# Nagel’s “The Core of ‘Mind and Cosmos’" through an Earth Centrist lens **URL:** \ **Category:** Philosophy of Mind\ **Created:** [August 1, 2026, 6:06pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080 "2026-08-01T18:06:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 6:00am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/102 "2026-09-18T06:00:37Z")
This is good then. I agree that science and phenomenology are different enterprises with different methodologies, and also that neither needs to absorb the other. But what justifies the claim that the difference between them is a _purely conceptual_ distinction? A purely methodological pluralism doesn’t quite satisfy my curiosity. I want to see whether the simple _recognition_ of this apparent gap – this _confrontation_ between two very different ways of encountering and describing reality – is itself telling us something about the ontology. Reality surely encompasses actual organisms, actual nervous systems, actual interactions, actual experiences and actual scientific investigations. The distinction between the perspectives may be conceptual without being ontologically trivial. I also want to avoid any danger of getting into a semantic squabble about the term “explanatory gap.” I don’t intend it to suggest that physics has somehow failed to explain something it ought to explain, or that we should therefore demand some kind of descriptive bridge. I’m using it instead as an indication that the persistent distinction between science and phenomenology might itself be telling us something interesting about the ontology. What kind of world-picture results when the extraordinarily successful third-person methodology of science is combined with the recognition that science itself is an activity occurring from within the world it describes? The problem of self-reference may be a big part of this. And this brings me straight back to RQM, because one of its implications, as I understand it, is that the scientific description itself becomes one of the relationally situated descriptions. I’m interested in what follows when the map has no centre – when there is no perspective from which the distinction between domains can be rendered absolute. ---
**Author:** ![Citizenschallenge](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/citizenschallenge/32/1027_2.png) [@Citizenschallenge](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Citizenschallenge)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/103 "2026-09-18T14:19:19Z")
> [@John](#): > > > [@Citizenschallenge](#): > > > > Isn’t a key point here, that what we **construct our impression** of reality, given the facts at hand – for our sensory systems to observe, and brain to process. > > I think we construct our conscious ideas and models of the world we perceive, but I do not think we construct our perceptions of the world, including our own bodies. But aren’t our bodies all about (interacting with and) sensing the world as best it can with the tools it has at hand - and then processing a mental impression, based on lived experience and then proceeding from there. We experience our body from inside, but are still limited observer. Mind ~ Physical Reality divide > [@John](#): > > Perceptual…lived… experience **is given to us pre-cognitively in my view** , although it can be modified and elaborated to some extent by cognition. How do you mean that? We are evolved beings and were pre-cognitive at some point. Then biological growth and lived experience happened and cognitive awareness developed. > [@John](#): > > We cannot in the general flow of our lives consciously choose what to perceive in the world. I mean we can sometimes choose to look at this instead of that, but we cannot choose what is seen. I’m confused by that. Seeing is a process of prediction, filtering and focusing - we have influence in _what we choose to be present to_. We process what _we choose to be present to_ via our cumulative lived experience. ---
**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, 11:18pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/104 "2026-09-18T23:18:04Z")
I think you may have misunderstood me. I have tried to emphasize that science and phenomenology are very different practices, so I would not say that the difference between them is a purely conceptual distinction. Perhaps you can quote what I wrote that led you to that conclusion. I don’t know whether seeing the differences between science and phenomenology reveals anything about ontology, but I think it shows the different ways in which we think and explain different kinds of phenomena. I agree that the terminological issue is not so important, provided we understand each other’s thoughts. You may well be right that the differences between science and phenomenology do reveal something about ontology, but at this point I am unable to imagine what that “something” might be. The (ideally) unbiased observations of phenomena that are the beginnings of science are human practices, to be sure, just as the (ideally) unbiased reflections on, and analyses of, the general nature of human experience that constitutes phenomenology are human practices. The veracity of the theoretical, abductive conjectures of both disciplines are assessed in very different ways, though, since science relies on assessments based on predictive success of hypotheses, whereas this doesn’t seem possible, or at the very least nearly so straightforward, in the case of phenomenology. Self-reference certainly enters the picture with phenomenology, but I can’t see how it does with science, apart from the truistic point that science is necessarily a human practice. I agree the map has no (certain) centre, which is the same as to say that it has no certain foundation. Some will say that human experience is ontologically fundamental on account of the fact that we must admit that all investigations begin with human experience. Others will say that science gives us every reason to believe that human experience is not ontologically fundamental. I wonder how a fact of the matter that would show which of the attitudes is correct could ever be established. ---
