Hypothesis for an Intelligent and Conscious Universe

Hello fellow ATS'ers,

I've been following and taking part in an interesting thread about why intelligent cause must exist. There are some compelling arguments both for and against the evidence of an "intelligent designer" . The premise of that particular thread suggests that God (or a god) had something, if not everything, to do with it. Now while I don't necessarily favor this view, I do believe that there is an intelligent cause of some kind behind our entire existence.

I think that consciousness is a very big piece of the puzzle although I don't know yet how much it has to do with it.

But to me, there seems to be too many variables that point to the existence of the universe not being as random of an event as current science may have us believe. While I won't go into it all here I am open to discussing them if this thread warrants.

The main premise for my hypothesis is this:

That the universe is in fact intelligent

That the universe is in fact conscious.

Our very existence is proof of the first two points.

Everything in the universe IS the universe. We are the universe looking back at itself and learning about itself. We make the universe self aware. The act of self awareness is a sign of intelligence.

As part of the development of this hypothesis I ask these question:

Isn't it curious that we exist at almost the perfect scale to be able to simultaneously observe the universe in both the macro/cosmological and micro/quantum scale?

Isn't it also curious that it's in our nature (our DNA) to learn and explore as much as we possibly can about the universe; ourselves?

Science is driven by the need/deep desire to figure this whole damn thing out. But it's not just scientists. Its folks from all walks of life. It's perhaps the very nature of what it means to be a conscious human.

So does this all point to an intelligent designer?

Does intelligence cause intelligence? Or another way to put it; Is intelligence derived from intelligence and intelligence only?

I look forward to your contributions to this hypothesis or why it may be incorrect in its assumptions.

Here's to a hopefully adventurous thread

reply to post by PhotonEffect

reply to post by PhotonEffect


I wish I could make your day, but I'm afraid what you have explained thus far just wouldn't hold water in peer review. By all means, continue working on it, but it's going to take a lot more than what you've got, I think.

reply to post by tuatha de dannan

Well done,lovely hypothesis,i like where your going with this.......do you care to expand?

Originally posted by PhotonEffect
Everything in the universe IS the universe. We are the universe looking back at itself and learning about itself. We make the universe self aware. The act of self awareness is a sign of intelligence.

Good point. But is the universe as a whole aware of us? I tend to think in non-dualistic terms when considering the whole of everything. So how could the universe both be aware and not? I think the answer is more of a probability wave than an if/else. Somehow the answer is every possible answer.

Isn't it curious that we exist at almost the perfect scale to be able to simultaneously observe the universe in both the macro/cosmological and micro/quantum scale?

This one makes me very curious and I'm surprised it isn't brought up more often. It's as if our size is at or near a point of balance relative to the micro/macro aspects of the universe. Maybe the details just pile up closer our awareness? Perhaps that which we are more aware of grows faster and increases in complexity. Information piled upon information.

I tend to think of reality more as a dream, just a bit less fluid than obvious dreams. As we emerge the past and future of the dream spreads out from our point of origin as we create/acquire information relative to the dream. Every once in a while I come into contact with an "other" in a dream, which is usually followed by the dream going bonkers and me waking up. I wonder if that's like the universe becoming aware or focused on us? Our minds collectively reflected from infinity could be the universal awareness.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I appreciate your opinion, but this is why it's called a hypothesis and not a theory.

But I'd be curious if you think the start is unfounded or if there's anything about the premise that you would refute.

Let's discuss

reply to post by tuatha de dannan


Thank you and yes I do, but I'd like to build off of what others feel like contributing.

Would you have any thoughts on this idea?

Depends if there is non conscious reality,which is impossible to prove. There are different types of intelligence i.e jellyfish can make decisions. I wouldnt put much faith in mans intelligence being the reason for the universe as ants are more numerous,and who knows ants may have more fun.
I forget to add that the universe is basically an emotion/feeling in my opinion not intelligence. Intelligence/consciousness may be a tool to understand this emotion.

reply to post by PhotonEffect


Extrapolation. That about covers it.

reply to post by PhotonEffect

"Big Bang".......explosion caused by something......."something had to be prior or it would not be capable of causing such event"

Causing such explosive an .............event the "cosmic trigger"

who pulled it?

