonious starting point. It explains existence (via necessity) and consciousness (via identity) without further complexity. Models (A) fail on consciousness. Models (C) must demonstrate that the added attributes (personhood, will) are necessary to explain the evidence (e.g., cosmic fine-tuning, rational order et al) and not just psychologically satisfying additions.

I invite you to engage with this complete, two-step model. Do you find the move from Step 1 to Step 2 logically compelling? If you prefer model (C), what is the positive argument that personal will is a necessary attribute of the conscious ground, rather than a contingent feature of its manifestations?

[Difflugia]

Presently you are only engaging with the consciousness-matter side of the synthesis - Mithrae's Ground Consciousness Argument (GCA), while completely ignoring the ontological necessity argument (the CCA core).

The last time I addressed all of the flaws in the argument, you told me that what I wrote was "a mess." Make up your mind.

This is a critical strategic gap in your response.

If either prong of the argument fails, the argument as a whole is moot.

Treating the proposal as just a "consciousness fundamentalism" and attacking it on those grounds (demanding evidence for interaction, calling it a "different hard problem"). You are not addressing why a necessary ground is required in the first place, or why a brute material totality is less rational.

I addressed your post exactly as you made it. If you wanted me to address something else, you should have led with that.

Your framing assumes a dualism ("consciousness interacting with matter") which my integrated model explicitly rejects.

In the context that I said that, I was describing a logic behind designing experiments, even if they're thought experiments. The model I'm assuming isn't dualistic, either; consciousness is just a property of certain patterns of matter. If you're not distinguishing consciousness from matter even as concepts, then you're just making it hard to express or talk about your model coherently.

To evaluate the CCA/GCA integration fairly, we need to address both its logical steps. Currently, your critique focuses on the second step, while the first step establishes the framework that makes the second necessary.

I already addressed the first. You incorrectly claimed that Copenhagen interpretations of quantum mechanics still require some underlying fields or something. I pointed that out, which completely undermines the basis for your claim of necessity. If you want to just say that the universe has some underlying determinism (the reason most models add things like ontologically real fields), then that's fine, but as it stands, your appeal to quantum mechanics for support is wrong.

A necessary, coherent ground is required (CCA).

To recap, your current formulation of this is wrong, There is no evidence that quantum events in our universe are necessarily caused. That means that there's no ground for asserting that the universe is necessarily caused. Therefore, there's no basis for asserting an underlying "ground."

The most parsimonious identity for that ground is consciousness (GCA + parsimony).

You've said this, but I'm not convinced you know what parsimony means.

You need to engage with both steps. If you reject step 2, you must propose a better identity for the necessary ground.

No I don't. If step 2 fails, that has nothing to do with any replacement I might have.

If you reject step 1, you must defend an infinite regress or brute contingent totality as more rational.

I don't need either. The universe is contingent on a non-contingent quantum fluctuation. No infinte regress. That's consistent with all of the evidence we have. That's at least as rational as your CCA, which as far as I can tell is only speculative assertion.

So, does your alternative model—whether brute materialism or a non-conscious necessary ground—offer a more coherent and parsimonious explanation of both existence and consciousness than the CAA/GCA integration model?

Uncaused quantum fluctuation leading to the universal expansion? Yes. It's coherent in that it aligns with the most conservative interpretations of quantum mechanics. It's parsimonious in that it aligns with experimental data.

[William]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #74]

You've clarified your position usefully. There's a critical misunderstanding to correct, and a significant admission in your reply.

The Category Error: You reject the CCA by appealing to quantum indeterminacy. This conflates physical causality within a universe with metaphysical grounding of a universe. The CCA addresses the ontological question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It is not about whether events within an existing spacetime continuum are causally determined. Quantum mechanics, while profound, is a theory about the behavior of an existing physical reality. It cannot answer the question of why that reality exists at all. Using it to dismiss the necessity argument is a category mistake.

The Critical Admission: You propose your own terminus: "The universe is contingent on a non-contingent quantum fluctuation."
This is pivotal. You have conceded the logical core of the CCA. You agree the explanatory chain requires a "non-contingent" (i.e., necessary, uncaused) terminus. Our debate now narrows exclusively to Step 2: the identity of this necessary ground.

Let's evaluate your candidate: a "non-contingent quantum fluctuation."

It is Incoherent: A "quantum fluctuation" is not a primitive. It is a concept from quantum field theory that presupposes the existence of a quantum field (a physical entity), a vacuum state, and governing laws. These are complex, contingent features of a specific physical paradigm. To call the necessary ground of all being a "quantum fluctuation" is to project the contingent details of our universe's physics onto the ultimate explanation. It is akin to calling the necessary ground a "non-contingent galaxy" or a "non-contingent chemical reaction." The formulation is self-negating; you've attached a contingent descriptor to a supposedly non-contingent foundation.

