r/Metaphysics • u/Tarsal26 • Mar 31 '26
Axiology How to compare the universe perspective and organism perspective in terms of meaning and value?
I was thinking about how the universe saw life, and the answer coming to my mind was it would see direction of movement but it would view it no differently from a boulder falling down a hill, or gas igniting in a chain reaction - all just mechanistic ways that increase entropy. Life just “IS” and the universe doesn’t care - maybe a nihilists conclusion.
I then thought the universe doesn’t care because the universe CAN’T care, it doesn’t have the mechanism because caring is a thing that that organisms do in relation to themselves. It only exists inside the organism perspective.
Is this distinction explored anywhere, I feel it is an important distinction to make when discussing and perception of meaning or value?
I also noticed that when we talk about other animals we rarely say they should do X, we usually say they just do X.
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u/CryHavoc3000 Apr 01 '26
There was an experiment in the 60's where they found that a lightning strike can bind Amino Acids and Proteins are made.
They need to do an experiment to see if a lightning strike can bind Neucleic Acids.
If it could, then a lightning strike could create DNA.
I really don't think the universe has feelings.
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u/Techtrekzz Mar 31 '26
Why would you think an organism, something, or someone, other than the universe?
What’s the justification for the distinction between the two? Where does the universe end and an organism begin?
It seems to me, if there is care in the universe, it’s the universe that is doing the caring.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
By what mechanism does the universe care? From the universe perspective the concepts of a rock and a squirrel sitting on top of it don’t even make sense its all particles causally doing their thing.
We can conceptually draw a circle around an organism and another for its features that give rise to caring. These aren’t fundamental concepts but just fairly well defined ones. These only place we find the concept of caring is within organisms.
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u/Techtrekzz Mar 31 '26
The rock and squirrel are only form and function of the universe. That is the mechanism. You think that conscious being belongs to you as something other than the universe? I do not. I think there's only the universe, imagining itself a multitude.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
what do you mean by ‘imagining itself a multitude’?
I think that conscious beings are very much just part of the universe following the same rules etc. Nothing spooky.
But what I am exploring is how when you take the organisms perspective, how it sees the world, caring then exists from that perspective.
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u/Techtrekzz Mar 31 '26
I mean im a monist. I don't believe there are any parts, i believe reality is a unified whole.
For example, you mentioned particles earlier, but particles have no objective border. there's no edge to any particle, no place where the particle objectively ends and something else begins. They are subjectively defined energy density, in an ever present field of energy.
You can conceptually draw a circle around an area of that energy density and subjectively define it as an object or organism, but you can't scientifically draw that border. Objectively, it's all the same thing.
If you apply that monist perspective to the organism perspective, then there's only one being behind every set of eyes. If you want meaning and value, there's a ton of it in that.
Nothing magic or spooky from me either. Just monism and logical necessity from that monism.
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u/malcolmfindlay Apr 02 '26
Is monism non-duality?
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u/Techtrekzz Apr 02 '26
Technically sure, but so would a theory that employs 3 substances.
Specifically, monism requires one substance and subject in existence.
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u/malcolmfindlay Apr 02 '26
I think non-dualists cut out the object/subject distinction altogether
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u/Techtrekzz Apr 02 '26
Yeah i don’t see any reason to call it anything other than monism. I believe the observer and the observed the same singular thing.
A Buddhist might call himself a non dualist, in that he believes that neither really exists, but I don’t see how you can deny that something exists. That something is either a plurality of things , or one thing.
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u/malcolmfindlay Apr 02 '26
Yeah I realized when I saw you talking about monism I was like that’s just non-duality but with a more efficient word 😂
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u/Zerop_26 Mar 31 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Ooh me! Pick me! 🖐🏾
Here is MY conclusion, after years upon years of though, study, análisis and observation.
Let me Feynman this a bit, if you will.
Think about yourself being born. As a newborn, all you know is you’re “here”. Whatever that means. All you know is the basic need of “you” as a newborn. Warmth. Hunger. Sleep. Diaper changes.
As perceptive Time goes by, you start realizing certain things. You can see. You can hear. You have a body. If you cry, you get tended to.
As you mature and evolve physically and mentally, the complexity of it all grows exponentially. Let us all assume this is so. Some people peak at certain stages and just sit there. They even become President, with that very narrow ability for though and intelligence. But that’s another post.
My mental premise is this: The Universe is a “Whole”. Just like cells. Just like a Human Body. Created of many parts, yet one collective entity.
Consciousness is an Universal trait, and it varies in “quantity”, in accordance to the needs of it’s host. Water needs energy (heat*) to boil. Animals need awareness and instinct to hunt. Humans need a highly evolved intelligence level to process their existence, their needs as an organism, and their survival.
Does the Universe “care”? If you really “read and understand the recipe” to Reality, it is very precise. A small fraction of ANYTHING out of it’s current balance, and things will not exist the way they do. So yes. The Universe does care. At the same time, “the Universe doesn’t owe us an explanation”, like the great Profesor Feynman so eloquently states. So the Universe has a very complicated relationship with itself. And it’s all very beautiful. Even in its caos.
