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

SCHOOLS OF INDIAN THOUGHT – PART 1 – RAMANUJA’S VISHISTHADVAITA VEDANTA

  SCHOOLS OF INDIAN THOUGHT – PART 1 – RAMANUJA’S VISHISTHADVAITA VEDANTA APRITHAKSIDDHI : The central concept of VisishtAdvaita Philosophy is that Brahman alone is organically related to the soul (chit) and matter (achit) and is the ultimate reality. Chit and Achit are absolutely different and yet inseparable from Brahman. Though these two entities draw their very existence from Brahman. Brahman is independent of them just as the soul is independent from the body but remains the inner controller of both chit and achit. This relationship of inseparability is called Aprithaksiddhi. Empirically we find that a substance and an attribute though different yet are related to each other inseparably. Take for example a blue jar. The jar is different from the colour blue but both are referred to in the judgment, “This is a blue jar”. Perception reveals them to be identical but yet they cannot be identical, for jar is certainly different from the blue colour and not all jars are blue nor...
Post a Comment
Read more

On The Concept Of Person In Indian And Western Philosophy - Part 1 - Intelligence

The primary difference between the two approaches lies in this that Indian philosophers that do believe in the existence of a soul, do not only hold that we have a soul separate from the body but that the soul can exist without any physical or mental attributes altogether. An example is the Advaita Vedanta school and Sankhya school that holds the Soul to be of the nature of pure consciousness and on the other hand schools like Nyaya and Vaisesika that even though do not subscribe to the view that soul is pure consciousness, still believe that soul is a substance that can exist without the quality of consciousness and will. On the other end of the spectrum, even those who do deny the existence of the soul like Buddhists, even among them some like Yogacara school believe in pure consciousness even though they do not believe in a soul. To be clear the concept of a person is composed of two elements, one unity of consciousness and second, the substratum of desire and volition i.e. a person...
Post a Comment
Read more