The fabric of the universe?

Metaphysical questions typically arise at an early age, when we first ask ourselves, "Why am I me, and not you?"  Before long this question leads to a second one: "Why is there something, rather than nothing?" Such questions may give us a eerie pleasure, or they may induce anxiety or even panic. In either case, answers are seldom forthcoming, and we usually put those questions aside, though with time a variety of lesser issues along the same lines are likely to rear their heads, including "Why are there mosquitoes?" and "Why is Mrs. Edstrom, my kindergarten teacher, persecuting me?"

Injustice, pain, the nature of meaning itself? For the most part, philosophers have done only a middling job of answering such questions. There are insights to be found in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and many others, but they tend to be strewn like shining nuggets amid a vast outwash plain of well-meant but unilluminating ratiocination.

In recent times—that is to say, in the last few centuries—thinkers have devised a number of approaches to such problems, drawing on the methodologies of mathematics, physics, linguistics, and other disciplines that lay claim to a more limited scope but firmer foundations. The results have been dismal.

Just the other day, Scientific American published an article carrying the title: "Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe?" (You can read it here.) It describes the results of a conference recently held to discuss the fact that no nuts-and-bolts physical or neurological description of consciousness has ever been devised.

The chosen title poses an even larger issue: In what way can it be said that the universe has a "fabric"?

Skirting this enormous question, the conference attendees analyzed the question of whether a panpsychic theory—that everything in the universe already possesses consciousness—might solve the problem. It's a wonderful theory, though it begs the question. It has been proposed by many philosophers including Giordano Bruno, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Denis Diderot, all of whose investigations the attendees seem to have been entirely unaware. In any case, such an approach doesn't address the pertinent issue, which is less about the existence of consciousness than the nature of sentience.

Consciousness is always consciousness "of" something. And that connection between inner and outer worlds is always colored by the individual who makes that connection. So what? The conferees seem to have been content to analyze the question of whether the color "red" that I see actually looks like the "red" you see. That's a trivial question. More important would be to analyze how my understanding of beauty or justice aligns with, and differs from, yours.

Going further, we might explore the wonderful fact—and it is an empirical fact—that my notions of justice and beauty are similar to the ones my family and friends hold. For example, we gnash our teeth in concert as we summon images of the dastardly and dangerous rogues in the Republican Party who are dead set on destroying our sacred institutions. This, in part, is why we've become "family and friends."

Such affinities are widespread but they're rarely perfect, which is why many of us continue to explore the nuances of the world we live in and the wide array of consciousnesses we share it with—animal, vegetable, and mineral.

Maybe the universe has a fabric after all?