It is Explanatorily Bankrupt for Consciousness: Even ignoring the incoherence, your model fails catastrophically on the other major datum. You posit a necessary ground that is a non-conscious physical event. From this, the entirety of subjective experience must inexplicably emerge. You have (poorly) addressed existence with an incoherent concept, and offered nothing to address the Hard Problem of consciousness. Your model simply assumes the miracle of emergence.

Comparative Model Evaluation: Conscious Necessary Ground (CNG) vs. Your Model
(note: CNG = CCA + Mithraes Ground Consciousness models integrated)

We now agree on Step 1: A necessary ground is required. Let's compare our proposals for its identity.

Your Model: Necessary Ground = Non-contingent Quantum Fluctuation.

CNG Thesis: Necessary Ground = Consciousness.

Coherence: "Necessary Consciousness" is a coherent, simple concept. Consciousness is immediate, self-intimating, and requires no parts. "Necessary Quantum Fluctuation" is incoherent, as argued above.

Explanatory Scope: CNG explains both existence and experience in one entity. The physical universe is understood as its coherent manifestation. Your model explains existence with an incoherent concept and does not explain experience - it merely posits an unexplained emergent property from non-conscious stuff.

Parsimony: True parsimony minimizes unexplained explainers. CNG posits one fundamental, intelligible reality. Your model posits a necessary physical-something (an incoherent construct), plus the unexplained emergence of consciousness, plus the eternally given laws of quantum physics. Your model is demonstrably more complex and less explanatory.

Your appeal to "alignment with experimental data" is a scientistic red herring. It assumes only intra-universe physical data counts, while ignoring the datum of consciousness itself and the metaphysical logic of grounding. The CNG is parsimonious across the full set of data, which includes the logical necessity for a ground and the fact of subjective experience.

Your challenge is now precise: Defend the coherence of "non-contingent quantum fluctuation" as a concept. Then, explain how it solves the Hard Problem. If you cannot - and by your own standard that failure renders an argument moo - your proposed alternative collapses.

The CNG thesis remains the more coherent, parsimonious, and comprehensively explanatory model.

[Mithrae]

To Mithrae, a direct and necessary clarification:

Your Conscious Ground argument is compelling, but it remains incomplete without answering the ontological question I posed.

Our knowledge is incomplete. Seems to me that your 'philosophism' is even more flawed than Alexx's 'scientism.' Platonic forms and ontological arguments have a much longer and wilder history of failure and absurdity than rigorous observation and experimentation do. While there are mistakes in assuming that everything discoverable must be amenable to rigorous observation and experimentation (and in failing to recognize the philosophical rather than scientific nature of that assumption), at least it functions in most cases as an error-constraining philosophy rather than an error-creating one. You can't think or define reality into being what you want it to be; it is what it is, and if the past few millennia have taught us anything it should be that our primary tool in learning about reality should always be experience, usually in the form of external observation, not internal imagination. Logic helps direct our learning and should help restrain our wilder flights of fancy; if you think that you're using it to discover something that is otherwise far outside the realm of human experience, more than likely you're simply doing it wrong.

To reiterate:

"Does your Conscious Ground function as the necessary ontological foundation for all contingent reality, or is it merely the first contingent cause in an infinite chain?"

This is not a minor detail. If your ground is contingent, it becomes another brute fact in a series, failing to provide an ultimate explanation for existence and leaving the Hard Problem unsolved (as a contingent consciousness would itself require explanation).

You must realise that's a false dichotomy. We can make inferences about our reality, however much our observation and experience of it becomes expanded over time. Speculating about stuff beyond our reality can be fun, but it's kind of pointless. It seems overwhelmingly likely that consciousness is a fundamental feature of our reality. Why would imagine that then has to be verbally massaged into becoming an Ultimate Grand Theory of Absolutely Everything in order to be useful? I'd say the opposite; trying to do so dramatically reduces the credibility of the argument.

[Mithrae]

That's... a little misleading. Even today our best brain-scanning instruments can detect neural impulses or regions of activity or whatever, but we're not observing the feeling of pain or the smell of flowers; we're observing mechanical phenomena, not qualia or consciousness.

Which is why I framed it as I did. As far as we can tell, that is, to the limits of our ability to perceive and express consciousness, what I said is true. It's not misleading. It's still possible it's not true, but even considering the case you mention later on, the evidence is flimsy at best.

