Thursday, January 15, 2026

In The Universe Or Part Of It?

Is a person in the universe yet separate from it or part of it?  Logic reveals, as is often the case, a complex set of truths consisting of individual truths which tend to be quite simple.  The consciousness of a person (or another animal, if they are also conscious as they outwardly appear to be) is bound to their body.  Their body is confined to a position in the material plane occupying what would without any physical substance existing there be empty metaphysical space, an immaterial existent [1].  Nonetheless, one's body is not the same as any material existent outside of it despite both being physical in nature.

Yes, most people probably have gone nowhere near discovering how to prove that a material world, or some sort of physical substance, exists, which is actually quite difficult to initially pinpoint [2].  For anyone who has not discovered this, skepticism in this matter is the only rationalistic position to hold, for most entire categories of sensory experience do not require that there really is a physical world behind them.  Nevertheless, the typical non-rationalist might easily be compelled by basic perception to just assume that there really is a universe outside the mind, and their other assumptions, if they have given any thought to this aspect of the issue, will determine if they believe that humans are merely in the universe or part of it.

But I am certainly in the universe.  More specifically, my body is part of the external world in the broadest sense, that of all matter rather than strictly the cosmos beyond my body.  My consciousness is, like any mind, immaterial, occupying my body, the latter of which is a part of the universe in one sense and in the universe in another, since my body is a biological entity distinct from the environment around it.  One's consciousness has a very nuanced relationship to the material plane in that it is nonphysical, so it cannot possibly be part of the universe itself, but it is very much intertwined with something physical because it is "inside" the body.  In turn, through the body, one can experience physical sensations that seemingly correspond with various components of the natural world outside the body.

None of this necessitates that the immaterial mind lives on once the body dies, belief in which is the great error of some who do believe that the mind is not physical.  Its immateriality does not mean it must or will continue to exist after the death of the body without a physical vessel to inhabit.  In fact, unconsciousness is literally what the Bible itself says immediately awaits the human dead, such as in Ecclesiastes 9.  Certain popular concepts have neither demonstrable logical veracity nor alignment with Biblical theology, an immediate afterlife without a body among them.  What is true whether there is no afterlife, an immediate afterlife, or a delayed afterlife (with or without a body) is that consciousness is not part of nature.

Somewhat more complex a matter than it might seem at first, the issue of to what extent humans are part of the universe as opposed to inhabitants of it has to do with the foundational nature of and distinction between the mind, the body, and the broader physical cosmos.  We are both inside the universe and separate from it, depending on the aspect of the human being in focus.  It is untrue that we are outside of the universe in the entirety of our beings, just as it is untrue that out individual presences and humanity as a whole are nothing but a small part of the material world in its seeming vastness.



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