**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, 11:35pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/105 "2026-09-18T23:35:10Z")
> [@Citizenschallenge](#): > > But aren’t our bodies all about (interacting with and) sensing the world as best it can with the tools it has at hand - and then processing a mental impression, based on lived experience and then proceeding from there. > We experience our body from inside, but are still limited observer. > > Mind ~ Physical Reality divide What I meant to highlight was what I believe is the indisputable fact that effect upon and neural processing which results perceptual experience is pre-cognitive. In other words we cannot be, in vivo, aware of the primal interactions between body and world, or the physiological/ neural processes that underpin perception. Seeing it as a “mind/ physical reality divide” is a kind of dualism it seems to me. Of course we do coneptually distinguish between body/mind and world or even between body and mind, but I don’t believe such distinctions are conception-independently real. > [@Citizenschallenge](#): > > We are evolved beings and were pre-cognitive at some point. Then biological growth and lived experience happened and cognitive awareness developed. The way I see it we are on the conscious level not pre-cognitive (by at least mere definition). I’m say that much goes on at the pre-conscious level. > [@Citizenschallenge](#): > > > [@John](#): > > > > We cannot in the general flow of our lives consciously choose what to perceive in the world. I mean we can sometimes choose to look at this instead of that, but we cannot choose what is seen. > > I’m confused by that. > > Seeing is a process of prediction, filtering and focusing - we have influence in _what we choose to be present to_. We process what _we choose to be present to_ via our cumulative lived experience. Taking visual perception as example, we can choose what to look at, for sure, but we have no choice as to what is there to be looked at. ---
**Author:** ![j\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ab097/32.png) [@j\_j](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/j_j)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 5:59am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/106 "2026-09-19T05:59:29Z")
> [@Andy](#): > > From another, we might simply say that there is no privileged standpoint from which the relationship between all perspectives can be made absolute. I’m with you on this. It’s hard perhaps for “post-theological” occidental theory to accept a loss of the sacred center. With the sacred center goes the possibility of “perfect correctitude.” Traditionally, a (divine ) “omniscient narrator” — bloodless and uninvested — would see the “true” relationships that non-divine “characters” can only see “from an embedded point of view.” ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 7:09am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/107 "2026-09-19T07:09:24Z")
> [@j\_j](#): > > I’m with you on this. It’s hard perhaps for “post-theological” occidental theory to accept a loss of the sacred center. With the sacred center goes the possibility of “perfect correctitude.” I think you highlight perhaps the most significant distinction between occidental and oriental religions. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 11:16am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/108 "2026-09-19T11:16:03Z")
> [@John](#): > > Perhaps you can quote what I wrote that led you to that conclusion. > [@John](#): > > I agree that the distinction between third and first person occurs within the relational structures both human and (presumably) extra-human. I think it is a purely conceptual distinction, useful for some purposes and misleading in some contexts. I apologise if I read too much into that. I think your clarification helps. > [@John](#): > > I wonder how a fact of the matter that would show which of the attitudes is correct could ever be established. This gets me thinking about the Wheeler–Rovelli exchanges… There seems to me to be an interesting historical arc here: Everett’s nested-observer problem, Wigner’s Friend, Bell and the subsequent development of contextuality, Wheeler’s delayed-choice thought experiment and then his “It from Bit” proposal. These developments eventually provided much of the conceptual background from which RQM emerged, followed by Rovelli’s provocative response to Wheeler: “It from Bit or Bit from It?” I don’t want to suggest that this constitutes a simple linear progression (it certainly does not), but taken together, the history seems to have progressively destabilised the idea that there is a single, observer-independent description of quantum reality. Wigner’s point was that a physical fact can be established relative to one observer or system without yet being established relative to another. Wheeler then pushed the _participatory_ aspect of observation much further, suggesting that the obtaining of information might somehow be _constitutive_ of physical reality (hence “It from Bit”). Rovelli’s response interests me because he resists making “bit” foundational. His proposal is instead that information is _relative_ – information is _between physical systems_ – but the physical world is not an absolute “it” sitting behind the interactions waiting to be described “from nowhere.” Nor, on this view, is “bit” an independently existing informational substance. Information and physical relation become inseparable. Subsequent work on the Wigner’s Friend scenario are striking. The no-go results of Brukner and of Bong show (given their respective assumptions) that universal quantum mechanics, locality, and observer-independent facts, simply don’t hang together. Rovelli’s “cross-perspective-links” proposal in RQM seems to me an interesting refinement precisely because it asks how facts established relative to one perspective can become available across perspectives without simply reinstating an absolute description. I thought this historical progression had developed sufficient momentum to direct our attention to the question of whether the conceptual point has ontological significance. In RQM, the observer isn’t outside the physical world looking in. The observer is another physical system, and the information obtained is relative to the interaction. So perhaps neither human experience on one hand nor scientific description on the other can occupy that foundational position, because both are themselves relationally situated _within_ the reality they are attempting to describe. That is where the “map without a centre” idea seems to me to become more than just an epistemological metaphor. If there is no standpoint outside the network from which the network can be described _absolutely_, then perhaps the absence of a foundation isn’t simply a limitation on what we can _know_ – perhaps it is a clue about the kind of _reality_ we are dealing with. If information, observation, scientific description and phenomenological experience all arise _within_ the relational network, what can it even mean to claim that any one of them provides the network’s foundation? Does this resonate with you? Or do you think the move from the epistemological point to the ontological one can still be challenged? ---
