Chicken or Egg of Consciousness

The following is an excerpt from a dialogue I had over the internet with my friend Obi. We were debating the nature of consciousness. In this excerpt, it was my contention that consciousness must necessarily precede the universe. Obi argued that the universe came first and consciousness sometime afterward. I made some minor changes to the text for the sake of clarity.

Although it did not come up during the dialogue, my argument is indebted to the “Schrodinger’s cat” theory which says that before something is observed, it exists as a field of potentiality; it is only the act of observation that makes it “real”. This idea is a crucial theory of quantum mechanics. Those interested should refer to the infamous “double slit” experiment.


Obi: My claim was that consciousness was a part of the natural world, and is subjected to the same constraints as every other thing in the natural world. Do you disagree?

Brady: Yes. I contend that the natural world is part of consciousness. I should think that obvious!

Obi: Why should it be obvious? The Christian will disagree and say that the soul transcends the natural world. It is immaterial, free of physical constraints, and so on. It will defy any attempt to locate it in the natural world.

Brady: Why should it be obvious? Show me anything from the natural world without consciousness. You can't because there is no "you" and there is no "me" without consciousness. The world needs something to perceive it for it to exist.

Obi: I don't think so. For example: the Earth is 5 billion years old. The universe is perhaps four times that. That was true before people were around to observe it.

Brady: How do you know?

Obi: The evidence suggests it.

Brady: But what if there was no Obi to look at the evidence.

Obi: This isn't controversial, Brady. Denying that the Earth and stars existed before brains existed is a pretty radical claim.

Brady: It's not radical to suggest that the perceived requires a perceiver.

Obi: It is radical to claim that a physical object's existence is dependent on an observer. I am not looking at my toilet right now, but it still exists.

Brady: How do you know?

Obi: Because the evidence suggests it.

Brady: Who perceives that evidence?

Obi: Myself and other observers.

Brady: But how do you know those other observers even exist? I mean how do you know they have consciousness like you do? You surmise that they do, but you can never really know.

Obi: I find it intuitively obvious. It is the hypothesis that best fits the evidence.

Brady: Yes, YOU find it intuitively obvious; It's the YOU perceives their existence.

Obi: I do not claim certainty. I claim abduction to the best explanation. I suspect 99% of the whole world also agree that this is the best way to interpret the evidence, and any alternative is radical.

Brady: It doesn't matter. From your perspective, if you ceased to exist, so would the rest of the universe.

Obi: From my perspective, right now, the world would continue to exist when I cease to exist. There will be no perspective after that.

Brady: Right. Therefore consciousness precedes the natural world.


Obi was not satisfied with this last reply, and the debate continued afterward. I end the transcript here, because we veered off topic and ultimately didn’t finish the conversation, but at this point I think the essence of my argument was communicated.

Thanks Obi!