I have always had some doubts about physics. What troubles me is that there is no consciousness in physics. Of course, von Neumann once proposed that consciousness is the condition for quantum collapse. That is a very good clue, but it is still not a fundamental meta-physical proposition. At least it is not as beautiful as Einstein's propositions, and at the same time it does not essentially exclude other possibilities. In fact, by its nature, it cannot exclude other possibilities.
I am already very clear that the world must essentially include consciousness. The world may even be essentially conscious: whatever the world is, it must unfold in the form of first-person consciousness.
Physics is a product of our consciousness. So how can we propose a thesis that makes consciousness eloquently become an essential part of the physical world?
Physics is a theory of the physical world. The physical world is, in principle, a set that can be exhausted by enumerating physical events. At least, this is a very difficult understanding to refute. Therefore, no matter how we define the physical world, no matter what philosophical position we hold, no matter what view of reality we hold, we must admit that this event is a physical event:
The birth of self-consciousness.
It is literally a physical event. It clearly has a physical basis and a neuroscientific basis. It has antecedents and consequences. Most importantly, this event must involve first-person subjective consciousness.
That is to say, this event is physical and, at the same time, first-person subjective. It is the moment when a person realizes that I am me. The definition of this event is precisely that a person realizes that I am me. And yet it is entirely physical. Who can prove that it is not physical?
Who can separate this event from first-person subjective consciousness? Without the participation and declaration of first-person subjective consciousness, this event can never become a physical event. And as long as you are reading these words, you are one hundred percent certain that self-consciousness and its birth exist, because that is the you who is reading.
Therefore physics must accept this event as its object. The birth of self-consciousness must be a physical event that cannot essentially be excluded.
This looks like a small step, but it is in fact a giant step. Once we consider the birth of self-consciousness as a physical event, we naturally realize that any experiential event in the physical world must involve self-consciousness.
Because any experiential event in the physical world is the cognitive product of some self-consciousness. We cannot list a single counterexample. Therefore, in the sense of dependent origination, first-person self-consciousness is the fundamental condition of all physical phenomena, or dharmas.
What is dependent origination? It means that dharmas, that is phenomena or the physical, arise through the convergence of causes and conditions. And how should we understand this convergence of causes and conditions? It is as simple as these few lines:
When this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises.
When this does not exist, that does not exist; when this ceases, that ceases.
This is what is called dependent origination. Dependent origination regards the world as conditions and relations. The convergence of conditions and relations forms dharmas. And all dharmas of the physical world, all dharmas that can possibly become objects of cognition, take the participation of first-person self-consciousness as a condition. Therefore first-person self-consciousness is the fundamental condition of all dharmas, or of the physical.
We can go one step further. Sometimes we suspect that we are not substantive but simulated. So-called simulation is what remains after removing our illusion about the "substantiality" of the world. Compared with our illusion, we think "simulation" is less "real."
Actually, from the perspective of our cognition, we cannot articulate any difference between "simulation" and "reality." We think the world is composed of solid little balls called atoms, and we call this reality. But in the physical world as we know it, atoms have never been solid little balls. Not only are our models of atoms nothing but relations and conditions, such as interaction forces; every physical statement we make about atoms is completely made of relations and conditions. Nothing remains beyond that.
But whether we are inside our illusion of reality, or inside the "simulation" that remains after removing that illusion of reality, we know that relations and conditions are not empty. The stable determinacy that they form through convergence, and that can be known by us, is dharma. Dharma is physical phenomenon.
So what is reality? It is dharma. The reason dharmas can form stable determinacy is that they strictly follow the structure of causality. In the language of Buddhism, cause and effect are not false.
Therefore, when we can speak of this world, the world has already been established. This world must be a world that follows strict causal laws. To say that it follows strict causal laws means that nothing external to causal law can interfere with it.
In this sense, the world that can be known by us, even if it is simulated, must follow strict causal laws. It is therefore not trivial. It therefore has a beginningless, endless, boundless network of causes and conditions. It is therefore generative rather than closed. On the one hand, this gives us an understanding of reality: reality is generativity. On the other hand, it also suggests that there is no final physical theory in a closed sense. Physical theory, like the physical world, is a generative process.
Is the world generative? I think it is. If the world we inhabit were a finally closed world, and if there existed a closed physical theory, then the probability that we have not yet discovered that theory would be zero. According to the anthropic principle, the probability that the world is generative is 100%.