**Author:** ![j\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ab097/32.png) [@j\_j](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/j_j)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 12:15pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/109 "2026-09-19T12:15:12Z")
Very cool post altogether ! I just add a couple of responses from my own wheelhouse. > [@Andy](#): > > Wheeler then pushed the _participatory_ aspect of observation much further, suggesting that the obtaining of information might somehow be _constitutive_ of physical reality (hence “It from Bit”). To me a bit is a “sign.” A beautifully minimal sign. One can understand Wheeler here to recognize ( like Walker Percy) that humans live in a “sign world.” And —to put it mildly — signs don’t trivially reduce to “instantaneous” physical. “Signs” have their life not only socially but also “in time” or “over time.” A bit is a “role” that can be enacted, just like a numeral is a role that various scribbles to play. We “enact” the “promotion” of a scribble to a numeral via what we do with it and other scribbles over time. The physical properties of the pencil mark are important, but the dominant feature of that mark is its place in a game of numerals and then numbers. > [@Andy](#): > > Nor, on this view, is “bit” an independently existing informational substance. Information and physical relation become inseparable. Exactly ! I often use “mathematical platonism” as a label for the postulation of an “information substance.” The bit or numeral as “enacted role” makes it suspiciously slippery. People see correctly that the numeral is not reducible to any particular scribble. But they don’t see the enacted “role equivalence” of a messy and open plurality of scribbles. We also have dead metaphors like “translate” that suggest the shuffling of an “immaterial” content. We can use the metaphor of the dance known as “the twist.” The twist is not localized. Yes, particular “twisters” (dancers) enact it, so it is “right over there” in that sense. But it is only **the** “twist” by also **not** being there. We don’t need the “leave the realm of quality” ( or the “physical” ) to understand the “meaning” of signs. Of course we also “understand” or “experience the sigificance” of signs as part of a richer notion of perception. In the case of a bit, I can perceive that a lamp is ON or OFF. I can comport myself toward this empirical situation primarily as this disclosure of a bit. > [@Andy](#): > > The observer is another physical system, and the information obtained is relative to the interaction. So perhaps neither human experience on one hand nor scientific description on the other can occupy that foundational position, because both are themselves relationally situated _within_ the reality they are attempting to describe. Right ! And “scientific description” seems to me to always be enacted personally. It’s like speaking English. Some people speak it better than others. But any speaking of English is of course a **person’s** speech. Likewise it is individuals who “understand” science, who articulate it, who extend it. The goal has tacitly been to “say what God sees.” > [@Andy](#): > > Rovelli’s “cross-perspective-links” proposal in RQM seems to me an interesting refinement precisely because it asks how facts established relative to one perspective can become available across perspectives without simply reinstating an absolute description. Fascinating. And to me this is the (informally ) **realistic** situation. **Philosophers** often “account” for communication in terms of “ **attempting** to speak the absolute description.” The traditional philosopher “lives” to find and pronounce this “absolute” description. This “set loose” or “set free” description is “free” (so it is suggested ) from subjectivity as an impurity. But “freedom from point of view” is freedom from the burden of perception and reality altogether. > [@Andy](#): > > If there is no standpoint outside the network from which the network can be described _absolutely_, then perhaps the absence of a foundation isn’t simply a limitation on what we can _know_ – **perhaps it is a clue about the kind of _reality_ we are dealing with.** If information, observation, scientific description and phenomenological experience all arise _within_ the relational network, what can it even mean to claim that any one of them provides the network’s foundation? I’m with you on this too. If we take this seriously indeed, then — it seems to me — we begin to leave the representational framework behind. “Ontological perspectivism” is no longer an attempt to paradoxically offer an “absolute description.” If we also take the “motivated-ness” of inquiry seriously, then “cold mirroring” also becomes suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 2:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/110 "2026-09-19T14:36:23Z")
> [@j\_j](#): > > I’m with you on this too. If we take this seriously indeed, then — it seems to me — we begin to leave the representational framework behind. “Ontological perspectivism” is no longer an attempt to paradoxically offer an “absolute description.” If we also take the “motivated-ness” of inquiry seriously, then “cold mirroring” also becomes suspect. I’m glad you’ve been tracking this thread JJ. John’s challenges have been highly productive for me and it’s good to see that you’re in agreement with the emerging clarity. ---
