# Is Consciousness an Effect or Something Else? **URL:** \ **Category:** Philosophy of Mind\ **Created:** [September 15, 2026, 2:50pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089 "2026-09-15T14:50:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Corvus](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/corvus/32/1606_2.png) [@Corvus](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Corvus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/41 "2026-09-17T16:11:26Z")
> [@PatternChaser](#): > > No, I don’t. I don’t have the interest in a semantic debate just at the moment. You are the one who brought “result in” and “causality” in your previous posts, and I was trying to clarify them for you, first by asking you about them, and then giving my own ideas on them, if you could recall what you wrote. > [@PatternChaser](#): > > As you know, the philosophy of causality, like that of Truth, or Love, or whatever, is much deeper than it first appears. So, no thanks to the semantic debate, as I’m just not convinced it will go anywhere useful or helpful. I think you must first understand what they mean in the clearest terms. And you could discuss further and deeper into the issues. That is what philosophy is, I believe. If one denies it, then he/she would be just beating around the bush talking nonsense, or the interlocuters will be talking about something totally different from each other quarrelling over muddy concepts of their own never being able to reach any concrete or constructive conclusions or agreements in the topics. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2026, 10:16pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/42 "2026-09-17T22:16:55Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > _Does_ consciousness do the explaining? No. _Rationality_, or one of its synonyms, is what explains. The role of consciousness is surely different. By training my consciousness upon something, I have not therefore explained it. We could say that consciousness is the vehicle/doorway/substrate (so many less-than-adequate metaphors to choose from!) that allows rationality to emerge and make itself heard. Well, yes - but isn’t the ability to ascertain a rational explanation itself a faculty of rational sentient beings? But what I’m arguing is basically the ‘eye can’t see itself’ argument again. We have an explanandum - that which is to be explained - and explanans - that in terms of which it is explained. Why does the stone fall? Because of gravity. Why does the water boil? Because of the addition of energy by heating it. Why do continents move? Because of tectonic plate activity. Examples can be multiplied indefinitely. But turning to consciousness, we face the unique problem of analysing the very faculty that is performing such analyses. Kant acknowledges the difficulty that the investigating subject cannot simply become an external object to itself without changing the character of the investigation — the philosophical version, perhaps, of the eye’s inability to see itself ([ref](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-mind/#3.1)). I say he’s essentially recognizing the same ‘unknown knower’ that the Upaniṣads refer to (although I won’t cite references for that!) ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2026, 11:51pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/43 "2026-09-17T23:51:02Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > basically the ‘eye can’t see itself’ argument again. . . . But turning to consciousness, we face the unique problem of analysing the very faculty that is performing such analyses. Yes, it’s a familiar bone we’re picking. In this instance I’m arguing that consciousness is _not_ “the very faculty that is performing such analyses” – rationality is. Consciousness as such doesn’t perform analyses. Are you OK with at least making a distinction between the two capacities, consciousness and rationality? ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2026, 11:56pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/44 "2026-09-17T23:56:50Z")
Sure — but would you agree that they’re different levels within a continuum? Because I will acknowledge that there are obviously beings that are conscious but not capable of rational thought. ---
**Author:** ![John](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/john/32/665_2.png) [@John](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/John)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 12:18am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/45 "2026-09-18T00:18:56Z")
> [@BrightCanyon98](#): > > The shadow is not an efficacious effect. Not true―things will cool down in the shade. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 12:42am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/46 "2026-09-18T00:42:21Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > Sure — but would you agree that they’re different levels within a continuum? Well, that’s a good question. Certainly it’s a familiar way of conceptualizing it – different “levels” of consciousness with (something like) rationality at the top, where humans are special. But honestly, I’m not sure if that’s the way it is. We both agree that the presence of rationality within the world is ineliminable, and cries out for explanation – not a reductive explanation, of course. I might see this presence as even more bizarre than you do, though. For I can imagine an eventual answer to the Hard Problem, but the problem of what rationality _is_, and how it is that humans have access to it, seems much harder – a whole different _kind_ of problem, in fact. Now if you’re right, and rationality lies on a continuum with consciousness, that suggests a tractable answer: If we come to understand what consciousness is, we’ll also understand what rationality is. But for reasons that would go way beyond this post, I’m not sanguine about that. Anyway, you probably have some of the same reservations yourself. _Perhaps_ the question of consciousness is a scientific one (I think that’s likely, you don’t), but the question of rationality surely is not. Not for nothing do you find yourself having recourse to language like “the rational soul”! In trying to understand rationality, we find ourselves moving outside of (what I call) philosophy entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 1:12am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/47 "2026-09-18T01:12:46Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > Not for nothing do you find yourself having recourse to language like “the rational soul”! In trying to understand rationality, we find ourselves moving outside of (what I call) philosophy entirely. But notice in the classical tradition there is the ‘beyond reason’ (trans-rational). And I question whether there is anything corresponding to that in naturalism, which thinks in terms of its instrumental value. > [@John](#): > > things will cool down in the shade. Very good! The absence of energy is a formative constraint. Snow will last longer on the shady side of the mountain. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 3:07am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/48 "2026-09-18T03:07:28Z")
There’s a number of different issues in your post. I thought the point we were discussing was the relationship of consciousness and rationality. I also thought we were discussing the claim that rationality and language were distinguishing attributes of human consciousness, in particular. If that is so, then rationality and language are part of the broader spectrum of consciousness, which includes less developed forms of consciousness such as found elsewhere in the organic domain. The question of the nature of the ‘rationality within the world’ is another thing entirely and a very deep question. As to whether it is something that can be _explained_, what comes to mind is Whitehead’s and Paul Davies’ analyses: that science proceeds on the presumption that there _is_ an order of nature — even if some conundrums and paradoxes seem to challenge that . ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 12:33pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/49 "2026-09-18T12:33:39Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > I thought the point we were discussing was the relationship of consciousness and rationality. I also thought we were discussing the claim that rationality and language were distinguishing attributes of human consciousness, in particular. The point at issue, I would say, is whether rationality (and language, if you like) is best conceived as something like an _attribute_ of human consciousness. I’m questioning that. I’m suggesting that consciousness, human or otherwise, is simply that: consciousness, subjectivity, inwardness. But consciousness permits the creatures who have it to _do_ certain things. For us humans (and a few other creatures, to a degree), it permits us to be rational. Of course the language both of us are using here is unstable and imprecise: the phrase “the broader spectrum of consciousness” could be reasonably applied to either of our viewpoints. I certainly don’t deny that consciousness is a _prerequisite_ for human rationality, so if that’s what you mean by “part of the broader spectrum,” that’s fine. But I think the point is worth inquiring into because it may have a bearing on . . . > [@Wayfarer](#): > > The question of the nature of the ‘rationality within the world’ is another thing entirely and a very deep question. I probably should have introduced this connection better. What I mean to say is that, if rationality is an “attribute of consciousness” in your sense, then its appearance in our lives is somewhat less mysterious than it would be if my sense was adopted. If rationality “emerges” from consciousness, this hints that it might have a naturalistic explanation. Well, I think we’re both wary of this idea. And I go on to say, therefore, that the problem is deepened if we separate rationality from consciousness as I’ve described. Again, that’s not to say that there’s no relation between the two. But it’s like the relation between being able to swim and doing the butterfly stroke. You need the first in order to have the second, but no one would say that the butterfly stroke is an _attribute_ of swimming, or that it must necessarily emerge as a new level of swimming, etc. Having said this, I realize that once again there is no good analogy for consciousness – because rationality, unlike the butterfly stroke, does seem to be _definitive_ of human consciousness. So the conversation goes on . . . ---
