The Universe as colossal brain

Left: Neurons in a (mouse) brain.

Right: The universe with illuminated galaxies, simulated by a team of astrophysicists.

www.strangeattractor.co.uk...

This is interesting and has some curious implications.

Anyone have any ideas or comments? Personally I think it shows how all of reality is clearly connected on some innate level.

Interesting enough Mikeboyd, and it does indeed implicate the seemingly synchronised reality in which we live in.

You could compare the mouse's neurons to other things too - like the way we work our pipe systems, with pooling stations and water-treatment plants dotted here and there.

You could compare it to military organisations - a large group of people operating under a single leader.

I guess what i'm highlighting here is that you don't need a visual confirmation of the synchronism in order to be aware of it.

I suppose they do say that Myths and Legends generally hold a grain of truth in them...

Importantly, is to try and understand the nature of our synchronised environment - if we can understand it, we might be one step closer to attaining a state of near clairvoyance over certain issues.

reply to post by MikeboydUS



I think the illustrations illustrate it well enough.

I have always thought it particularly wasteful and impractical to spend billions upon billions to send spacecraft to see what's "out there".

My suspicion is, exactly the same would have been achieved by, say, using the microscope and wisely extrapolating from what atomic physics shows us...

As above, so below.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


What an amazing comparison! I was just telling somebody the other day that I thought our brains were sort like the universe. Actually the subject started when I saw an unusual bolt of lightening that made me think that was what our brains look like when they are firing messages back and forth.

The comment I got in reply was "no wonder you're so spacey!"

My boyfriend, so quick whitted!

While our brains work like quantum micro computers rendering our inner perception of reality, I believe the universe is a quantum macro computer redering the environment itself. I have come to this conclusion after looking at similarities between the cosmos and the brain all the way down to atoms, quarks and strings. Quantum theory says that everything happens for a reason and suggest sub atomic particles may be influenced by some kind of intelligence. All over the micro- and macrocosmos' we see the same patterns and basics. An atom is a solar system is a universe. A being is a galaxy is a supercosmos.

[edit on 6/5/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

London city lights as viewed from space:

Very good thinking! I have always thought this to be true..
As I had a saying, that the universe is a very BIG place contained in a very small space.
Much like our minds. You can see into the sky at night, and see the stars that are comming from billions of years past. Yet all of this is only truely seen within a very very small part in our brains!

Carl Sagan said that the mind is a very Big place, contained in a very small space. Hence is where I got my term about the universe!

I happen to belive that we are within another greater being that is within another universe, that is within another.. As within each one of us is an entire universe!

Thats why I belive very strongly about inner life. My first post on ATS was going over such things. While it may seem strange.
The universe is not only strange.. But its stranger than any of us can ever fathom!

A rock is more or less just as abundant of atoms or for that matter, empty space, as air. Explain why my hand stops when I touch a wall or a rock while moving freely through the air. A solid object is somehow crystallised mass, while the inner structure of gasses and fluids seem to rely more on chaos. This makes me think of 3D rendering and choosing different surfaces and environments. I believe reality is a projection or rendering built up from nothing, a handful of sub atomic particles within magnetic fields, governed by gravity, rotation and revolusion, and resonance; somehow everything emits sound or resonance.

[edit on 6/5/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

I discovered this 'theory' when I watched a documentary about neurons. The fact that similar neurons make a connection between them, and different neurons break their mutual connection, reminded of the concept of friends.

We all have friends based on things we share with them.

We all think everyone we know will always be there, but then as both my friend and I change and become different, our connection breaks, and I only find 'new' friends who share my current interests now.