**Author:** ![Citizenschallenge](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/citizenschallenge/32/1027_2.png) [@Citizenschallenge](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Citizenschallenge)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 3:56pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/111 "2026-09-19T15:56:30Z")
> [@John](#): > > The way I see it we are on the conscious level not pre-cognitive (by at least mere definition). I’m say that much goes on at the pre-conscious level. I was not disputing any of that. I was referring early times when living organism were precognition. Although thinking on, when I think of my body and it’s complex systems, I know there are layers of communication and (pre)cognition going in within internal systems, that in turn must communicate with other systems within the whole. I hope I’m not breaking house rules but I had a little dialogue with Claude.ai, which of course agreed with me ;-). Then it offered up a list of supporting scientific learning. I’m familiar with the top three scientists/authors and have read “The Hidden Spring” and “Self Comes to Mind” - so they have gone into developing my perspective and I don’t think I’m breaking the spirit of the law by sharing: > 1. **Mark Solms** — _The Hidden Spring_ (2021) argues affective consciousness originates in brainstem homeostatic/allostatic regulation, not cortex, and works upward using a free-energy framework. > 2. **Michael Levin** — his bioelectric/nested-agency work is the biological version of your question at a level below sleep entirely: cells and tissues run their own local “problem-solving” competencies that get integrated into larger-scale agents, all the way up. It’s the same nested-doll logic applied one register down. > 3. **Antonio Damasio** — _The Strange Order of Things_ (2018) and _Self Comes to Mind_ (2010) build a layered model (proto-self → core consciousness → autobiographical self) starting from homeostatic feeling states. > 4. **Bud Craig** — _How Do You Feel?_ (2015), the classic on interoceptive layering through the insula, is the physiology-heavy complement to Damasio. And I must get to know Craig and his book. You see over the past half year I’ve been wearing an Oura ring and discovered sleep is a complex dynamic surfing between the major four states, top layer being awake, with receding levels “consciousness”. And of course our categories are only rough guides, so I imagine it’s really a smooth continuum, as opposed to some sort of three lowered states of sleep. ---
**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 20, 2026, 12:04am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/112 "2026-09-20T00:04:40Z")
Thanks Andy. There is a lot there and I have too much on right now to respond…will try to get to it as soon as possible. ---
**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 20, 2026, 12:16am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/113 "2026-09-20T00:16:41Z")
I have too much on to respond right now…until later… ---
**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 20, 2026, 11:19pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/114 "2026-09-20T23:19:23Z")
> [@Andy](#): > > I don’t want to suggest that this constitutes a simple linear progression (it certainly does not), but taken together, the history seems to have progressively destabilised the idea that there is a single, observer-independent description of quantum reality. The question occurs to as to whether there is any observer-independent description of quantum reality, or anything else for that matter? There seem to be several interpretive permutations of that question. All descriptions are observation-based. On the other hand descriptions of phenomena don’t generally include the observer―so perhaps it could be said that scientific descriptions of what is observed are observer-independent in that sense. If the idea that there is a single, observer-independent description of quantum reality has been destabilized (not definitively refuted?) does that destabilization pertain only to description? In other words should we think there is an observer-independent reality even if we cannot know (by mere definition) what that reality is? In this context “know” would seem to mean “be certain”. Are we precluded from forming more or less plausible beliefs about what the observer-independent reality (assuming there is one) might be? I don’t find phenomenalism satisfying, and I don’t buy the idea that the idea of the mind-independently real object is incoherent just because it cannot (again by mere definition) ever be mind-independently experienced and hence known in that sense. So, I lean towards some kind of ontic structural realism. I don’t find it plausible that something entirely indeterminate could give rise to a shared world. I think Rovelli thinks that the determinateness of the classical world already obtains relationally prior to there being any sentient life, but it’s possible I have misinterpreted him. I’m not as familiar with the history of interpretations of quantum phenomena as you seem to be, although I have read a couple of Rovelli’s books. What do you think Rovelli means to question with “It from Bit or Bit from It”? > [@Andy](#): > > Does this resonate with you? Or do you think the move from the epistemological point to the ontological one can still be challenged? I think inference to ontology from what we know via experience is legitimate, not incoherent. I don’t hold with the phenomenological (for example Heideggerian) claim that ontology just is phenomenology, so I don’t want to challenge such moves (from epistemology to ontology) , but I do think we are left with what seems most plausible to each of us individually, because as I said earlier I can’t imagine how a fact of the matter regarding the nature of what things are in themselves could ever be established, and again I see that as being the case by mere definition. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2026, 5:58pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/115 "2026-09-21T17:58:34Z")
There are a number of different issues here that are all getting mixed up together, so I’d like to see if I can separate them out for clarity and address them individually as far as that is possible. 1. RQM and consciousness You seem to have a concern about any interpretation of RQM that implicates consciousness, so let me be clear about this: I’m confident that it does not. The third-person description methodologically omits the first-person perspective _by design_. RQM describes the _information_ that physical systems have about one another, and proposes that physical quantities are _relationally instantiated_. An “observer” in this sense is not a conscious subject standing outside the world, but _any physical system entering into an interaction_. An electron, a photon, a measuring device, or another physical system can all play the role of observer. The term is deliberately stripped of its ordinary first-person meaning. So my impression is that any reading of RQM in which quantum indeterminacy somehow requires consciousness to produce a determinate world is a mistaken reading. What RQM rejects, rather, is the assumption that reality must consist of intrinsically determinate properties waiting to be described “from nowhere”. I don’t think Rovelli even needs to consider the issue of consciousness, or to hypothesise about its place in any kind of ontology. The relational events of RQM do not depend upon there being conscious observers. 