The limits of our ability to perceive consciousness are our own individual bodies; but the existence of that conscious stuff is the most certain thing we can know, and conversely we have no reasonable grounds at all for positing the existence of non-conscious stuff. What we do have are excellent reasons for concluding that there is consciousness beyond our bodies in other humans, other mammals, other vertebrates and non-vertebrate animals, we have plausible grounds for inferring the presence of consciousness even in bacteria, and no grounds for inferring its absence even on planetary or universal scales. So I'd have to say that I misspoke, albeit in the interests of politeness; saying that "consciousness exists if and only if a physical brain exists" is extremely misleading even qualified by "as far as we can tell."

A comparable instance of a dubious but not conclusively falsified argument would be trying to build a meaningful case from what is technically a fact that "As far as we can tell" life only ever begins on the third orbiting planet of yellow dwarf stars on galactic fringes when the universe is ~10 billion years old.

Your claim of logical fallacy works just as well on the observation that we've never actually detected a leprechaun when a quantum event occurs. It's a logical fallacy to claim that therefore leprechauns aren't responsible for quantum events.

My claim is that there's no evidence that leprechuns cause quantum state changes or that consciousness exists apart from brains, therefore neither is likely to be true.

You're assuming one no-evidence idea (the existence or plausibility of any kind of nonconscious stuff to begin with) in order to mock what you then incorrectly infer would be a no-evidence idea (consciousness existing without brains). Let's first be clear that there is plausible evidence for consciousness without brains, it's just not conclusive evidence. On the other hand, while you seem to put more weight on it than I would - lack of evidence is not the only or even among the best reasons for supposing that leprechauns aren't responsible for quantum events - I certainly agree that lack of evidence is a significant point against an idea's reasonableness. That's precisely why, pending some evidence, it makes a lot less sense to imagine a largely nonconscious reality than to imagine a fundamentally conscious reality; the former is based on fallacies and positional biases, particularly from our infantile development process and destructive tendencies, while the latter is extrapolated from the most certain things we can know.

Things like phototaxis and chemotaxis are understood at the cellular and chemical level. If you're claiming that bacterial responses are on the same continuum as consciousness, then they're direct evidence that something directly analogous to consciousness can be mediated fully by chemistry. Put another way, the fundamental property of the universe that you're calling consciousness might just be physics.

Organic consciousness is caused by the causal processes of our reality, yes; that was always going to be the case whatever name we strive to study them under, but obviously using the terms chemistry and physics to describe those processes or the study of them doesn't bring you any closer to showing that they are nonconscious processes.

Quite the opposite, as long as we could suppose that consciousness exists only alongside super-complex brains we could perhaps imagine that there must be some kind of magical alchemy or 'emergence' going on there that we just haven't understood yet. There's a reason why that claim of "consciousness exists if and only if a physical brain exists" - however strained and however qualified - is always a go-to assertion in these discussions Bacteria are still very complex and not fully understood, but recognizing the likelihood of bacterial consciousness drastically undercuts the scope for and plausibility of this hopeful belief that an inconceivable transformation between objective matter and subjective consciousness must be rendered not-magical somewhere in the unknowns. If consciousness were instantiated even within bacteria that would reduce the available unknowns for the magic to hide in by many, many orders of magnitude.

It's noteworthy that there are some fairly well-documented cases in which consciousness seemingly persists in the absence of brain activity, one of the more striking being the case of Pam Reynolds.

That "seemingly" there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Even viewed as an experiment, the case is uncontrolled and the results are heavily subject to experimenter bias. There are many, many experiments probing consciousness. If you can find something a little more controlled that puts consciousness outside of a functioning head, I'm here for it.

Maybe you are, but I trust you understand by now that the real burden of proof in this discussion lies on the idea that a nonconscious/material reality is a notion worth considering? The epistemically conservative approach is to refrain from that supposition pending some legitimate grounds for entertaining it, and that in turn makes questions like human consciousness outside brains or bacterial consciousness outside brains little more than idle curiosities as opposed to the potentially shattering counterexamples they are for how the assumption of a material reality seems to play out every time I've had this discussion (ie. "consciousness only in brains"). On the plus side for the assumption of a material reality, that means that these could potentially constitute the kind of falsification criteria which make for a more robust theory... but if so, having falsification criteria wouldn't really help a lot if there are multiple plausible cases of falsification! I suppose one could probably construct a version of materialism in which non-neural consciousness in bacteria and humans would be permissible in any case.

[William]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #76]

Mithrae..