My gut feeling is "theres more to this life then meets the "eye"

If you know what i mean......"wink"

Originally posted by circlemaker
Good point. But is the universe as a whole aware of us?

Well perhaps it is, if we are to consider consciousness as a fundamental aspect of the universe. Fact is we are aware of it. And we are part of the whole. So I would say again that the universe is aware of itself (thru us).

I tend to think in non-dualistic terms when considering the whole of everything. So how could the universe both be aware and not? I think the answer is more of a probability wave than an if/else. Somehow the answer is every possible answer.

This is an interesting perspective. Im not too well read on probability waves but I think there's something to the idea that every possible outcome exists.

Isn't it curious that we exist at almost the perfect scale to be able to simultaneously observe the universe in both the macro/cosmological and micro/quantum scale?

This one makes me very curious and I'm surprised it isn't brought up more often. It's as if our size is at or near a point of balance relative to the micro/macro aspects of the universe. Maybe the details just pile up closer our awareness? Perhaps that which we are more aware of grows faster and increases in complexity. Information piled upon information.

Yes I agree. I wonder if the amount that we can see in the macro is equal to the amount we can see in the micro.

There are as many atoms in our bodies as stars in the universe. We are exactly half way,but so is everything else in a infinate universe.

So as the worm burrows through the apple, the mystical worm who sits at the core says "Be the apple, young worm. For you are the apple eating itself."

So the worm is an apple? Or the apple is the worm?

Ahh nonsense.

Originally posted by symptomoftheuniverse
There are as many atoms in our bodies as stars in the universe. We are exactly half way,but so is everything else in a infinate universe.

Well that depends on whether you agree the universe is infinite or not.

If it is infinite, then no. There are an infinite number of stars in the universe. Unending. An impossible concept to put into a container and compare to the finite number of atoms in our body.

Perhaps there are as many atoms in our body as there are stars in the visible universe.

But then, what we see is a limit of what we are. Not what is.

reply to post by PhotonEffect

I was on that 'intelligent first cause' thread, too. I have to say I didn't find any of the arguments for or against the proposition at all compelling; it is impossible logically to prove or disprove a first cause.

Your present thread is more interesting, because there are some senses in which your hypothesis is true and some in which it is false – and the two do not cancel each other out.

Yes, the universe is intelligent and conscious, because we are in it, and we are intelligent and conscious. As you correctly point out, we are the universe looking back at itself and thinking about itself. To paraphrase winofiend, the worm really is the apple, because ultimately it is made of the apple it is eating.

But while that is true, it is also rather trivial. Clearly you have on your mind the more exciting possibility that the universe itself is a sort of brain, intrinsically conscious, which has thoughts and perhaps acts on them too.

That idea, I'm afraid, runs into some prohibitive physics.The universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. A signal sent from any point within it to another sufficiently distant point will never reach it. And even within the 'observable universe' (that is, the portion of the universe from which light has had time to reach Earth since the Big Bang), it can take literally billions of years. That's a long time to take to complete a thought.

So if the universe is intelligent and conscious, it's still in the process of having its very first thought. Meanwhile, all kinds of uncontrolled hell is breaking loose and the universe can do nothing about it.

Some may argue that there was never any Big Bang, and the universe (conscious or not) has always been here. To them I say, look up into the sky. The evidence for the Big Bang is in front of your eyes, plain as dirt.

Others may argue that the principle of nonlocality, derived from quantum mechanics, may make it possible for this vast universal intelligence to communicate with itself. However, nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication. Neither, I'm sorry to say, do the hypothetical 'wormholes' that space-opera writers sometimes rely on to get their heroes from Betelgeuse to Tau Ceti in a couple of days.

The idea that the material universe has intrinsic, pervasive consciousness is therefore untenable.

But 'intelligence' is a different matter. 'Intelligence' has many definitions. You could argue that if there are universal laws – that is, matter and energy behave the same way throughout the universe – then those laws constitute a program for the universe to follow. Programs are not intelligent but they are logical. The universe, therefore, acts in a logical way; randomness exists, but it is contained within a framework of rules. You might say that the universe is working out logical problems, and is therefore some kind of computer. The results of these workings-out, that is to say changes in the universe, are logical outcomes of the rules according to which the universe is run. You might call this a kind of intelligence; the same rudimentary intelligence a thermostat has.

