Is it necessary to have an intelligent being (to perceive the universe) in order for the universe to exist?

Question

If so or not, why?

Answer 1

That is entirely possible. In fact, current studies being done at the quantum level in physics is indicating that this might be true. Yahoo or Google search on Observation Theory, and do a little background readin in Quantum Mechanics, I think you will like what you see.

Schrodinger suggests that if you have a machine in a lead box, that flips a coin randomly once the box is closed, that the coin in question is neither heads NOR tails, but both until the moment that it is viewed. This belief comes from several, repeated, complicated studies all of which can be read about online.

DukeFenton could not be more incorrect. While this may not seem to make sense, and could be entirely improbable, it is POSSIBLE that NOTHING exists until someone looks out to see it, or at least that nothing exists in its final form, but rather exists in a state of ambiguity, that is not solidified until observation. This selfsame observation is also of course destined to influence the outcome.

Do not be so quick to make assumptions with common sense, a little bit of reading on current physics will show you just how false many "common sense" notions can be.


Tiger Striped Dog MD

Answer 2

How would one know?

Actually, we can deduce that it's unlikely (or. at least, irrational to believe so). Reason (in my opinion) is, at it's most basic level, the assumption that patterns repeat. Now, there is absolutely no pattern whatsoever (no previous data) suggesting that if intelligence were to cease to exist, the universe would also (it's actually beside the point that such a pattern couldn't possibly exist, any such pattern should never be assumed).
Furthermore, science has given us a very clear picture of exactly what intelligence and perception are -that is, things derived from something else, rather then the root of the existential hierarchy, so to speak.
The notion is a psychologically attractive one, but the truth is, there simply exists no reason to believe, or data which suggests, that existence is derived from perception- it's therefore what we call "not true".

Tiger Striped Dog MD: You're completely misunderstanding quantum physics- the theory states that true randomness exists- that you cant ASSUME certain values to exist until you perceive them. It doesn't mean that the the values don't actually exist- it's just a rational way of thinking about unknown (or unknowable) data.
You see, whenever certain events happen on the quantum level, the universe "splits"- one reality for each of the possible outcomes of the event- there's no way to know which reality we're experiencing until we perceive the outcome, so we don't assume anything about the event (it's not "real" for lack of data supporting it). But the thing is, there are alternate universes in which we are perceiving every possible outcome of the event- therefore perception isn't creating existence, just our understanding of it.

Answer 3

No. By that logic, nothing could exist unless there were an intelligent mind to perceive it. That would make it impossible to discover anything, since the object or force could not have existed absent a previous imagination by some being. As it is, people are constantly finding things that, literally, nobody knew existed.

Conversely, the proposition that perception creates existence implies the possibility of imagining things into existence - something which would be nice but has never been done.

Answer 4

Yes and no. Yes, if you are an advocate of mentalism which says the Universe is incomplete without the presence of free- willed conscious minds and their mental activities. No, if you are an advocate of materialism which says everything that exists in the universe is nothing more but the mechanical fall out from the Big Bang including our minds and the activities of the minds.

Personally I go for mentalism but I try to understand materialism through the study of science. If Science has a drawback to keep it from completing a unified theory describing and explaining the universe, it is this: it unnecessarily assumes in a somewhat self-contradictory way, that reality is necessarily always independent of the existence of intelligent minds. Until that bias changes, the picture we have of the Universe will never be complete.

file TWH 07142006

Answer 5

No. The universe has been around 4.5 billion years since the Big Bang. The human race (intelligent being) has only existed for less than 100 thousand years(it may not last much longer)

Answer 6

You're getting into solipsism, the idea that the world you see may not exist. Well thats one way of looking at existence. Maybe we can say that all this existence is a thought in one guy's mind in a universe that is really a thought in one guy's mind, so on and so forth. Or Existence is a thought in God's mind or God himself. But thats getting into Pantheism. My personal opinion is that thing that is real are us, and the choices we make. There is no way to prove that however.

Answer 7

no need. although descarte affirms his own existence with his "cogito ergo sum" or "i think therefore i am", and with it being a different existentialist question, the universe does not have to be percieved, nor a sound which no one hears, as sometimes the intelligent being is already inside or part of the existence without it being aware of it.

Answer 8

"It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed

Answer 9

if one was ever that intellegent themn maybye but considring the infanint space in the unerverse no ones wit can match that

so the awnser is no

Answer 10

look in the mirror and ask that same question & decide what the
answer might be.