# Is all matter driven by/made of consciousness? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 1, 2014, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092 "2014-04-01T15:59:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/21 "2014-04-01T17:35:28Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, whatever it is, it was working before humans came along and I see no reason that it won’t continue to work after humans go extinct, so it’s definitely not _human_ consciousness that’s holding everything together… Not only that, these forces existed before any life at all evolved anywhere, so it wasn’t the consciousness of dinosaurs or pond scum either. ---
**Author:** ![nole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@nole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nole)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/22 "2014-04-01T17:38:40Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Not only that, these forces existed before any life at all evolved anywhere, so it wasn’t the consciousness of dinosaurs or pond scum either. You guys are misinterpreting this as “does the conscious human mind drive/make up all matter?” I’m speculating on consciousness as something that exists whether or not humans exist, or as something we “tap into” but do not hold exclusivity over. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/23 "2014-04-01T17:52:30Z")
Well, it’s a nice thought, but you haven’t presented any evidence or even an idea of how evidence in support of it might be gathered. So what you’re really saying is, “Wouldn’t it be cool if this was so?” But your OP title is asking if it is in fact true, and the rest of us are saying, “Given the absence of any evidence – no.” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/24 "2014-04-01T18:24:03Z")
I’m sick of string theory. I propose _zing_ theory, where the universe is made up of tiny little quips and barbs. You can’t prove me wrong, therefore I’m right. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/25 "2014-04-01T18:26:36Z")
So you are proposing a silly string theory? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/26 "2014-04-01T18:28:23Z")
Ah, touché. Which in zing theory is a fundamental force. ---
**Author:** ![nole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@nole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nole)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/27 "2014-04-01T18:30:59Z")
If I had proof of anything, I’d be writing a paper for publication in a science journal, not casually discussing it on a message board. You’re right, I am essentially saying “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Well… Wouldn’t it?? Stop being so sensitive people, jeez. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/28 "2014-04-01T18:32:27Z")
> [@nole.](#): > > I realize there is very little hard evidence to prove what consciousness is or how it works, but I must admit I am a fan of this view of the universe. It is quite poetic & beautiful, and for selfish reasons (I am a writer), it works for me. [QUOTE=nole.] I’m speculating on consciousness as something that exists whether or not humans exist, or as something we “tap into” but do not hold exclusivity over. [/QUOTE] May I ask why this idea would appeal to you? It’s a very limited, and limiting, conception of what consciousness is, and what it can be. If it’s just something that some life forms are able to “tune” into and receive, then there’s just one kind of consciousness in the entire universe, and conscious beings are essentially antennae. Conversely, if consciousness is a purely material process, and internal to each conscious being, then it is limited only by the varying material underpinnings that could conceivably evolve, or be designed. In that view, “consciousness” can have a nearly infinite variety, as opposed to one variety. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/29 "2014-04-01T18:32:36Z")
> [@nole](#): > > If I had proof of anything, I’d be writing a paper for publication in a science journal, not casually discussing it on a message board. You’re right, I am essentially saying “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Well… Wouldn’t it?? Stop being so sensitive people, jeez. Not proof-_evidence_. Do you have any _evidence_ to support your idea? ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/30 "2014-04-01T18:34:33Z")
> [@nole](#): > > I am essentially saying “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Wouldn’t it be cool if…what? 😕 I’m having trouble parsing what your topic’s supposed to be about. Yes, all matter may be the pertubations of mysterious as-yet-proven “strings of energy”, but it’s a huge freakin’ leap to assume said strings make up any sort of universal consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/31 "2014-04-01T19:15:01Z")
Let’s assume the universe is conscious. Now let’s assume it’s not conscious. What difference should we expect to see? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/32 "2014-04-01T19:52:00Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > I mean there’s at least the ghost of an argument there . . . Saw what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/33 "2014-04-01T19:53:08Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Let’s assume the universe is conscious. > > Now let’s assume it’s not conscious. > > What difference should we expect to see? If it’s conscious, it will try even **harder** to kill us. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/34 "2014-04-01T19:54:14Z")