**Author:** ![BrightCanyon98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f08c70/32.png) [@BrightCanyon98](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BrightCanyon98)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 2:41pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/50 "2026-09-18T14:41:58Z")
> [@John](#): > > Not true―things will cool down in the shade. That’s a counterfactual event. We’re talking about actual effects caused by a non-counterfactual event. For example, by me not going to McDonald’s this morning for coffee I deprived the chain of $2-$3 that they could have earned, and potentially that would result in them not makng their sales numbers for the month by being short that $2-$3 (and perhaps that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back as it was that threshold that decides if a layoff occurs or not). The “shadow” of me not going to McD’s (and me not buying coffee) is not an efficacious cause & effect that led to there being a layoff. It’s an entirely counterfactual scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Corvus](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/corvus/32/1606_2.png) [@Corvus](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Corvus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:41pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/51 "2026-09-18T17:41:46Z")
I tried hard to perceive consciousness in the world, but totally failed in doing so. At nowhere in the world, I could find anything which looks similar to consciousness. The only time I could see consciousness was the moment when I saw someone opening her eyes, and spoke to me in intelligible manner, not talking guff or being mute, but engaging in coherent conversation remembering the past accurately, planning what to do on the day. The moment of the witnessing the capacity and interaction, I was able to call it as her “being conscious”. And the ability for doing so, was namely “consciousness”. There is no causality or effects or resulting in or any sort of guff involved in this. Just a description for the capacity was “consciousness”. I wouldn’t call anything else “consciousness” apart from the mental capacity of someone which exhibits the alertness and interactability in the expected and intelligible manner. ---
**Author:** ![Gnomon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@Gnomon](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Gnomon)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/52 "2026-09-18T22:00:38Z")
> [@BrightCanyon98](#): > > Most physical phenomena are **effects** Obviously, Consciousness is not a physical phenomenon. Hence, the “hard problem” of defining what it is. I won’t go into the hypothetical & speculative details here, but I have concluded that Consciousness is not a physical “effect”, but a metaphysical “emergence”. Specifically, it’s the recent (in evolution terms) appearance of a novel form of _Causation_, that we typically think of in terms of physical Energy, but has recently (in historical terms) been equated with _Information_ **1**. The Big Bang came from out of nowhere, already _programmed_ with all the Energy and Directions (laws) necessary to evolve, step by step, into a physical world with metaphysical features. The _Progressive Evolution_ image **2** {see below} illustrates how new forms of Potential Energy {E = MC^2} gradually emerge over cosmic time. A simple explosion would quickly dissipate like New Year fireworks. So the dramatic transformation of a Blast-from-the-past into an orderly Cosmos with future Potential, requires something like command & control (programming) instructions. Human-type Consciousness was a late-stage emergence, somewhere between Biological and Cultural {see image below}, on a minor planet. But the Arrow indicates that Consciousness is on the verge of evolving out into the 4D vastness of Cosmic space. Who knows what further transformations will develop? Assuming us sentient & sapient creatures don’t blow ourselves to kingdom come. I suppose you could say that Consciousness is an _Effect_ of the 14B year process of Creative Causation. Aristotle called it the _First & Final Cause_. You could call it an Effect of progressive _EnFormAction_ **3**. 😀 **1.** INFORMATION IS UNIVERSAL _The information universe theory proposes that reality is fundamentally made of information rather than matter or energy. . . . Wheeler : “It from Bit”_ [https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+is+universal](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+is+universal) **2.** PROGRESSIVE EVOLUTION ![Progressive Evolution](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/uploads/thephilosophyforum/original/2X/2/22c63424d94d811afcc7157ad1359f7159c5f6c2.png) **3. EnFormAction :** _Evolutionary Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. It’s the creative force that powers and directs Evolution._ [https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html](https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html) ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 11:06pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/53 "2026-09-18T23:06:13Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > The point at issue, I would say, is whether rationality (and language, if you like) is best conceived as something like an _attribute_ of human consciousness. I’m questioning that. I’m suggesting that consciousness, human or otherwise, is simply that: consciousness, subjectivity, inwardness. But consciousness permits the creatures who have it to _do_ certain things. For us humans (and a few other creatures, to a degree), it permits us to be rational. I hold to a kind of neo-aristotelian ontology. Vegetative, animal, rational as levels or kinds of being(s) along a continuum (although I also recognise levels beyond natural life represented in religious philosophies.) Rudimentary life-forms possess rudimentary consciousness. Once humans cross the threshhold of language, skilled artisanship, story-telling and reasoning (over hundreds of thousands of years) our ‘horizons of being’ expand far beyond those of other species. If you think about what existence must have been like for