2. RQM and OSR RQM takes relations arising through interactions to be fundamental to its physical description. One natural philosophical interpretation of this, associated with ontic structural realism, is that objects are better understood as relational nodes than as independently self-subsistent things. This seems remarkably close to the radical form of OSR associated with Ladyman and others, although I wouldn’t want to suggest that RQM itself commits us to one particular version of OSR. So RQM and OSR aren’t necessarily repudiations of realism per se. Rather, they seem to weaken the strong form of realism in which objects possess intrinsic properties independently of their relations. This seems entirely consistent with the idea that there may be no _absolute_ centre from which reality can be represented. This raises an interesting question for me. Is it a “plausible inference” from RQM and OSR that there is no absolute foundation? I would say that this is more than the claim that we cannot know the intrinsic nature of things with certainty. It is an inference from the physical theory that relations are fundamental, while absolute, observer-independent properties are not. I’m still reluctant, though, to think of the relational structure itself as a “foundation” in the traditional sense. If relations are fundamental, but every relation is itself internal to the network of relations, then what would it mean for the network as a whole to have an “absolute foundation”? Perhaps the inference we should draw from the physics is therefore stronger than simply that we cannot know things as they are “in themselves”. Perhaps it is telling us that the demand for intrinsic, observer-independent properties is itself the wrong ontological demand. RQM isn’t simply saying, “We cannot know the world as it is in itself.” It is proposing that there may be no observer-independent _state of a system_ to be known in the first place. That seems to me to be a rather different claim. 3. It from Bit or Bit from It? When Rovelli engaged with Wheeler’s “It from Bit” idea, his notion of information was Shannonian: information _between physical systems_. So there is no implication of subjective idealism. It isn’t that “consciousness creates reality”; it is that information itself is relational. I don’t think Rovelli simply reverses Wheeler and says “bit from it”, either. His point is that relative information between physical systems can be fundamental to physics without treating information as something subjective or mental. From an OSR perspective, I think this opens up a third possibility: neither “it” nor “bit” has to be fundamental in isolation. What may be fundamental is the relational structure between physical systems. So I would distinguish Rovelli’s position from my own extrapolation here. Rovelli is arguing that relative information is physical and relational. My own thought is that this fits remarkably well with the OSR idea that relations are ontologically prior to relata: the “it” and the “bit” may both be derivative descriptions of the underlying relational structure. In that sense, “relative information” could be understood as the formal, Shannon-theoretic description of a physical relation, rather than as an alternative substance from which reality is somehow constructed. 4. The shared world You say that you “don’t find it plausible that something entirely indeterminate could give rise to a shared world.” I interpret you to be asking something like: _If there are only perspectival or relational facts, how do the perspectives hang together sufficiently to constitute the common world we actually inhabit? What makes a relational world “one world”?_ I think I would want to start by saying that “no absolute centre” does not mean “no determinate reality”. It could instead mean _determinate reality without absolute relata — determination through relation rather than determination prior to relation_. (And this harks back to my fascination with William James’s radical empiricism.) So perhaps “indeterminate” isn’t quite the right word here. RQM doesn’t seem to imply that reality is an amorphous indeterminacy out of which consciousness somehow crystallises a world. It gives us determinate physical events, but their determinateness is relational. Increasingly stable structures can then emerge from those relations, particularly in the classical/decoherent regime. The question for RQM is therefore perhaps not how an entirely indeterminate reality produces a determinate one, but why relational determination doesn’t dissolve into a collection of disconnected private realities. This is why Rovelli and Adlam have more recently paid so much attention to “cross-perspective links” – how information possessed by one physical system can become accessible to others, thereby supporting intersubjective agreement. Their proposal is an attempt to explain how different perspectives can be connected in a way that allows stable facts to be shared. It has also been criticised for introducing something that looks suspiciously like an absolute framework, so I don’t think the problem can be regarded as settled. But I’m not sure that an absolute framework is actually necessary. Permit me a perhaps rather bold suggestion – that the commonality lies not in there being an _absolute_ description behind all the perspectives, but in the fact that the perspectives are themselves _internally related to one another_. In that case, a shared world would consist not of many isolated perspectives converging on a single perspective-independent description, but of a coherent network of physically related perspectives. Perhaps that provides another way of interpreting what “cross-perspective links” are doing. They need not be links _between_ an underlying absolute reality and the various perspectives upon it; perhaps they are part of what constitutes the commonality of the reality itself. 5. Phenomenology And this brings me back to the phenomenological question. The phenomenal cannot simply be eliminated, since it is the starting point for the whole investigation. I wonder whether the first-person/third-person distinction might itself be one more internal distinction arising within the relational structure, rather than a distinction between two fundamentally different kinds of reality. Science has made the distinction especially sharp by methodologically bracketing the subjective perspective. But that doesn’t mean that the first-person and third-person perspectives belong to different ontological realms. The third-person description is itself something that occurs _within_ the world it describes — an activity undertaken by systems that occupy a particular perspective within the relational structure. Perhaps, then, the real issue isn’t how to construct a bridge between two fundamentally different domains, but how to understand the relationship between two different perspectives that have emerged _within the same relational reality_. ---