> [@nole](#): > > If I had proof of anything, I’d be writing a paper for publication in a science journal, not casually discussing it on a message board. If you can’t bring proof or evidence, you might at least bring some better arguments. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/35 "2014-04-01T19:55:09Z")
\*\*Is all matter driven by/made of consciousness? \*\* I think it is. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/36 "2014-04-01T19:58:56Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > \*\*Is all matter driven by/made of consciousness? \*\* > I think it is. If I may: I think, _therefore_ it is. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/37 "2014-04-01T20:05:21Z")
> [@nole](#): > > No worries brother. Do we conclusively & without a doubt _know_ what this force is? There are still huge chunks of the nature of reality that science has yet to understand, not that it won’t, I am fully confident that with a long enough timeline it will, but it isn’t all there yet. With a little Googling, I find that the forces that hold the atom together are the electromagnetic force and the strong interaction force. Electromagnetic force holds the electron with the nucleus, and the strong interaction force holds together the quarks. Each of these forces have lots of pages describing them in great detail, in far more technical manners that I am qualified to judge. My impression is that it is quite conclusively known that are indeed the forces that hold the atom together. ---
**Author:** ![Gamecockadam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@Gamecockadam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gamecockadam)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/38 "2014-04-01T20:51:10Z")
A similar concept called “Biocentrism” has been proposed by Robert Lanza. His book is fascinating. The basic premise is that life does not arise out of the material world. The material world arises out of life. Very Zen. > **[Biocentrism](https://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and-consciousness-are-the-keys-to-understanding-the-true-nature-of-the-universe/)** > > Like “A Brief History of Time” it is indeed stimulating and brings biology into the whole. Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. Almost every society of mankind has explained the mystery of our surroundings and being by... ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/39 "2014-04-01T20:58:05Z")
> [@nole](#): > > I’m not qualified to present anything as fact. I’m merely bringing up a subject that I find interesting. Do you not consider the origin & nature of consciousness to be a valid scientific question? If not, then fair enough. I don’t think it is out of the question that there are laws which it follows. To the best of my knowledge consciousness on a grand scale has not been disproven, the experiments I’ve learned about add fuel to the fire that it could exist but in no way give conclusive evidence one way or another. The research being done in Princeton under the name of the “Global Consciousness Project” is quite intriguing. Noetics? Well I took a look at their table where they lay out their +400 significant events. I assigned a weight of 0 to all results then weighted predicted direction to 1 and significant/opposite and significant to 2. So the number of events has increased since 1998. They use to have 20 odd events but it’s now +35. The weird thing is that the median and IQR of the weighted events for each year doesn’t move (the average doesn’t do anything cool either). Why do I think that’s weird? Well they assume collective attention on events will trigger a shift in the RNG of an EGG. Well since 1998 internet connectivity and global awareness has sky rocketed - you would have thought this ever increasing pool of attention would shift the overall results more and more as the time period progresses. Now the sample size is really small, the idiot doing the quick look isn’t involved in it and didn’t read too deeply into the experiment but I’m underwhelmed by what I see. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092/40 "2014-04-01T21:00:20Z")
> [@nole](#): > > If I had proof of anything, I’d be writing a paper for publication in a science journal, not casually discussing it on a message board. You’re right, I am essentially saying “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Well… Wouldn’t it?? Stop being so sensitive people, jeez. The issue here is that generally, when people are trying to figure out the nature of existence and that sort of thing, we’re interested in actual answers - that is, we’d like to know that our explanation bears some sort of resemblance to reality. This is what we call “science”. The only way to know this is to check our ideas out against reality - experiment, observation, evidence, proof - you know, the scientific method. Now, if someone just wants to shoot the shit and moon about, wondering about the whichness of the why and generally mentally meandering like a teenager on weed, that’s fine. But it’s not science. That’s what we call “philosophy”. It’d be nice if the thread made it clear which one you’re doing. To me, and it seems, to most of the readers, it sounded like you were wanting to do science, but now you’re saying you’re actually more interested in the other. Which is it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-all-matter-driven-by-made-of-consciousness/685092.md?page=3)