The Subjective Core of Reality: Subjectivity, Relationality & Consciousness

Abstract

Contemporary debates on consciousness often assume subjectivity – the quality of having a point of view or “what-it’s-like” – emerges only at higher levels of biological complexity (i.e. in conscious brains). This essay defends a contrary thesis: that subjectivity is a primitive, non-conscious perspectival property inherent in all relational physical interactions, rather than an exclusively emergent feature of conscious minds. In our framework, every concrete physical interaction entails a minimal point of view (a “subjective” aspect) for the participating entities, even though these ubiquitous viewpoints are not conscious experiences in themselves. By clarifying the distinction between basic subjectivity and full consciousness, we argue that consciousness is an elaborated form of fundamental subjectivity, not an ontologically novel property arising from entirely non-subjective matter. We introduce the concept of relationality – the idea that reality’s fundamental structure is defined by relations between entities – and illustrate it with accessible examples to ground the discussion. The paper’s aims are to articulate this relational subjectivity theory, connect it with current empirical research on consciousness, and contrast it with major theories in the philosophy of mind (including physicalist emergence, panpsychism, and dualism). We provide philosophical justification for these speculative claims, particularly that subjectivity demarcates concrete reality (with causal power and perspective) from abstract objects (causally inert, with no perspective). We also expand the discussion of how our view aligns with relational interpretations of quantum mechanics (Everett’s relative-state theory and Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics), which illustrate a world of perspectival facts that lend support to the idea of an observer-relative (though not necessarily conscious) aspect pervading physical reality.