Does Matter Create Consciousness? Or Vice Versa?

[Angrboda]

People have stated as brute fact that matter precedes mind. But how could this be known? The only way to know that matter exists at all is for someone to experience it, i.e. with their mind. Yes, based on your experiences, you can start drawing inferences. But on the other hand, there is NEVER a point at which any person is aware of any information about things without having a sentient mind.

I can match up the timeline of events in my family and tell that my sisters, brother, and parents were conscious of things before I existed. I can determine that they and I are the same type of beings as I am, because we have the same types of bodies, similar minds, and based on trust, I know I came out of my mother as a baby. Given this, I can conclude, that just as there were events before I existed, if others are like me, they too likely have existed after the occurrence of other events. Believing otherwise is inconsistent. Thus, on the basis of similarity, and knowing that I am finite and that there was existence before me, I can consistently infer that there was existence before all consciousnesses like me (human). The rest requires additional steps, but no remarkable leaps, just common inferential reasoning from identity, similarity, and dissimilars.


(If we are deceived, we are deceived completely, and that we are deceived, is, itself a deception. This is the same logical catch-22 that all forms of radical skepticism face. They are logically incomplete philosophies.)