I ran across this idea a few days ago and found it quite interesting. Thought it might be good for a bit of philosophical debate. The nature of consciousness and its role in the reality we experience has been a theme in numerous threads. This theory attempts to answer the question:

Does the Universe create Life, or does Life create the Universe?


http://www.theamericansc...-theory-of-the-universe/


Without perception, there is in effect no reality. Nothing has existence unless you, I, or some living creature perceives it, and how it is perceived further influences that reality. Even time itself is not exempted from biocentrism. Our sense of the forward motion of time is really the result of an infinite number of decisions that only seem to be a smooth continuous path. At each moment we are at the edge of a paradox known as The Arrow, first described 2,500 years ago by the philosopher Zeno of Elea. Starting logically with the premise that nothing can be in two places at once, he reasoned that an arrow is only in one place during any given instance of its flight. But if it is in only one place, it must be at rest. The arrow must then be at rest at every moment of its flight. Logically, motion is impossible. But is motion impossible? Or rather, is this analogy proof that the forward motion of time is not a feature of the external world but a projection of something within us? Time is not an absolute reality but an aspect of our consciousness.

This paradox lies at the heart of one of the great revolutions of 20th-century physics, a revolution that has yet to take hold of our understanding of the world and of the decisive role that consciousness plays in determining the nature of reality...


Other articles that are condensed versions of the above:

http://discovermagazine....w?b_start:int=0&-C=/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31393080/

http://www.forbes.com/20...za.html?partner=yahootix

Wikipedia

I love this sort of thought. Thanks for the excellent links Saidin!

Pokey the Philosopher

Reality is a side effect of consciousness. Consciousness is the only thing that's real. Nothing else actually exists.

Very nice text. Summarizes and answers allot of issues.

And I mostly agree. Without perception there is no reality. A reality is always a construct, an interpretation, an experience.
Space and time are the dimensions in which we perceive this reality. They are aspects of our consciousness.
Real illusions.

Also i like the way he uses the Zeno arrow paradox to explain Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Check it out.

And then he ends with:
"We are living through a profound shift in worldview, from the belief that time and space are entities in the universe to one in which time and space belong to the living."

Nice

But i dont think this is a new theory. The name biocentrism is new to me though...
Why?? Because he realizes "The universe of space and time belong uniquely to us genome-based animals." ???

That’s a very thought-provoking article. Thanks for sharing it. I’m familiar with the idea of consciousness creating (abstracting) reality, but I haven’t seen this particular interpretation.

The article is long and complicated, so I’ll have to re-read it before making any substantial comments, but I like it.

There is one thing I don’t like: it states that reality depends on “life”, when it’s clear upon reading that what is really being stated is that reality depends on “consciousness”. Are these terms interchangeable in the context of the article? Seems to be.

Must be the consciousness of the "genome-based animals" to which the concept of space and time belong.

"...the biological creature that makes observations, names what it observes, and creates stories."

"We must become skeptical of the hard reality of our most cherished conceptions of space and time, and of the very notion of an external reality,
in order to recognize that it is the activity of consciousness itself, born of our biological selves,
which in some sense creates the world."

If a tree falls in the woods and no ones there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Waveforms permeate omnidirectionally for any local sensors to detect...

There was no tree.

Thanks for the brainfood! I will definitely read this

"If a man says something, and there is no woman there to hear it, is he still wrong?"

No offense intended here. I still laugh when I hear this one.

Hmmm... I'm a thread-jacker.....


Pokey the Amused

No you are not. You just go with the flow.
Nonetheless your remark is an insult to my masculinity. lol

this was on coast to coast-am a few nights ago, i downloaded it and will listen.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2010/03/26

http://rapidshare.com/fi...38/C2CAM_MAR_26_2010.zip

Great article, really enjoyed it. Changing the way we look at the world might indeed get us to understand it in a very different way.
I love the theory of it.

Thanks a lot

Peace
Elpo

I found this article a bit disappointing because it was often wooley, full of waffle and worse still unexpained leaps of faith presented as fact.

A funny thing to say when you then go on to make speculations and present them as fact.

If I die, I presume you will all continue to exist. What justification is there to state that this model would change such that if all living things died, reality would cease to exist?

Not necessarily, surely a correct theorem is not created, but is a mere description of that which already occurs.