**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 21, 2026, 11:59pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/116 "2026-09-21T23:59:41Z")
> [@Citizenschallenge](#): > > Although thinking on, when I think of my body and it’s complex systems, I know there are layers of communication and (pre)cognition going in within internal systems, that in turn must communicate with other systems within the whole. Right, and my point was that all those processes are prioir to cognition, and necessary for its occurrence. I’m somewhat familiar with the work of Levin and Damasio, not at all with Solms or Craig. When we talk about consciousness, what will apply depends on what we understand consciousness to be. Some use ‘consciousness’ to refer only to reflexively aware states―states in which there is awareness as well as awareness of being aware. ---
**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 22, 2026, 5:36am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/117 "2026-09-22T05:36:43Z")
You’re right, I don’t buy interpretations based on the idea that consciousness is necessary for there to be a determinate, or perhaps better, determinable, reality―I think all of science speaks against such an idea. That said, I do think consciousness is necessary to make a determination of reality, because that would be a conceptually mediated judgement. I also understand that any interacting physical system counts as an “observer”, for Rovelli at least. I’m not sure what “intrinsically determinate properties waiting to be described “from nowhere”” could even be―the idea seems incoherent. I agree that objects are more coherently understood as “relational nodes” and/ or as themselves congeries of processes―I cannot imagine what a “self-subsistent thing” could be, since nothing we encounter in the world would seem to fit that bill. So, for me any strong form of realism that represents objects as possessing intrinsic properties independently of the relations seems unintelligible. I cannot imagine how there could be an “absolute center” from which reality could be represented. So I agree that it seems implausible, even unintelligible, that there could be any “absolute foundation”. Thinking in terms of relational structures it seems easy to fall into a tendency to try to think the overall relational structure or system as being “what really is”, but if Rovelli is right (and I have understood him in this) there is no overall relational structure, since no part of the cosmos is in any relation or interaction with every other part. There is more interesting stuff in your post that I would like to respond to, but I’m out of time right now. ---
**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 23, 2026, 12:28am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/118 "2026-09-23T00:28:20Z")
My thinking here is that there are relational structures which affect the senses pre-cognitively and reliably give rise to the shared world of trees, mountains, rivers, animals, people and so on. For me that seems to be the most parsimonious and plausible explanation for the undeniable fact that we share a world with other humans and animals. The structures are not absolute in the sense of being able to stand utterly alone, and science (and in many cases ordinary experience and observation) tells us they are ever-changing, but within a vast range of different rapidities of change. I’m not sure what you mean by the perspectives “being internally related to one another”. Are you invoking an idea of a universal mind, or perhaps quantum entanglement? If the structures are (conscious) mind-independent and our bodies are themselves very similarly constituted structures, then the fact that we (and even noticeably some animals) demonstrably see and hear, etc. the same things at the same places would seem to make perfect sense. I don’t see science as so much methodologically (deliberately) bracketing the subjective perspective, since it is the inevitable foundation of all science. I think science has progressively eschewed the natural human tendency towards intuiting and imagining how things “must be” and instead opted for unbiased observation of phenomena instead. Kind of like the “to the things” of phenomenology. The biggest difficulty seems to be understanding human feeling and thought in mechanistically causal terms, and I tend to think we have good reason to think it to be impossible in principle. For me this dissolves the “hard problem” because it incoherently wants to achieve an impossible goal. What you say seems to generally agree with the picture of things I’ve tried to present here. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 1:43pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/119 "2026-09-23T13:43:08Z")
I’ve attempted to separate issues out again as far as possible: 1. The Hard Problem of Consciousness You said of the Hard Problem of Consciousness: “I tend to think we have good reason to think it to be impossible in principle. For me this dissolves the ‘hard problem’ because it incoherently wants to achieve an impossible goal.” I take you to mean that the explanatory gap is not something that science has _failed_ to solve, but rather that explaining phenomenology _in mechanistically causal terms_ is conceptually impossible. I think that’s an important point, but I want to say something slightly stronger: that the apparent gap may reveal something about the _structure of reality_, because the first-person and third-person perspectives are themselves _internally situated within that reality_. In other words, I’m wondering whether the conceptual discontinuity gives us any legitimate grounds for saying something of _ontological_ significance. I’m not suggesting that the existence of an explanatory gap by itself proves a particular ontology. Rather, I’m wondering whether it is telling us something about the kind of explanation that reality itself permits. 