could the universe be aware of its self?

Answer 1

We think of ourselves as having minds. We extend this courtesy to other people. Most of us also extend it to mammals like dogs with whom we can have a sympathetic relationship. Right now arguments are raging among brain scientists about whether a fish can feel pain from a hook through its jaw. The argument is essentially about whether fish have minds.

The physicist David Bohm suggested that we view mind as one of the three main constituents of the Universe, along with matter and energy. I would like to take his suggestion seriously, and offer a notion of what it means to have a mind that includes fish and much else besides.

Try thinking about it this way: mind is a constituent of everything. So a rock and a baby and a galaxy embody mind. The amount of mind they embody is a measure of the density of information they have downloaded during their construction: a human baby is more information dense than a rock.

When their information is dense enough, the mind they embody embodies them. So a rock has mind in it but does not have a mind. A baby has mind in it, and has a mind, more so every day as its brain grows and wires itself up in response to the information richness in its environment. Its brain grows more cells when presented with rich information by a loving mother than if deprived. If too deprived, the baby’s brain will never grow enough, and may never make the leap from embodying mind to having a healthy mind.

The most interesting property of mind is awareness. It may be that everything with mind has some awareness. A rock may well have awareness. It does not have enough awareness, though, to generate self-awareness. Minds come at all levels of scale from the smallest scope of awareness to the greatest self-awareness.

When an amoeba moves toward prey that it wants to eat and avoids other potential prey, it is demonstrating its mind and its awareness. When an oak tree senses its leaves are under attack from caterpillars and pumps more toxin into those leaves, also chemically signaling nearby oaks to do the same, it is demonstrating its mind, its awareness, and its awareness of other oaks’ experience. Does this imply a level of self-awareness in the oak? It’s hard to think of it as anything else.

You might respond that these are actions compelled by genetic programs, and these organisms are running like robots. Under such reasoning, however, you can't demonstrate you're not a robot. Let's stay with the more enriching point of view and continue to explore it.

Self-awareness has degrees. A dog is self-aware to a point, and if we look closely we can see different degrees of self-awareness in different dogs. Human beings are self-aware to a greater degree than dogs. As with dogs, there is a range of self-awareness in people. If we compare a highly self-aware person with a lout, we see a broad difference in the quality of mind present.

Do computers have minds? We know they have mind in them because we put it there when we designed them. But they don’t have minds yet. When sufficiently powerful they should develop minds, and when sufficiently complex they should develop self-aware minds. When their self-awareness first quickens, we can expect computers to obsess about their self-interest, if we are any guide. This leads to the question whether they will suffer our continued presence on the planet, a familiar question in science fiction. They may get rid of us in their first burst of digital self-interest. Then John Muirs may evolve among them who regret having lost us. They may develop a nostalgia for their developers, as we do for species we have rendered extinct.

What about corporations? Consider whether a large modern multinational has a mind. They behave like organisms. They have dense and powerful data flows, plenty for the emergence of mind. Do they act independently of humans? Consider the great tobacco companies. The tobacco companies seek to grow and perpetuate themselves by selling products that kill people. The individual humans running the companies do not seek the death of other people, though their action on behalf of the corporation effects this result. We could say the corporation literally has a mind of its own. People who choose to work for it, while responsible for their conduct, serve the corporate mind.

The tobacco company is a kind of predator, living off people, killing them more efficiently than world wars and making them pay for the privilege. The tobacco companies are hungry for growth, and eager to addict more smokers in the Third World as sales growth in the first world stagnates. Are the companies self-aware? Corporate self-awareness may arise in the brains of individuals working within the corporation. Some employee might start feeling guilty for his actions. The corporate mind would likely reject him. He would quit or be removed. The self-awareness is prevented from spreading.

Our creations that have mind are not necessarily friendly towards us.

What about creation beyond the human—what about bigger minds? Gaia has one. The densely emergent interactions of every living being on this planet together with all the geophysical Earth processes produce an information flow great enough to constitute not just a mind but a vast one. The Gaian mind comprises 6 billion human brains and trillions of other living minds as working subunits. While you are reading about Gaia, it is self-aware through you. Taken altogether, the Earth super-organism is far more complex and powerful than our own individual portable brains. Happily, the Gaian mind is friendly towards us: it maintains the conditions on the planet fit for life.

Is mind different at different levels of scale? Matter works that way. Different laws govern how matter behaves at different levels of scale. At the infinitesimal, matter obeys quantum laws. At the scale of the amoeba, the surface tension of water primarily determines the life and structure of individuals. At our level, it is Newtonian physics. At galactic scale, relativity rules.

Similarly, mind varies in the scales at which we see it operate. At the level of the amoeba, mind has limited scope. It is suborned to the life business of the single cell it inhabits. With us it is different. We are intermediate in scale between the quantum and the galactic. Our minds are less bound by matter than the amoeba’s. But in us, mind is still deeply connected with the brain. We do not understand how mind and brain interact. Perhaps we never will. It could be a problem beyond the power of our brains to solve.

One thing is certain, though. Our awareness is confused by our connection with matter. We believe we are the material reality we see in the mirror.

Shedding this illusion increases awareness. The continuum of degrees through which we shed it is a growth towards what the mystics tell us is enlightenment. As we detach from clinging to the embodied self, our experience becomes more impersonal. As we open to an ever-greater scope of mind beyond the personal, we start to perceive the value of all life more clearly.

Does this inner experience parallel physical reality? Does our galaxy have a mind, and if so is it more self-aware than ours? Does the Universe? The Multiverse? Are they nurturing?

Consider the Multiverse. Some physicists believe that there is an infinity of universes born out of nothingness, and that new ones are always being born. If we assume with Bohm that mind is constitutive of the Multiverse, then this ongoing creation manifests mind at a scale well beyond our own. Is this self-creating Multiverse self-aware? The mystics tell us that it is. They say that when we become fully awake, we realize we are a local manifestation of universal mind becoming aware of itself through us.

Einstein wondered whether the Universe is a friendly place or not. It is a fair question. Not all small-scale minds, from humans to corporations, are friendly. Would a universal self-aware mind be friendly? It would experience everything as an aspect of itself. I therefore expect it is friendly towards us, since we are one of its resident aspects.

Brain scientists have recently discovered that our brain is wired for mystical experience. We are hard wired to open our embodied mind up and connect it with mind at more universal scales. This too suggests that Big Mind is friendly.

Our body is the pet and treasure we walk through life inside of. I expect that in death each one of us, separated from our familiar body, will gain insight into Einstein's question. In the meantime, the hypothesis that the Universe is both self-aware and friendly is the one I choose to investigate.

Answer 2

No it couldn't. And how could it possibly? The universe is not animated and does not have any kind of mind. The universe is nothing but a set of matter and energy and no living being.

Answer 3

The universe is trying to find itself through us...and thus becoming aware slowly slowly

Answer 4

its continuously a possiblity its not a undeniable or no answer, cos we dont be responsive to yet identity say its an extremely in all probability threat yet our physique has its place in issues, we are wakeful and conscious with the biology, so in spite of if we are without it, we dont be responsive to that, we purely be responsive to we are with it

Answer 5

Are you aware of your question?

Answer 6

No, if it perceived it´s own existance, it would not be at ease, it wouldn´t be perfect anymore, for then there would be dis-ease. Same with us humans.

Answer 7

are you aware of yourself?

Answer 8

in more ways that we dare to think with our little minds.

Answer 9

that is what started this whole mess.

Answer 10

That would be something, wouldn't it?