I think that paradox of the arrow is flawed. Here's what I think. Forget time, and think of change in its place. Seconds, minutes and hours etc are our own standardised measurements of change. If you could stop 'time', you would of course stop change. Motion is one type of change. So, it is not motion that is impossible. It is the stopping of change/time that is impossible. So, the conclusion of the paradox is the wrong way round. If it WERE possible to stop time, then motion would indeed be impossible, at least while time was stopped... because time is change and change involves motion.

There is no past nor future, just ever-present change.

Has anyone ever said that before, or am I a genius? It's pretty obvious really I think.

You can kind of go 'back in time' theoretically... if you could get everything to change back to how it was to put you back in the same place as you were before. Of course in reality this is a logistical impossibility at the very least. And you wouldn't really have gone 'back in time' as we like to think of it: you would have just moved on, then resumed a previous position, with the forward and rewind bit occuring in between showing that you hadn't really 'gone back in time' in the science fiction sense. Time is relative of course as experiments have shown Einstein to be right in that respect, but I don't think this counts as time travel.



Why can't it just be coincidence? And maybe life would have formed in a different way if the laws of physics had been different (not that that's really relevant).



Once something has happened, it is a certainty (probability=1, certain), so the statistical probability of an event happening is not affected by all that has gone before. If the author disagrees with this, he should dispute it, otherwise I have to assume he is unaware of it and mistaken.



What evidence is there that we could do this? If anyone knows why it is that some people claim that all things actually happen simultaneously, please explain. The author should have explained this really. The record player analogy is not good enough, nor is one Einstein quote- neither turn the stated belief into fact.

And remember my previously stated opinion that 'there is no past nor future, just ever-present change' which clashes with this record player analogy of the past and future actually existing.



If anyone can elaborate on why he thought this or knows of credible criticisms of this view (which I think the author should have done), please let me know.



Well, I can't comment on this as I'm not an expert and it seems to me that even the experts argue about whether or not this is true, so how can it credibly be presented as fact?



Well I disagreed in my earlier thoughts on the arrow paradox. And if you're going to write an article claiming this, why not offer some proof before making statements like this with such certainty?



Field of mind? Another leap of faith in any case.



I would like to know if this is actually true. I am already suspicious of the author so I can't take it as truth. Can anyone comment?



If anyone knows whether or not this quote is used in the correct context or knows of credible criticisms of this view, please let me know.



I would be interested to hear opinions on this from people in the know.



So does the author think that the universe not exist without at least one conscious being to observe it? In this scenario beings did not evolve from unconscious chemicals into virusy things into amoebas into people. Beings existed the whole time, otherwise the universe would not have been able to exist. This runs contrary to evolution theory. Unless the consciousness was somewhere else before it begun to inhabit beings. I.e., there was 'god' who started it (or at least always existed) because the universe had to have consciousness in order for evolution to begin, and this consciousness slowly inhabited beings as evolution occurred.



Why so sure?



Really? I commented on this belief before. This sentence is weasley, it seems carefully worded to imply that scientists believe that it's tailor made without directly saying so. Is the discovery really causing 'a huge commotion within the astrophysics community'?


Really? Care to offer some proof?

Just because we view the world through an mind-manifested image, that doesn't mean that we are creating it. Just because our brains can construct illusions as well either deliberately during sleep or accidentally during malfunction, that doesn't prove that what we call reality is similarly deceitful.

I thought he meant this... see my thoughts on how evolution fits into his theory.

You make less scientific assumptions, I think, so this is hypocritical. Can anyone comment on the actual scientific rigour of the theory that life did emerge from evermore complex chemicals? I don't know how much work has gone into that part of evolution.

So do the scientists on here think that this author is credible? I'm not saying that he's wrong. I am just saying that I personally don't find the article rigorous or credible. I was a bit disappointed.

Finally, what is the agenda of The American Scholar? I noticed that it's banner shows a document entitled "The other Christianity" coming through a letterbox. I couldn't shake off a sneaking suspicion that this document was covertly pushing forward a Christian Science agenda. There were pseudoscience alarm bells ringing in my head, certain hallmarks were present (stating belief as fact, leaps of faith, not explaining properly, even references seemingly opposing God and Intelligent Design that for some reason gave me the hunch that the author is nevertheless religious).

I hope someone reads this, the article raised some interesting points that I'd love to be informed further about.

The article makes the case that the entire universe is conscious, that it is created by consciousness. What is the difference between a universe in which everything alive died, a universe in which to life/consciousness never arose, and a universe that doesn't exist at all? There is no differece. If consciousness is not the cause/foundation of existence, then nothing could exist. neither exists because there is nothing there to confirm or validate existence.therefore if all living things died, the universe



There is non past nor future, just the ever present NOW.

