sudly said:

But two systems without consciousness, like two galaxies or solar systems can be relational relative to one another.

There's no need to blanket consciousness over something thats already relationally relative without it.

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sudly said:

But two systems without consciousness, like two galaxies or solar systems can be relational relative to one another.

There's no need to blanket consciousness over something thats already relationally relative without it.

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sudly said:

The thing itself can have the role of the observer without a special role for consciousness.

One galaxy can effectively be the observer of another galaxy that is relative to it.

I think that's the idea.

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langten69 said:

Yes,  if i am comprehending this accurately,  this is true. All things can only be relative of each other in the whole system.  Its like the speed of light. The closer some "thing" reaches the speed of light, the less "massive" it becomes until it turns into pure energy/light
...

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butterflydawn said:

One thing that still confuses me, though, is the seemingly obvious fact that the world existed before any of us were here. If reality is somehow dependent on mind or experience, what exactly do we mean by a world that existed before there were human minds to experience it?

Buddhism, especially some Mahayana and Tibetan traditions, seems to raise a related question: how much of the reality we experience is actually “out there” as we assume it is, and how much is shaped by consciousness, perception, concepts, and conditions?

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redgreenvines said:
questions are far more vital than answers - so much so that this is reflected in the nature of koans - in some variants of Buddhist awareness practice..

- the cultivation of space for fresh information to stream in

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enlightenment being not a state, but a spiritual direction - one does not arrive at a direction so to speak, rather, one orients towards the (ideal) direction.

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an approach to questioning which is not a projection, and which expects no answer.

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redgreenvines said:

I was not talking about stories.
in koan practice, a single short question is repeated while the meditation develops.

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Interesting practice,  this is the first i am hearing of it

What sort of question would you meditate on?

sudly said:

The point I’m making is that physical systems can interact without a conscious observer. Two galaxies can interact gravitationally whether or not anyone looks at them through a telescope. Observing them brings us into a further physical relation with them, but their interaction does not depend on our awareness. In Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics, a physical system can fulfil the role of observer through its interactions with another system. Consciousness has no privileged status.

That is why relationality does not lead me towards idealism. I see no need to introduce a fundamentally mental reality to account for those relations, including our own participation as conscious beings within them.

A glass of water can likewise be described mechanically, chemically, biologically or economically. These descriptions concern the same thing through different relations, with each suited to different questions. I understand Rovelli’s idea of equality as questioning metaphysical divisions between those domains. How we engage with something matters to our description of it, without making its existence dependent on our engagement.

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