Relativity and Cognitive Ethics

Abstract

Ethics originate from conscious experience. All categories of ethics (meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, descriptive ethics) are knowable only through conscious experience. Hence, conscious experience might be considered a meta-ethic (the origin and basis of all ethics). Conscious experience appears to us as a unified four-dimensional space-time continuum or field. A neural correlate for conscious experience modeled by Einstein's special theory of relativity has been found in the human brain. Conscious experience can be described and understood using relativistic physics. The principles of relativistic physics therefore influence ethics. Three universals emerge from relativity which mediate conscious experience and ethics: the laws of physics, the speed of light, and space-time intervals. The presence of these universals suggests that conscious experience (observed physical reality) is determinate (predictable). We do, however, have free will (choice), and this free will appears to be governed by ethics.