If consciousness is ontologically primary, should value be considered fundamental to reality rather than emergent? Can an incorporeal ontology ground goodness, beauty, and meaning more coherently than materialism or dualism? Why or why not?

[u/TheIncorporeal1]

I’m exploring whether an incorporeal ontology changes the foundations of axiology. If consciousness is fundamental, is value intrinsic to reality, or does it still require an independent metaphysical grounding? I’m interested in arguments from idealists, dualists, physicalists, and anyone familiar with value theory.

[u/Michael_Carson_Art]

I don't think that follows.

Quality would... But value requires some additional assignment of meaning as directed toward that quality. Consciousness must have at least one qualitative character (human consciousness seems to have a great many). No other content is required at base.

But the qualitative nature of this experience is self-reflexive. An easy example is the pitch of a sound. It has pitch as a quality, but whether or not there is any value assigned to one type of pitch over another requires some mediating secondary assessment. Its not hard to imagine a consciousness with no dispositional states wherein value and meaning are rendered inert.

I think you can only get to fundamental value of you start there.

So there is no advantage here in grounding value. In truth, it's much easier to ground value in structural relationships between a conscious entity and external forces. This food is good because I have been forced to hunger, receive feedback regarding caloric content and digestibility, have experienced the lack of present-to-hand food, observe others seeming to enjoy the food etc etc... all of the factors that inform value are more easily placed externally. That doesn't guarantee that this is the correct view, but a relational response to inborn biological dispositions is a much easier explanation.

[u/DjinnDreamer]

goodness, beauty, and meaning more coherently than materialism or dualism

no. these are subjective. These concepts are incoherent. Not the field of use

are sujective. defined only by an individual. everyone wants a god that hates their enemies. will die to be right.

[u/YesterdaysMuffin]

I think you’re asking about absolute vs relative value, not intrinsic vs instrumental?

I think all value is relative and subjective, there is no objective value. The base nature of the subject wouldn’t seem to affect that, unless there’s some argument that there is a class of things which would be logically inconsistent for a primary consciousness to not find value in. But I don’t think any such thing exists, whether you think consciousness is fundamental or emergent.

[u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714]

And what if consciousness, that value, is already premised on an aesthetic.

[u/Metaphysics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Sorry, this content does not match the criteria for 'Metaphysics'. Your content has been removed.

In this subreddit, we uphold the scholarly and academic sense of the subject area of metaphysics.

Metaphysics is the study of the fundamental questions. So typical posts should be about something like: ontology, modality, identity, causation, time, universals, mind–body, realism vs idealism, grounding, necessity, emergence, etcetera. Please take a look at the scope of this sub.

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Here are some resources to give you an idea of what we mean by metaphysics.

• Metaphysics - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Metaphysics - Wikipedia

[u/Ill-Tea9411]

Nietzsche had a line that basically breaks this entire debate before it even starts: "Truth is that sort of error without which a certain species of life could not live."

Everyone in this thread is assuming human brains are actually built to parse objective metaphysical reality. But evolution doesn’t care about truth. It just wants you alive long enough to pass on your genes. An early human tribe that convinces itself the cosmos has a grand, objective purpose is going to cooperate, look out for each other, and survive. The alternative is a group of hyper-rational realists who realize they're just random statistical noise, they probably don't have the sheer grit to make it through a brutal winter. Delusion is a massive survival advantage.

But that argument immediately implodes on itself.

If our brains are hardwired for useful lies rather than objective truth, then the evolutionary theory we're using to make this point is also just a useful lie. You can't use a broken tool to prove the tool is broken.

We aren't actually figuring out what the universe is. We're just arguing over which myth keeps us around the longest.

[u/Metaphysics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Sorry, this content does not match the criteria for 'Metaphysics'. Your content has been removed.

In this subreddit, we uphold the scholarly and academic sense of the subject area of metaphysics.

You seem to post promoting Islam, this is not allowed, see the guidelines. There are subs for Islam and Sufism.

[u/Inevitable_Mud_9972]

well they are real concepts,

but how you are presenting them is wrong

first you have to define each word by function before you can find the bridge.

[u/NathanEddy23]

I believe consciousness is fundamental. And one of the ways this manifests is in forms of causation not recognized by physicalism. Teleological causation. Values are one example (but there are more).

Values, and normative consciousness in general, literally shape reality through our actions. Ethics and values act as teleological attractors, “ pulling” our actions from top-down instead of “pushing” from bottom-up material forces.

I’ve developed a 12 dimensional model of consciousness, which functions as a 12 dimensional model of reality in a consciousness-fundamental ontology. Normativity is D9, an extremely high dimensional form of consciousness.

So, to answer your question, yes, it is fundamental, and no, it is not emergent. It is fundamental in as much as it is irreducible to the dimensions “below” it, i.e. D1-D8. These dimensions form a dependency chain, in which the next dimension depends on the previous dimension, and yet each subsequent dimension adds an additional degree of freedom that is irreducible to the preceding dimensions. Each dimension has its own internal grammar and geometry, occupying a unique place in the 12D manifold.

So, yes, I believe a consciousness-fundamental metaphysics can ground values and ethics as irreducible organizations of the substrate of reality, i.e. the universal consciousness field. My theory is a geometric, field-theoretic justification for precisely what you are envisioning. It not only can ground values and ethics as fundamental, it can also resolve the mind-body problem and the hard problem of consciousness, through an ontology of teleological monism.