2. Science and Phenomenology as Entry Points You said that relational structures “affect the senses pre-cognitively”, and I interpret you to mean that the _causal interactions_ occur before and independently of our conceptual interpretation of them. But there is a distinction between “pre-conceptual” and “pre-experiential”. Yes, a physical structure can affect an organism before the organism forms a conceptual judgement such as “there is a tree”, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that conscious experience is simply equivalent to, or reducible to, the conceptual judgement that follows. You also said: “I don’t see science as so much methodologically (deliberately) bracketing the subjective perspective, since it is the inevitable foundation of all science.” I agree that science does not literally begin from nowhere, and I think your point that the first-person perspective is an inevitable condition of scientific practice is well taken. My concern is less with how science evolved than with the epistemic status we tend to give it _now_. Science has developed extraordinarily successful procedures for producing claims that do not depend upon the particular perspective of an individual observer. But this success can encourage the judgement that scientific description is somehow the final or exhaustive form of knowledge. Phenomenology is clearly not perspective-free, but neither is science. Science begins from an embedded phenomenological perspective and then develops methods for abstracting away from many features of that perspective. This is why I continue to find the idea of science and phenomenology as different “entry points” useful. They aren’t two different worlds, nor are they necessarily rival accounts of reality – they are different ways of approaching what is there. 3. The Unity of the Shared World You said: “There is no overall relational structure, since no part of the cosmos is in any relation or interaction with every other part.” I agree. If reality is relational _all the way down_, then there is no _single physical system_ that stands in direct interaction with every other system, no single relational network corresponding to _the cosmos as a whole_, and no ultimate node from which the whole can be represented. There is no “God’s-eye view”. If there isn’t even _one network_ in the sense of a completed physical totality, then we can’t solve the shared-world problem by saying: “All perspectives are ultimately perspectives within the one universal relational network.” But what, then, constitutes the unity of the world? If there is no _overall_ relational structure, what can it mean to speak of a “totality” at all? Perhaps the answer is that “one world” needn’t mean “one globally connected relational object”. There are overlapping, partially connected networks of relations. It isn’t necessary for you and I to have interacted with every particle in the universe for us to share a world. What matters is that there are chains and structures of interaction through which causal influence and information can propagate. So perhaps we should distinguish _ontological totality_ – one complete relational structure containing everything – from _relational coherence_ – locally connected structures whose interactions generate increasingly extensive domains of shared determination. You also said that “there are relational structures which affect the senses pre-cognitively and reliably give rise to the shared world of trees, mountains, rivers, animals, people and so on.” I take you to be saying something like this: there is a mind-independent relational reality; organisms are themselves physical structures within that reality; those organisms enter into causal relations with other structures; and because organisms are themselves similarly constituted, those interactions produce sufficiently similar sensory information for different organisms to encounter what we recognise as the same world. I think it is reasonable to regard that as the most parsimonious explanation of the remarkable agreement between different observers. The commonality doesn’t need to be explained by a “universal mind” – it can be explained causally. But this brings me back to the question I am most interested in: _what follows ontologically if the world is relational all the way down?_ If there is no independently existing thing that constitutes the ultimate ground of the others, and each node exists only in and through its relations, then the character of the shared world is always manifested \*locally\*. But what does that imply for our understanding of the world as a whole? 4. Internal and External Relations We have arrived, then, at a view where the world is shared because of causal relations between its constituent structures or nodes. But is causal interaction alone sufficient to explain everything we mean by a shared world, or does phenomenology also have to be included in the picture? What I’m getting at is this: relational structures interact; organisms are particular kinds of relational structures; organisms have perspectives; and from those perspectives we generate descriptions of the relational structures in which we participate. But there is an important distinction here. A camera, in a perfectly ordinary sense, has a perspective: it receives information from a particular location and orientation. What it does not obviously have is a _conscious experience of that perspective_. So the mere existence of a perspective needs to be distinguished from the existence of phenomenology. This is where I wonder whether phenomenology itself might be an _internal feature of the relational structure_, rather than something that must ultimately be treated as an observer standing on one side of a relation and an independently existing world on the other. So when I say that “perhaps the perspectives are _internally related to one another_”, I’m not invoking a “universal consciousness”, nor am I thinking specifically of quantum entanglement. I mean something more structural. Similar organisms – similar kinds of nodes within the relational world – have similar information because they stand in similar causal relations to the structures around them. That explains _much_ of what we mean by a "shared world,” but there is still the further fact that at least some of those nodes don’t merely receive information – there is _something it is like for them to receive it_ – i.e. the fact that phenomenology is _not captured_ simply by saying that information has been causally transmitted. And this is where I think our discussion comes back to the original problem. Scientific descriptions are extraordinarily good at describing the causal and structural relations between things, but they don’t capture what those relations are like from within consciousness. As we have agreed, that doesn’t necessarily mean science has simply “failed” to complete the description. It may be that phenomenology cannot be accommodated within a mechanistically causal description _in principle_. My question is whether that limitation is merely a fact about the conceptual tools we happen to possess, or whether it tells us something about the ontology of a relational world in which both the “outside” causal description and the “inside” experience are themselves features of the same reality. ---