Once I realized that, I realized that each one of us is pretty much behaving as a neuron.... and we're all 'neurons', then all of the neurons in on Earth/Universe would make a virtual brain

Star
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Yes every aspect of reality seems to be governed by some kind of an intelligence with a highly sophisticated personality. How everything in the universe appears to be either based on circles or spheres (pi) or golden spirals and proportions (phi). That smells like programmed algorithms if you ask me. BTW MODS: Doesn't this thread belong in the ID/Origin forum?

reply to post by Neo Christian Mystic


I chose this forum, as it is called Conspiracies in Religion. I think various faiths or maybe I should say members of said faiths actively suppress actual knowledge about the universe.

If though this topic would be better discussed in a different forum I am fine with it moving.

Just thought it had more to do with an idea of creation than conspiracy. Cosmic macroworld contrary to brain/micro world, and how it all seems to be connected....

This is a great and thought provoking thread. However, I think that the picture on the right of the OP is pure guesswork, constructed to make something that we really don't know too much about (the structure of the universe) look like a mouse neuron. I've seen other proposed "structure of the universe" pictures -- and they don't necessarily look like this.

I don't want to belabor that -- because I think that every other supporting point made here is valid. There does seem to be a conscious structure to the universe, ranging from the smallest to the largest. Consciousness is so mysterious! We know it exists, but we can't prove that it exists anywhere other than ourselves. For all you know, there are many conscious entities in the same room with you right now, and you are oblivious to them.

I wonder if consciousness is really related to any material part of our existence, or is strictly something in the nature of time? Looking at the structure of matter doesn't seem to help us figure things out here.

*looking over at my cat wondering if he is watching me, payed by God*

Interesting thread.

Originally posted by Buck Division
This is a great and thought provoking thread. However, I think that the picture on the right of the OP is pure guesswork, constructed to make something that we really don't know too much about (the structure of the universe) look like a mouse neuron. I've seen other proposed "structure of the universe" pictures -- and they don't necessarily look like this.

This is not a guesswork at all. It's a very detailed simulation, part of Millennium Simulation Project. The simulation is run containing dark matter, gas and gravity and, in the end, it fits amazingly well what we observe of the Universe, including the clusters of galaxies, filaments and voids. We do know much about the structure of the Universe and every galaxy survey or simulation shows this same structure.

The earth is a colossal eye ball.

It started with a single continent.

The air is the lens. The receptors are the leaves on the trees and all the living plants, interconnecting at the roots.

It stares out into space infinately contemplating creation.

Originally posted by borek
This is not a guesswork at all. It's a very detailed simulation, part of Millennium Simulation Project.

Great link Borek. I took a close look and I stand corrected. It seems like a lot of serious and reasonable piece of work. That adds a lot of support to the original diagram included in the OP.

Some of the other diagrams I've seen show something that looks more like a fish net. I was looking for some links to those pictures, but stopped looking after you posted the above article.

Good work. Thanks!

Originally posted by Buck Division
Good work. Thanks!

No problem, I understand your first skeptical reaction, since the reference and caption of the image does not tell much.

At the risk of derailing the thread a bit more, hehe, let me give some more information on the simulation and on why you may not relating it to other large scale structure pictures.

On these simulations, the dark matter, along with the galaxies, is also often represented on the pictures, while the observed Universe structure is only given by galaxy measurements because, well, we don't see dark matter. While there's a strong spacial correlation between the "normal" matter (found in galaxies and gas) and the dark matter, some differences in their distributions can be found. Which could explain the differences between simulation pictures and galaxy distributions pictures.

The most famous galaxy distribution picture comes from the 2dF survey. Another difference is that galaxy distributions are often shown as spacial slices almost in 2d. But you can clearly see the same pattern: filaments, voids, regions with a high concentration of galaxies (clusters and superclusters).

Moreover, when I say the simulation fits well with the observed Universe, I meant also quantitatively. From these maps, we can derive several quantities related to the galaxy clustering and the mass, number and luminosity density, etc. This corroborates our most accepted theory about gravity and dark matter (as given as input in the simulation).

[edit on 7-5-2008 by borek]

reply to post by borek


And to complement the universe simulation pictures, this gallery might be of interest.

Blue Brain Project