The paradox is not flawed. You either do not understand it, or are attempting to apply it where it contextually doesn't belong. It is a perfect example of Heisenberg/s Uncertainty Principle.

Is there any type of change that is not motion of one kind? And is that motion something that exists "out there" or is it constructed by our own internal perceptions? Change and time are interchangable, and we call the smallest measure of that the Planck Time.



It's called the Goldilock's Principle. The laws of nature(physics) are so precise in some cases, that a difference of one billionth of one percent(.000000001) would have made it impossbile for the universe to exist. Its not that if the laws weere different there wouldn't be any life or life would be different, its that medium for life to develop cannot even exist! Our universe is perfectly suited for life, and he is making the argument that that is no accident.




So by this logic, the only thing you can know with any certainty is that you exist, and only in the present moment. There is no past nor future, its all a collection of "nows". Are you also really trying to claim that what comes before does not affect the persent? Just think of all the extraordinary circumstancees that have to have happened over the last 13+ billion years for you to actually be reading this at this moment. That is not statistically irrelevant... 1 : 13.7 billion x 10^-44



There is no evidence but it is logically viable. If one could step outside of time, then one could experience time non-sequentially. The author did explain with the phonograph record analogy. If existence is like a phonograph record, then everything exists at once, but we are limited by our perception of it by the motion of the needle upon the record. If we as the needle could disengage, and rise above the spinning disc of creation, we would be able to percieve existence non-sequentially. There are abstract concepts, so you have to understand them though metaphor. Everything exists, but we are limited to our knowledge of it by being trapped with a limited perception. New things are not discovered, we only reveal what already exists.

Your opinion about the past and future do not contradict the record player analogy, they reinforce it.

[/quote]

This has been proven. Those who continue to argue against it are those who cannot deal with its implications.

[[/quote]

YES IT IS TRUE! The two slit experiment (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Princpal)has been verified/repeated thousands of times in the last 40 years with the same results.



The author, and whole point of Biocentrism is that consciousness is the foundation of reality. It does not in any way run contrary to evolution theory, and in fact supports it. He is arguing that consciousness was everywhere from the beginning, it gave structure to the world around it. It evolves though various stages to become self aware again. Some people call this consciousness "God". Others: Field of Mind, Love, Brahman, Tao, Creator, I AM, One, All That Is...etc, etc, etc...

If consciousness creates everything, and you are conscious...you therefore create everything.





I'll repeat...look into the Goldilocks Enigma. There is an excellent book written by Paul Davies discussing this exact concept in detail. Obviously life is tailor made, otherwise we couldn't exist.



You forget to mention that these "illusions" can also be contructed deliberately though: Drugs, Meditation; Fasting; Sungazing; Self Mortification. One can easily alter their perception of reality and thus create a different one. It doesn't prove that what we call reality is similarly decietful, but it calls it into question significantly such that we cannot truly be sure what is real outside our own limited perceptions.




It is not hypocritical. There has been a lot of work done into the orgins of life. But as of this moment, scientists have very little understanding as to how life first comes into existence. Once it appears, sure they can explain it all...but what causes the spark that changes inanimate chemicals into life?



There is no agenda. That article was written in 2007, and I included exerpts from that and a book he released in 2009 in the list of additional articles. Discover, MSNBC, Forbes. He is considered an expert and pioneer in his field, so I guess his credibility depends upon how well he makes the case for his ideas. This article has nothing to do with pushing forward a Christian agenda. The concepts he is bringing forth appear in all religions/spiritual traditions across the planet thoughout recorded history. It is an attempt to incorporate spiritual/esoteric/subjective experiential knowledge with scientific understanding for a more wholisitc view of existence.

I agree that the article makes the case that the universe is created by consciousness. I did not get from the article that he believes that the entire universe is conscious. If this is what he believes, that is a massive point that he should have spent much more time explaining. And he should then have explored how the universe would then have started, or if it started at all. If he does believe that the entire universe is conscious as you say, this makes me think he is holding back the ramifications of his beliefs and just concentrating on trying to use science to make the beginning point for his views seem credible... but not quite succeeding. Seems to me he was holding back from stepping further into the realms of philosophy. And that arrow paradox is still unconvincing... I can guess what the postmodern linguist philosophers might make of it.

