Can we think of consciousness as a force of nature?

Objectivity is an abstract game played by subjects.
I am all for examining the meaning of our different concepts. It seems to me that our concepts are understood according to our science, our traditions and our intuition. Every now and then small changes in some area, science in this case, can have implications to how we justify our belief in certain concepts and specifically what that belief is.
I speak about "quantum events", but all the while I am keeping in mind that there is no quantum world and another world that humans can percieve. What we percieve is the quantum world, and when we do, "reality" is what happens. But perception is not a result of it, it is a part of making it happen.

But my initial motive for asking if consciousness could be thought of as a force of nature was a need to place these considerations in relation to other ideas such as evolution theory and theories about the origin of the universe. If consciousness is an intrinsic part of reality, but physical reality existed before consciousness, that seemed to me to be problematic. I have come to realize that that may have been only because I was operating with the naive realistic notion of linear time.

As I see it now, there is no reason why physical reality should have existed before consciousness. Perhaps we can say that reality is only as physical as consciousness can be aware.

You just substitute one word for another...it does n´t matter if reality it is physical or not..."physical" is just a form of relation in between code...just as "conscience" is, or "minds"...you still don´t get it...IT ALL, are forms of relation, of code.

...the "existing" status is not in the "physical", the existing status is in the relational itself of otherwise purely abstract operators...

actually a good example to understand this is to drive yourself to a virtual reality simulator and dress a suit which by electric stimuli will give you the impression of "physical" when you actually are touching a virtual object...say a tennis virtual ball for instance...its only rules of programming between code, no "physical" is in place...

These rules are not between "minds", but between abstract agents, like numbers..."minds" is yet another form of concept resulting from such abstract relations...they represent a focal point of understanding and conceptualizing...a perspective and not the entire set of possible perspectives...the Operative System alone does that ! (no particular focus)

...and this is what I have been trying to explain all along...forget the bloody "minds" and think only of interaction...PROCESSING that is !

Let me ask you a different question then. Do you believe that physical reality exists now outside of consciousness? Perhaps some unseen rock on Mars for example?

If so now then why not then?

...a very good point...although whatever exists is only a "rock" when you think of it.
Still there is something existing at an abstract level...no focus !

I will give you an easy example:

...say I am immersed in a virtual reality 3D world and I am looking at a "rock" inside such world...and then say the programmer is looking at a screen searching in the numbers for the rock pattern, who is right ?
...now imagine that the "programmer" is yet another entity inside yet a bigger program...

...bottom line observations are relative to context layer and perspective...nevertheless the processing is real...The PROGRAM is there !

No.

Aside the use of the descriptive term "physical", do you believe there is an actual reality at all ?

Are you asking if I believe there is "actual reality" or if there is "reality"?

Does it make a difference?

Yes

Do I believe that "physical reality" exists outside of consciousness? It is a belief, isn't it? It is my belief (and I acknowledge that this is not "knowledge") that it does. It is what the physicists study. But the character of realities, like Disneyland or my "room" are what I, my species (a horse would be very different in its characterizations), and my culture ascribe to it. There is, in other words, a world that's ontologically independent of my consciousness, but it is empty of form without that consciousness. That's how I understand it right now.

Would you care to explain how is it that an "actual" reality is in any sense more real then reality alone ???

But that fails by Ocham's razor as your suppositions are not in evidence.

So what about the back side of the moon. Do you think it exists right now?

What is not in evidence is to call Physical to something which by no standards indeed proves any physicality in the literal sense...by Occam's Razor we should not have any difference between "simulated" worlds and "real" worlds aside the scope of complexity...

Yes, I would say it is a belief.
The way I see it, the attribute "physical" may be only apparent to conscious observers with a perception similar to ours. It may not be a notable distinction anywhere else.
A world ontologically independent of any consciousness seems problematical to me at the moment, since in the unfolding of reality itself, the event of consciousness may be just as likely as the event physical matter.

So I don't believe physical reality exists outside of consciousness. Only within it. And if there is consciousness, all percievable objects being made of the same thing, wouldn't it be a good bet that what is percieved in configurations that never change or barely react to observation would appear solid?

Yes.

Fil,
I asked because you could have been referring to "actual reality" as opposed to reality as we percieve it. I believe there is reality. And I believe we are experiencing it. And if we were not, then someone would, since the event "physical matter" seems to require a consciousness to percieve it.

There is this particle physicist, John Hagelin, who describes reality as a unified field of existence in which everything is ripples of consciousness. His explanation is based on his research in quantum physics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrcWntw9juM&feature=related

it is my belief that the mathematical patterns behind the objects that we observe are ontologically real, at least in a given time frame, as their "accommodation" in the local context necessarily results in shape from the influence of the overall effect of natural forces at work...our relation to such objects although permeated for the practical functionality which they present in our eyes nevertheless cannot superimpose a patternicitty which is not potentially present on their natural operative value...in turn, it is true by a process of observed selection that we often may neglect several variables which our conscience eventually may find less appealing, regarding the observed pattern in the given object...quite different !

...a bottle cannot fly only because we imagine it to do so...

You speak as if we were not natural, as if consciousness was something that doesn't exist in nature.

A precarious belief, too, but one that for the moment works for me. I AM looking for better beliefs.
"A world ontologically independent of any consciousness seems problematical" only if that world is primarily a pattern of meaningful ideas, such as Darwin's description of changes in birds beaks. But the subatomic and atomic configurations forming the basis for that description are independent of human conscioiusness (some would use the term objective). What you call the "unfolding of reality" is far deeper ontologically than the notion of "evolution" since the former refers to everything, even the events at levels deeper than those that can be used to describe evolutionary changes in biological patterns.