ancient peoples - we were smarter than animals, but in many other ways still very much like them. Life was toil for sustenance, a great deal of pain (can you imagine the injuries 😱 ) And all our ancestors lived like that for millenia! (I had this realisation when studying prehistoric anthropology. A realisation of what surviving the Ice Ages must have been like for those in the paleolithic era. And also the realisation that those people were ‘me’ - not me personally, of course, but the same genetic stock, the same kinds of people, dealing with life, birth and death, suffering and joy - for those aeons of time. People just like myself - the ancestors.) So, when the Greeks began to realise the power of reason, it must have been intoxicating. Suddenly you could envisage a way not to live alongside and like other animals. It opened horizons of understanding - a completely different sense of what is real. That I feel was the animating spirit behind Greek philosophy. And endowed with that sense, they began to seek the reason for _everything_. That was the origin of philosophy, wasn’t it? Reaching it’s apogee in Plotinus and the 'neo-'Platonists. But our culture has lost all sense of there being a qualitative dimension, so all it can envisage is horizontal expansion via the conquest of space. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 3:33pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/54 "2026-09-19T15:33:56Z")
You describe this view well. I find parts of it very appealing. I know, though, that you’re also quite familiar with non-Western views about consciousness, which are much closer to my hypothesis that consciousness may be “one thing” (horrible way to put it but you understand) which permits different capacities, on up the chain of being. Would you agree that there’s a good case to be made for the non-dual version of consciousness, with atman as pure consciousness, the same for all beings? ---
**Author:** ![hypericin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/71e660/32.png) [@hypericin](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/hypericin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/55 "2026-09-19T17:45:32Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > That undercuts practically any ‘theory of consciousness’. Theories generally rely on explanans-explanadum (what is to be explained and what explains.) But consciousness is both explanans and explanandum - what explains, as well as what is to be explained. Hence the inevitable circularity of attempts to ‘explain consciousness’! There’s an inescapable recursiveness involved in any attempt to do that, as it must always assume what it sets out to prove. In your sense, consciousness is the explanans of anything at all. And without an understanding of the explanans, we cannot successfully explain the explanadum. And so nothing whatsoever can be explained absent a successful theory of consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 9:43pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/56 "2026-09-19T21:43:15Z")
> [@hypericin](#): > > so nothing whatsoever can be explained absent a successful theory of consciousness. Think about how many enormously influential and impactful scientists have lived their lives without entertaining such a theory. ---
**Author:** ![hypericin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/71e660/32.png) [@hypericin](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/hypericin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 9:47pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/57 "2026-09-19T21:47:42Z")
This is the point of my reductio ad absurdum. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 10:02pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/58 "2026-09-19T22:02:56Z")
you’ve lost me there. To my mind, ‘theories of consciousness’ proper began with Sigmund Freud and perhaps some of his predecessors. ---
**Author:** ![hypericin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/71e660/32.png) [@hypericin](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/hypericin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 10:41pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/59 "2026-09-19T22:41:34Z")
> [@Wayfarer](#): > > But consciousness is both explanans and explanandum - what explains, as well as what is to be explained. A theory of consciousness wouldn’t actually make consciousness the explanans. That would be nakedly circular. You are saying that in the ultimate sense, it is consciousness doing the explaining. But you can say that about any theory at all. If consciousness is really the explanans of any theory, and we don’t understand the explanans, since there is no consensus at all about what consciousness is and how it works, then we don’t understand any theory. ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 10:49pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089/60 "2026-09-19T22:49:08Z")
THe distinction with consciousness is that in this case ‘we are what we seek to know’ . I mean, consciousness can be studied through cognitive science in an objective manner, but the basic question of the nature of first-person consciousness - the ‘hard problem’ - is of a different kind. Whereas other scientific theories are on the whole about objective questions, issues in which the causal relationships can be measured, ascertained, quantified. That’s what I’m trying to get at. [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089.md?page=2) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/is-consciousness-an-effect-or-something-else/3089.md?page=4)