"Broader Natural Reality" vs. "Speculative Beyond"
The CCA's inference is tightly constrained by its own logic:

It is a relational "outside." It takes care of any speculative inference which might be argued, such as is the case with the many universes concept or Alexx's infinite regress argument.
The CCA argument concludes that for this universe to have a coherent cause, that cause must be part of a broader causal framework. "Broader" and "outside" are logical consequences of it being the cause of our specific spacetime reality. It is not a random speculation about unrelated realms.

It is a naturalistic "outside." By the CCA definition, "natural" encompasses any reality speculated and argued with consistent laws. Therefore, the "source reality" is not a wild flight of fancy exit from rationality but an extension of it. CCA argues for a more fundamental level of the natural order, not a leap into the irrational.

It is an explanatory necessity. The inference isn't made because it's simply "fun", but because there are fun speculations which do have merit and can be tested through the CCA which concludes that an incoherent terminus fails to explain. The "broader reality" is the only coherent solution allowed in such cases by the argument's own premises.

____________

My original question to you in post #60 was "Does your Conscious Ground function as the necessary ontological foundation for all contingent reality (including any 'layers'), or is it merely the first contingent cause in Alexx's infinite chain? If it's necessary, it cannot be 'distant' - it is the immediate ground of being. If it's contingent, then it cannot solve the Hard Problem for our consciousness, as it would be just another brute fact in the stack. Which is it?"

So, let's look at your argument again.

1 - We know that conscious stuff exists. It is literally the most certain thing we possibly can know; we experience, therefore we are.
2 - We have no legitimate basis for inferring the existence of nonconscious / material stuff.
3 - If we were to introduce that wild speculation that our atoms and so on are nonconscious stuff, it introduces a dramatically harder problem of consciousness.
C1 - Inasmuch as we make any inferences about the nature of reality, our working model should be that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality.
4 - Our observations, limited though they may be, suggest that reality exists and behaves in a largely unified, consistent manner.
C2 - A model of a single consciousness from which (or within which) our observable reality emerged is more parsimonious than a model of more numerous, localized or impotent/epiphenomenal consciousnesses.

Re C2, has this "single consciousness from which (or within which) our observable reality emerged" always existed, or did it have a beginning?

[alexxcJRO]

Why did you insert the word "material" into that last sentence? The more obvious phrasing would have been "external world" since its meaning is already implied by rejection of solipsism and the world 'existing outside me.' What intentional meaning or unintended biases* is conveyed by use of the extraneous and unsupported term "material"?

* Considering it's the focal point of discussion, it's hard to imagine it anything but intentional.

The term is not necessary. I simply could say the world. It was mostly for emphasis purpose.

What makes you think that? Can you observe consciousness, and if not how can you infer its absence?

Q: Do you really asked me if i should question rocks not having consciousness?

Bacteria possess the sensory organelles and reaction to stimuli which imply some kind of awareness or consciousness. Short of the circular assumption that organisms without a neural network cannot possess consciousness, why on earth would we suppose that bacteria are not conscious?

They just respond to stimuli. Do not have any subjective experience of the world. An internal self and awareness about it.

I think PFC(The prefrontal cortex) like structures is needed.

PFC plays a role in
-conscious "top-down" information processing (problem-solving and judgement)
-executive functions (self-control, planning, decision-making, behaviour activation and inhibition)
-attention and working memory
-personality expression
-metacognition and internal conflict resolution

[Difflugia]

The Category Error: You reject the CCA by appealing to quantum indeterminacy. This conflates physical causality within a universe with metaphysical grounding of a universe. The CCA addresses the ontological question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It is not about whether events within an existing spacetime continuum are causally determined. Quantum mechanics, while profound, is a theory about the behavior of an existing physical reality.

If you read more carefully, I'm not making the conflation you're accusing me of. The only reason that quantum events within the universe are relevant is that Kalam-style arguments lean on non-Copenhagen interpretations to justify the premise that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Even though cosmologies positing an uncaused tunneling event as the origin of the universe make distinctions between the conditions in the presence and absence of our universe, those that argue for the reasonableness of Kalam's first premise will assert that if the universe is uncaused, it is unique in being so, and therefore unlikely.

It cannot answer the question of why that reality exists at all.

It's as good an answer as any and better than most, even if you happen not to like it. De Broglie–Bohm and string theorists don't like it, either, so you're not alone, but it has the big epistemological advantage of not having to invent anything beyond what we already have experimental evidence for.

It is Incoherent: A "quantum fluctuation" is not a primitive.

It absolutely is.

It is a concept from quantum field theory that presupposes the existence of a quantum field

Absolutely not. As long as you continue to be wrong about this, you'll continue to mischaracterize my argument. Ask your AI what the differences are between Copenhagen and Bohm interpretations and how they relate to the ontological existence of quantum fields.