Skip to main content

Would the universe still exist if there were no conscious beings to observe it?

 

This would not be true even in a subjective idealism like that of Berkeley because even if there is no matter and the esse of the world is its percipi, it is not the percipi of common human beings but of God. So, if the question pertains only to human beings the answer is yes, the world can exist even if no one is watching.

But perhaps the question goes deeper. It concerns the objectivity or the reality of the universe. It is believed that there can be no genuine objectivity if it is relative to the subject. Consider Kant’s thing-in-itself; we arrive at the latter by subtracting everything subjective. The purely objective is then something unthinkable because if I could think it, it would be subjective. But if it is unthinkable, it is also unknowable. Many scientists think that physics informs us about the Kantian thing-in-itself, but if Kant is right, the thing-in-itself is outside the reach of science because it cannot be reached at all. It is so objective that it is as good as nothing. Its existence and non-existence are, as it were, of no concern. On the other hand, the subjective has been freed from any constraints of reality. Now the subject becomes the arbiter of truth and falsehood. It is true because I think so; it is moral because I consider it to be so. The subject has become unbridled because any objective constraint is a limit to its freedom. Nor is anything objective in place to constrain the subjective because it has been put out of reach of the latter.

I think pure subjectivity and pure objectivity are abstractions; the truth is the unity of the subject-object. So the material universe can exist without conscious observers, but it is not purely objective in the sense of being outside the reach of subjectivity altogether. Subject and Object are united in a third - the highest unity we consider to be God, outside which there is nothing, and so neither pole of opposites should be given greater prominence over the other.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ramanuja and Nimbarka

  The primary question for any Vedanta philosophy is what is the relation between Brahman and the world and Brahman and the individual souls. Nimbarka takes this relation to be one of identity and difference. He gives the analogy of a coiled snake and of sun and its rays. Brahman is both immanent and transcendent; the souls and matter are really just the different manifest states of the one Brahman. The concern with such a philosophy is to show that the immanence of Brahman does not compromise its unity and the impurities that accrue to the soul and matter do not thereby affect Brahman. Ramanuja believes that this is not possible in the Bheda-Abheda system (his criticisms of Bhaskara would with certain modifications apply also to Nimbarka). The reason is identity and difference cannot be affirmed simultaneously of the same object. Identity is an absolute relation or in the logical terminology of Nyaya it is a locus pervading relation. In terms of Modern Logic identity is a reflexiv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why does the world exist? What purpose does it serve? An Indian Perspective

  When we talk about purpose we mean an activity that has a beginning and an end and a finite number of steps in between in and through which a task can be accomplished. So when we ask about the purpose or reason for the existence of the world we mean to inquire about why the world began to exist and when and how that purpose can be fulfilled which would be the end of history or the universe as such. There cannot be such a thing as an eternal task which we can see in Sisyphus’s story would render all activity pointless. There is also another sense of purpose in the sense of an immanent end which is not incompatible with eternity of the world. I shall elaborate that both these senses of purposefulness are rejected by Indian philosophers and then I shall explain in what sense liberation (moksha) is the purpose of our existence and the ultimate human good. Advaita Vedanta believes that the world is an appearance of the true ultimate reality Brahman. We have been trapped in the univers...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Difference Between Advaita Vedanta And Madhyamika Buddhism

  For Advaita Vedanta but not for Madhyamika, everything except Brahman is unreal. Why is it unreal? Because they lack a self or an essence. What lacks an essence has no genuine identity, because what is dependent on another cannot also be identical with itself. A chariot, for instance, is nothing over and above its parts arranged in a certain way. It has no essence, no existence that is not dependent on the parts. It has no existence outside of human conventions that treat these myriad parts as a single entity. These conventions have no foundation in reality, and everything is a conglomeration of parts to which we ascribe an essence. For Advaita Vedanta, everything different from the self or anything that is or can be an object of the self is unreal. The Self is something that necessarily exists and is unnegatable, while the existence of the world is transitory and is negated in Brahman-realization, like dreams are sublated upon waking up. Why does the world appear to us if it is ...
Post a Comment
Read more