**Author:** ![Citizenschallenge](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/citizenschallenge/32/1027_2.png) [@Citizenschallenge](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Citizenschallenge)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 8:09pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/120 "2026-09-23T20:09:39Z")
> [@John](#): > > so perhaps it could be said that scientific descriptions of what is observed are observer-independent in that sense. That wording sidelines the important distinction - “science” does the observations and provides the raw data. It’s the observer who creates the instruments doing the observing. More importantly it is always an observer who’s responsible for “dressing” that raw data via human interpretation. > [@John](#): > > I’m somewhat familiar with the work of Levin and Damasio, not at all with Solms or Craig. When we talk about consciousness, what will apply depends on what we understand consciousness to be. No doubt. One of the biggest problems within the public dialogue is there are so many difference conception of consciousness. Often we talk past each other. Oh and you’ll never know what you’re missing until you try. Solms’ [The Hidden Spring](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393542011) is very good. 👍 > [@John](#): > > > [@Citizenschallenge](#): > > > > Although thinking on, when I think of my body and it’s complex systems, I know there are layers of communication and (pre)cognition going in within internal systems, that in turn must communicate with other systems within the whole. > > Right, and my point was that all those processes are prioir to cognition, and necessary for its occurrence. Which is exactly why today’s philosophy needs more science if it’s to escape the quagmire created by the long arm of ancient idealistic exceptionalism thinking that can’t see past the self. > [@John](#): > > “intrinsically determinate properties waiting to be described “from nowhere”” Consider the implication of Dr. Michael Graziano work. > **[Graziano Lab: CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOCIAL BRAIN](https://grazianolab.princeton.edu)** > The Graziano lab focuses on a mechanistic theory of consciousness, the **Attention Schema Theory** (AST). The theory seeks to explain how an information-processing machine such as the brain can insist it has consciousness, describe consciousness in the magicalist ways that people often do, assign a high degree of confidence to those assertions, and attribute a similar property of consciousness to others in a social context. ([Attention schema theory - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory))\*\* of the Attention Schema Theory of consciousness. For an example of how unrecognized predisposition can mislead, there’s the excellent example is the recent take down of a 40 year old notion, that always felt sketchy, but was roundly embraced by most. The case of Benjamin Libet’s famous paper that concluded “ **that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act … can and usually does begin unconsciously.** ” September 30, 2024 > **[New Neuroscience Has Undercut an Old Argument Against Free Will - The Society...](https://catholicscientists.org/articles/new-neuroscience-has-undercut-an-old-argument-against-free-will/)** > > Since the 1980's a famous experiment of Benjamin Libet has been interpreted by many as evidence that we do not have free will. More recent experiments have shown that this is wrong. **Professor Aaron Schurger** he studies volition, intentions, and spontaneous voluntary movement, and the other focused on perception, attention, and consciousness. # **[The Signal That Fooled Neuroscience for Decades](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDDgDSmfS6Q)** All of incoming information is pointing toward a construct accumulation of biology data, that is making it capable of resolving the Hard problem. _But it won’t happen without a radical shift in people’s attitude and hubris to grasp what the science is showing us._ > [@Andy](#): > > I think that’s an important point, but I want to say something slightly stronger: that the apparent gap may reveal something about the _structure of reality_, because the first-person and third-person perspectives are themselves _internally situated within that reality_. In other words, I’m wondering whether the conceptual discontinuity gives us any legitimate grounds for saying something of _ontological_ significance. I suggest [listen to the Graziano interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCOFORLARFU) - it _will_ give you plenty worth chewing on. ---
**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 24, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080/121 "2026-09-24T23:40:54Z")
i agree with you that philosophy needs more science. Thanks for the links…will check them out. > [@Andy](#): > > My question is whether that limitation is merely a fact about the conceptual tools we happen to possess, or whether it tells us something about the ontology of a relational world in which both the “outside” causal description and the “inside” experience are themselves features of the same reality. I’m just going to respond to this because I find no questions about all the rest. I tend to think that phenomenology can only tell us about how things _seem to us_ to be. Perhaps, as Dennett suggested, consciousness is not how it intuitively seems to be. We are “brain blind”. If all our thought is produced by neural activity of which we cannot be consciously aware then the only way to test whether it is intuitively telling us anything about the nature of the world or ourselves is via experiment and observation, testing what would predictively be the case if it were true. [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080.md?page=5) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/nagel-s-the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos-through-an-earth-centrist-lens/2080.md?page=7)