Isn't it curious that we exist at almost the perfect scale to be able to simultaneously observe the universe in both the macro/cosmological and micro/quantum scale?

We don't, particularly. It just seems like that because we exist at the centre of our own perceptual spectrum – as any sensory system obviously must. In fact, the scale of the universe is so wide that an intelligent atom or an intelligent star could make the same claim with as much justice as any of us. Symptomoftheuniverse pointed out that there are as many stars in the universe as atoms in our bodies. I don't know if that's true, but even if it was, it wouldn't mean anything at all. It's just numbers. Not even numbers, really, but orders of magnitude.

Isn't it also curious that it's in our nature (our DNA) to learn and explore as much as we possibly can about the universe; ourselves?

Not really. Curiosity has proved its survival value in the evolutionary struggle. A few members of our species have ended up with more curiosity than they strictly need for survival and reproduction, but genetic drift is more than enough to explain that.

I'm not just being dismissive. I'm trying to make a serious point. The idea that the universe as a whole is conscious arises, psychologically speaking, out of the ancient superstition that we are at the centre of the cosmos, the most important thing in it. Copernicus quashed that superstition five hundred years ago.

Star and flag, by the way, not for the topic but the way you presented and are dealing with it.

reply to post by circlemaker

So how could the universe both be aware and not? I think the answer is more of a probability wave than an if/else.

I was a little mystified by this – as I suspect you intended some of us to be – but then I realised that all you were saying is the universe may be more or less intelligent at different localities within it.

There's a perspective I use sometimes. I call it the 1&1 perspective. It's the basic idea where there's only myself and the experience I'm having (the dream). I have to be careful when I use this perspective however because I start perceiving reality differently. Instead of talking to individuals I'm speaking to a singular entity that uses those individuals as it's avatars. They use the same words but the meanings are interpreted differently. Two stories that use the same perceived structure. I make a habit to hold both mundane and fantastic perspectives simultaneously when I do this. It's tricky though, having two conversations at the same time is a bit taxing. Usually I stay in the mundane and therefore safe & sane, but boredom is a great catalyst.

Anyway, I mention this because it's a way to perceive the universe as conscious. It's also a way to go crazy. Use with caution.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by circlemaker

 

So how could the universe both be aware and not? I think the answer is more of a probability wave than an if/else.

I was a little mystified by this – as I suspect you intended some of us to be

– but then I realised that all you were saying is the universe may be more or less intelligent at different localities within it.

That's the part where perspective matters. Who defines what is aware and what isn't? I would say there are levels of awareness. You implied this a bit in your longer winded (and well done) post above, though I disagree on certain conclusions. I believe there is a way to perceive the universe as conscious, and so far I haven't been able to disprove it.

Tough thing, dealing with probabilities instead of certainties. There's just so damned many of them, and I can't ignore the improbables.

That the universe is in fact intelligent That the universe is in fact conscious. Our very existence is proof of the first two points.

reply to post by PhotonEffect


In my kitchen I see flour, salt, water, yeast... How do these things prove that there is bread in the kitchen? So, how is our existence proof of an intelligent designer? I see fish in the ocean, lakes and rivers; is this proof that the creator is a fish?

We are the universe looking back at itself and learning about itself. We make the universe self aware.

Our entire solar system isn't even a speck of dust in the universe, and you want to claim that we, on one tiny little planet are not only important to the universe, but that we make the entire universe self-aware? This is the egregious example of mankind's arrogance. We, my friend, are as close to nothing as anything can get.

reply to post by circlemaker

Who defines what is aware and what isn't?

People with nothing better to do. Awareness is not defined, it is simply perceived as such, and often falsely.

I would say there are levels of awareness.

That's a bit species-chauvinistic. A codfish has enough awareness to function perfectly – as a codfish.

I believe there is a way to perceive the universe as conscious, and so far I haven't been able to disprove it.

I suggest looking for ways to disprove that the universe lacks consciousness.