Episode 3 of The Pressure of Light Series on Consciousness and Time

While scientific philosophies differ in how they characterize the framework that creates, for a conscious mind, a system for understanding the universe, they all recognize that stimulus of the senses is a fundamental phenomenon for building, verifying and updating that system. David Hume, in The Treatise of Human Nature, showed just how little information about the universe the senses provide, most importantly showing that any perceived cause and effect relationship, even something as simple as a pool ball hitting another pool ball into a pocket, is just that, perceived, and never actually seen conclusively by the senses. A conscious mind must have an internal framework for understanding the universe that says, if you see a solid object move towards a second solid object, and the second solid object then subsequently moves, it’s best to assume that the second object moved because of the first. Even motion is perceived by taking snapshots of an object’s sequential positions, and then having the brain fill in the gaps with perceived movement. Again, this means the brain must have an internal framework that learns about the universe, that is, learns about which objects are moving and how fast, by presuming information that allows the brain to fill in the gaps between the scattered snapshots of stimulation it receives from the senses. In the context of The Pressure of Light, even these basic frameworks are considered artificial in their representation of the universe, because they are the result of permanence manufactured by a conscious mind in a universe where, externally, permanence does not exist.