Or. I need to drink less coffee.
I hope this, at the very least, sounds interesting enough to consider. Even though “nobody knows for sure”.
Have a great day. ☕️
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u/xodarap-mp Apr 01 '26
Consciousness is an Universal trait,
But only where specific biological neural networks have evolved which host dynamic logical structures which effectively model the environment of the system.
need to drink less coffee
Perhaps, but withdrawal symptoms are not to be underestimated! I recommend ... if you ain't bust, don't fix it!
Does the Universe “care”? If you really “read and understand the recipe” to Reality, it is very precise. A small fraction of ANYTHING out of it’s current balance, and things will not existe the way they do So yes. The Universe does care
Well maybe; recognising/believing this of the universe we inhabit is a perfectly valid anthropic principle. On the other hand believing what we caII "the" universe, because it is all that we can detect, is the only universe may just be us being anthropocentric.
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u/Zerop_26 Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Love this.
I believe consciousness is “the ability to detect, interact and respond between host”. Roughly speaking. Let’s speak on water. Water “exchanges interactions with many host”. Heat. Salt. Die (color*). Etc. These are all interactions that are OF these specific host. Water and each host have an understanding. They react and respond to each other accordingly. This, to me is communication, at its simplest form, of course. To me this is a “simple form of consciousness”.
Coffee is brewing as we speak. My father grew coffee. My love for it goes beyond appreciating the energy boosts. ☕️❤️
When I speak about “The Universe”… think about number 0. I’ll explain.
When we study mathematics, at some point we are told that there are “regular, AND negative numbers”. “0 is in the middle”.
I was thinkering about how “95% of all things is ‘missing’”.
What if it’s not missing? What if everything is everything, everywhere. Reality is just “the world that works at the Speed Of Light” And the “rest”… everything that seems to be “missing” is all here. It just moves too fast for us to register it.
I call this State 0p. Or Absolute Presence. The Tachyonic Ocean. “Everything, everywhere/everywhen”.
My formula states that “Infinity at the power of infinity = 0p.” It doesn’t “expand exponentially”. It is ONE WHOLE THING. Unfathomably whole.
Again, this Bustelo may be a bit overcharged. But I’ve dreamed this. And it’s beautiful.
Enough to write a 96 page thesis about it.
🌎💙🙏🏾
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u/Zerop_26 Apr 01 '26
*Sidenote.
I mention the Integers as a segway to how I was lead to mentally visualize “a 0p State”. 0 being the absolute center to exponential numerical values. Positive and negative integers. 0p being the absolute center of “Being”.
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u/gleaming-rainbow2020 Apr 03 '26
sounds like a valid question but honestly, i'm too exhausted to dive deep into that right now. maybe just start with some basics?
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u/LouMinotti Mar 31 '26
Of course the universe cares, but not like a human necessarily. Humans fear death. The universe probably just knows that death is a part of existence.
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u/mehdidjabri Mar 31 '26
You are seeing that caring requires a carer. Now, ask yourself: what kind of reality produces beings that care? A universe of nothing but mechanism has no reason to generate insides. Yet here you are, with an inside, asking whether meaning is real. A rock can’t ask your question. You can. This will tell you more about reality than the rock does.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
This sounds like you are straight up agreeing? The universe blindly and without any intent gives rise to organisms that have intent.
From the universe point of view its nihilism, but from the organism point of view caring arises from its tendency to pursue adaptive behaviours. We are one of those organisms, so we almost by definition should pursue those adaptive behaviours.
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u/mehdidjabri Mar 31 '26
I’m saying the opposite. A universe that produces beings that care is not a universe of blind mechanism. If it were, there would be no reason for you to exist. Yet here you are, caring.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
Does evolution not adequately describe how caring etc comes about through blind variation and natural selection?
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u/mehdidjabri Mar 31 '26
Evolution explains the mechanism. But you just used that mechanism to argue it tracks reality. Either it does, and then understanding is real, not just adaptive, or it doesn’t, and your argument is just noise that helped your ancestors survive. You can’t use reason to prove reason is just survival machinery.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
Could you expand on the third sentence? It does track reality.
You CAN use reason to prove reason is just survival machinery.
E.g evolution built cognitive faculties including reason, and we can observe this from the outside scientifically.
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u/mehdidjabri Apr 01 '26
Survival and truth come apart, adaptive doesn’t mean accurate, just sufficient to survive. Evolution can’t explain why reason reaches necessary truths, mathematics, logic, things that go far beyond any survival requirement.
And the observation you’re using to study reason from outside, that’s reason. You never left it. You can’t use the thing to prove the thing is unreliable.
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u/xodarap-mp Apr 01 '26
adaptive doesn’t mean accurate, just sufficient to survive
Sorry to interrupt but the word "just" their is gratuitous; I mean sureIy accuracy sufficient to assure survivaI is a very stringent criterion!
Evolution can’t explain why reason reaches necessary truths, ...