As for the wave/particle stuff, I was taught that at school a decade and a half ago, along with a load of simplistic BS such as "light only travels in straight lines" (I corrected the physics teacher on that one, haha it made his jaw drop!). I neither accept it as true nor false because yes it seems improbable that the observer would really affect the outcome and it's been discussed a lot on here before, I remember Fiashly and Burnt having a big argument about it. I should probably give my primer on quantum another read, but I don't remember it being stated as fact that the observer affects the outcome at all. Throughout the history of science revolutions happen and old theories that didn't quite cover everything get replaced... so I am sceptical of this claim that these little guys decide how to behave based on the observer, and I'm waiting for someone I can be confident in to convince me. Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. Please don't be offended by this, but I can't just take your word for it. Hence why I asked, just in case a quantum physicist happened upon this thread and wanted to give their opinion on it. Even if it were true, it still doesn't prove that the universe is conscious or even that consciousness shapes the universe outside of the experiment.

Your other replies didn't sway me either, sorry. I actually do have an open mind, albeit a critical one, but this article just didn't resonate with me at all. I read New Scientist all the time and rarely feel so unconvinced about the articles in there. Maybe because they don't make claims without proof (the mistake which makes this guy sound religious/unscientific). Maybe he's just not very good at explaining himself. I would love it if the universe were conscious- because I don't want to die, of course- so I don't actually benefit from disputing this theory in any way.

I just thought he said reality is created by consciousness. Then the universe is created by consciousness for as far as your reality, or our consensus reality, is part of that universe.

By consciousness we experience a reality. Without consciousness there is no experienced reality. Your personal reality will die when your personal consciousness will die, when your brains die. Our consensus reality will die when we die. Without humans there is no human reality (reality perceived by us 'genome-based-animals'.) This does not mean everything will cease to exist. It only means human reality will cease to exist.



from the article:
"Physical reality begins and ends with the animal observer. All other times and places, all other objects and events are products of the imagination, and serve only to unite knowledge into a logical whole. "

Thats why everything always appears complete. It all fits, because you make it fit. In this way it is intelligent design. Your design, our design.
No coincidence.

It is the reality in which you experience life and living which is tailor made. Just like everything you see fits perfectly in space and time.



Time is a dimension in which we experience a reality. no more no less. it is no absolute. you cant touch it.

It would be logic to assume that within a unity there is no direction. A phonograph itself is non-sequential. Like yin yang it symbols a state of superposition, a unity.

From the article:
"Our thoughts have an order, not of themselves, but because the mind generates the spatio-temporal relationships involved in every experience. We can never have any experience that does not conform to these relationships, for they are the modes of animal logic that mold sensations into objects."

Zuang Zu:
The one who dreams of drinking wine,
In the morning may be crying.
The one who dreams of crying,
In the morning may go hunting.

When one is in a dream,
One does not know one is dreaming.

One may even dream while in the middle of dreaming.
Only after awakening does one realize it was a dream.

Similarly, only after one experiences Great Awakening,
Does one realize that this is all one big dream.

But the fool thinks he is awake.
He is self-assured in knowing this.

The so-called kings!
The so-called ministers!
Persist in their delusions.

Chu and you are both dreaming,
I say you're dreaming, I'm dreaming too.
This kind of talk,
Its name is "bizarre."

The truth is, we don't explicitly know.... but the very strong implication is that the observer has no effect on the outcome. The "observer" is just a term for interacting matter, introduced because of course one can't detect a thing without interacting with it in some sense. Consciousness is neither necessary nor implied on the part of the observer.

We can't be absolutely sure that the observer has no effect on the outcome since no one knows how the wave equation resolves into eigenstates. But we do know that the distribution of eigenstates that it resolves into directly mirrors the probability density (we can't know what value it will resolve to, but we do know the probability that it resolves to a particular value). From this it follows that IF an observer has influence on an outcome, then by so doing they would prevent future observers from being capable of having the same influence (which seems to me to contradict the whole notion of the observer having an influence). If every observer was influencing outcomes, the calculated probability density would cease to be relevant, but in reality it's a literally perfect reflection of quantum behavior.

So in short, we can't outright dismiss the notion, but the cards appear stacked very very heavily against it.

This entire quantum mechanics wave function collapse being done by consciousness is a total myth based on a deep misunderstanding of quantum mechanics and a misuse of the early language of its pioneers.

I'll read to article and comment on its scientific merit shortly.

Saidin I apologize in advance I like our debates though and I'll try not to get out of line