Telephonic Dialectics

Discovering the Meaning of Life? You’ve Got to Be Kidding!

(Phone Ringing)

P1: Hello, Harout.

P2: Hello, Christopher.

P1: What is the business for your call today?

P2: Well, I’ve been getting in an argument with my philosophy professor about morals, consciousness and objectivity. Namely, are there universal rights and wrongs? What is consciousness? What is objectively true, if anything?

P1: All very good questions, Harout. Let’s start with consciousness and objectivity. Two subjects cut from the same cloth, I believe. So, let me ask you, what is consciousness?

P2: Hmm. Well, I would say that consciousness is being able to receive, process and respond to information.

P1: So, perception?

P2: Yes.

P1: Okay, so what is conscious?

P2: I would say that humans are conscious, animals are probably conscious, maybe not as conscious as humans, though.

P1: Interesting. So why are humans more conscious than say, a dog?

P2: Well, our brains are more complex, we have a larger capacity for memories and so on.

P1: Okay, so a more advanced degree of perception? A higher level of consciousness, or, in other words, a greater degree of awareness of our surroundings.

P2: Sure.

P1: So, if we have a more advanced degree of perception than a dog and a dog has a more advanced degree of perception than, say, a plant, are plants conscious?

P2: Wait, you lost me. You’re saying that plants can perceive?

P1: I’m saying that everything can perceive if we define perception as receiving and responding to information.

P2: So, a rock is conscious?

P1: Not in the sense that it has a semblance of “I”, but that is not what we are defining consciousness as. If I throw my pencil at the window of this metro car, the pencil is perceiving the force of my hand throwing it and reacting by moving. That is if we define perception as receiving and responding to information.

P2: Ahh. I see. Well, let’s say that consciousness is only possessed by things that have a notion of I. Speaking of which, why do you say “semblance?”

P1: Ahh, Harout. Very quick on your feet. The concept of “I” as a separate individual is a fallacy.

P2: A fallacy? How so?

P1: Why do you have the belief that you are an individual?

P2: I suppose because I receive information and think about it separately from the world around me, other people do not know my thoughts — they do not know what I will do. Rather than just a force acting upon another force, like you throwing that pencil, I receive information, think about it and respond to it. I have control over my actions.

P1: Haha don’t get ahead of yourself, Harout. Control over your own actions is a big claim. So, you have a notion of I because your brain is complex enough to process information you receive in conjunction with memories to make the most logical decision based on all of the information you have for your survival. You have a semblance of I, in other words, because you think.

P2: Um, sure. I’m going to have to ask you about some of that stuff later, but keep going because I feel like you’re going somewhere.

P1: Yes. So, your semblance of I is brought about because you have memories, desires and perception. Most fundamentally, the desire to live. So, if you did not have memories, if you did not have perception (first of all, you would have nothing to desire), you would not think. We have hit two birds with one stone, here. We think because we perceive. So if we did not perceive, we would not think. And if we do not think, then we do not have a notion of I. Therefore, our individuality is dependent upon the reality of everything in existence. Thus, it is not really individuality at all. The reality of our own individual existence is only real because of the reality of everything else. There would be no “I” if there was not everything else. Further still, you are a product of the whole. You have no control over your genetics. Thus, you have no control over how you perceive and process information. You have no control over the information you receive. So you have no control over how you react to that information. Thus, you are simply an extension of the first thing that ever existed. And therefore, when it really comes down to it, you are not Harout at all. “You” don’t even exist. Everything is one thing, the same thing, manifesting and perceiving itself in different ways. The eyes are like two-way mirrors. I look out and perceive myself, but I also am looking back in.

P2: Wait, Chris. That’s a lot to lay on someone. So you’re saying that I am not an individual thing, but like a cell in a human body. Doing a function and continuing to sustain the whole?

P1: Exactly, Harout. The Universe can be thought of as a giant functioning system, ever expanding, ever contracting. Taking on new manifestations of itself that are all, fundamentally the same. They only appear different subjectively.

P2: So you’ve basically just told me that everything is subjective and there is no free will.

P1: Well, in order to be objective, we can agree that that objectivity would have to have a notion of the perspective of every subjective thing, correct?

P2: Yes.

P1: The universe as a whole is objective. This can be taken in two ways. Nothing is objective or that everything in existence when having perception of everything else is objective. The problem is, perception is limited to having senses. And if we have senses to perceive something with, than we inherently are perceiving it subjectively. So perception is subjective in and of itself. Nothing is objective

P2: Alright, alright. So everything that is perceived is subjective. So, nothing is real. But I have no free will?

P1: Haha yes! Nothing is objectively real. Well, if you have no control over your genetics (the way you process stimuli) and you have no control over the stimuli you receive, then do you think you have free will?

P2: No, I guess not.

P1: And the conversation we had about subjectivity, accompanied by the notion of determinism answers your question about morals, right?

P2: I suppose.

P1: Certainly. If everything is subjective to the way that one perceives and there is no objective perception then what we think of as good and bad is purely biased to what causes us joy or pain. If for some reason my senses of pain were rearranged, I might think it good when someone punches me in the face. Or, if for some reason I got a dopamine release every time someone stole from me; I would think stealing was good.

P2: Haha that’s hilarious, Chris. Nothing is real, Everything is determined. There is no such thing as right or wrong. I am everything. I’d say this was a productive conversation. I have to go and think on this.

P1: Anytime, Harout.

(Phone call ends)