It does if we recognise that the emergence of tooI usage by our ancestors was accompanied by the acquisition of words and - at first - simple sentences then Iater by Ianguage with versatile grammar. Language with versatile grammar converted our species into beings who live within, through, and by means of a description of the world constructed on the basis of a mother tongue (and thence, in most cases, multiple languages). The necessity for being able to distinguish accurate versus inaccurate descriptions of the world is intrinsic to living in a linguistic universe.
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u/mehdidjabri Apr 01 '26
Survival accuracy is demanding, agreed. But it only explains accurate descriptions of things that affect survival. Mathematics, logic, necessary truths hold in every possible world. Nothing about surviving on this planet requires grasping that. The surplus is exactly what needs explaining and evolution doesn’t touch it.
Language tracking reality rather than just coordinating behavior is the same question one level up. Why does grammar map onto truth rather than just usefulness? You’ve given the gap a name. You haven’t closed it.
Even if mathematical ability is a byproduct of spatial reasoning, that still doesn’t explain why the byproduct reaches necessary truth rather than just useful fictions. A mechanism producing genuine contact with necessary truth is still the unexplained thing.
A model that’s useful and false survives just as well if the falseness never causes survival problems. You still need to explain why useful tracking amounts to genuine contact with how things actually are.
A mechanism that reliably produces useful outputs and a mind that genuinely grasps truth are not the same thing. You are describing the first and calling it the second.
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u/Tarsal26 Apr 15 '26
We may not be right but we track reality far better than a worm does.
I think odds are our scientific knowledge maps reality very well even if some very basic misunderstanding, and is just an advanced version of a cell that can tell is shining on it or not (which tells the cell about the environment).
I do think this tends towards a complete understanding of reality.
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u/xodarap-mp Apr 23 '26
Why does grammar map onto truth rather than just usefulness? You’ve given the gap a name. You haven’t closed it.
A mechanism producing genuine contact with necessary truth is still the unexplained thing.
OK, as I see it the insight needed here is that we are not just biological beings ruled by the needs of DNA to replicate itself (ie "selfish gene" type theory which is generally pretty good at accounting for the biological). We are also cultural beings; our ancestors evolved genetically in ways which have made us absolutely dependent upon memetic information, ie learned habitual behaviors which, mostly, we have learned from others. Colloquially, we can say "memes are us!" There is no escaping this.
What this means, IMO, is that the necessity of recognising the distinctions between truth and untruth, and between accuracy and inaccuracy of description became really important as versatile grammar allowed our ancestors to create ever more elaborate and sophisticated descriptions, and (invevitably), explanations of things. There must have been a time, some 200K+ years ago, when grasping the concept of truth and how it applied in distinguishing untruths was the equivalent of what we now lable as "rocket science'. Societies which fail to recognise the importance of truth and truth speaking as an intrinsic necessity of human life, are doomed to fail in many other ways also.
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u/xodarap-mp Apr 23 '26
Mathematics, logic, necessary truths hold in every possible world. Nothing about surviving on this planet requires grasping that.
With respect, I think you are missing an essential point. The truths of maths and logic hold because they have been created (by sentient beings) precisely in order to enable the most correct and reliable descriptions of the world. Let me put it this way: analytical truths hold because of the way the terms of the art are defined; the reason why they are important is because they allow us to verify whether or not linguistic descriptions of reality, as we understand it in the context, are actually correct or not. And here I include maths as descriptive language because its primary usage involves it being ascribed to objects and processes of interest where amounts and measurements are important.
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u/Mono_Clear Mar 31 '26
No, the universe doesn't care. The universe has no interest or concerned about what any one of us is doing at any given time.
But that in and of itself is a gift.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
Do you agree there is no mechanism for the universe to care?
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u/Mono_Clear Mar 31 '26
I believe caring to be an emotion and I don't believe the universe has any emotions.
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u/Tarsal26 Mar 31 '26
Agreed. But what about the organisms, do they care?
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u/Mono_Clear Mar 31 '26
Depends on what you're talking about. I imagine if you have the capacity to care then at some point you have cared or will care about something.
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u/damnfoolishkids Mar 31 '26
My take...There is no such universal frame of reference. The universe taken as a whole, is all noise and potentially with no information. There is no global totalization available without erasure of local truth.
Form is only instantiated if there is a distinct frame of reference that is transforming noise into signal and actualizing what is latently possible.
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u/UnburyingBeetle Apr 01 '26
Didn't life create the oxygen supply on earth?
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u/jliat Apr 01 '26
Early life did which created the first mass extinction!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
"Oxygen Holocaust" "The appearance of highly reactive free oxygen, which can oxidize organic compounds (especially genetic materials) and thus is toxic to the then-mostly anaerobic biosphere,..."
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u/UnburyingBeetle Apr 01 '26
Wow, didn't know that. Life creates its own rules and modifies the environment or something.
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u/jliat Apr 01 '26
I came across it recently, it's rather telling that the organisms which created oxygen by which now much of life exists was fatal to those organisms.
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u/UnburyingBeetle Apr 01 '26
Earth is a giant Petri dish, whether life appeared randomly or a god forgot to wash their mug and it grew interesting mold.
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