# Universe=Consciouness=Universe



## Chupacobra (May 11, 2007)

I'm fairly new to this forum, and I've spent most of my time on here reading the various different ideas regarding the origins, size of etc...the Universe.

I've been quite surprised to find that none of the threads that I've read have tried to bring together the two major strands of human beingness...the inside and the outside...consciousness and the Universe.

So here's my effort to rectify that lack.

Consciousness is an intrinsic part of the Universe. One could not exist without the other. There are no gods. People only worship that which they unknowingly know that they can be. You/We are the Universe. There is a direct line going backwards from each and everyone of us to the beginning of this Universe, and it goes forwards from here.

I am, because You are, which means that We will be.


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## j d worthington (May 11, 2007)

Chupacobra said:


> Consciousness is an intrinsic part of the Universe. One could not exist without the other. There are no gods. People only worship that which they unknowingly know that they can be. You/We are the Universe. There is a direct line going backwards from each and everyone of us to the beginning of this Universe, and it goes forwards from here.
> 
> I am, because You are, which means that We will be.


 
There's a major flaw in your construction here: while it is true that consciousness (at least what we call consciousness) cannot exist without the universe (it needs a physical plane in order to produce the electrobiochemical processes that we call thought), the universe can exist just fine without consciousness -- specifically us. We came into the universe 14+ billion years after it began to take form -- even the oldest living organisms, single-celled, are extremely recent phenoemena compared to the existence of the universe. We are an incredibly tiny and unimportant (save to ourselves) element within a whole so vast that we aren't really sure how vast it is... at least several million (or billion) light years, at any rate. And the chances are very much in favor of our being long-extinct before the universe experiences its final stages of "heat-death". So we are scarcely even a microscopic blip on the screen.

As for gods -- no, they don't exist. They are a construct we invented to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of how the laws of physical reality worked at a time when our experience (and instrumentation to aid in our observation) of the universe were extremely limited. The more we learn of the reality of it all, the less need there is for gods. As for this identification of us (our consciousness) with the universe, and any final destination... that's called a teleological fallacy -- the idea that there is a purposeful development or design toward which the universe evolves... something for which there is no evidence in favor of, and plenty against.

As for there being a direct line... well, in a manner of speaking, yes. But that is a certain branch of determinism, and must be modified with reference to quantum mechanics and chaos theory (not to mention other aspects of modern physics)... and so is true only in the sense that we have resulted from the workings of the laws of the physical universe, nothing more. It does not give us any importance in the universe as a whole -- far from it. It simply means that we, like the dinosaurs, the great apes, the sea turtles, and blades of grass (and pebbles, and stars, and gas clouds, etc.) are the result of the workings of the properties of physical entity. But our part in the universe as a whole is so negligible (after all, there are huge portions of the universe we've not even seen yet, and only know through certain effects or inference based upon such effects) that to equate us or our consciousness with the universe is, frankly, completely off the beam....


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## mosaix (May 11, 2007)

The Universe got on quite well for billions of years before we came along, and will get on quite well for billions of years after we are gone.

We are insignificant and matter not a jot. 

Consciousness is just part of what the brain does.


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## chrispenycate (May 11, 2007)

Ah, but if both time travel and free will are possible, ultimately  the consciousness that develops from all sentience living now, or approaching in the future will reach back in time; no problem of "time lag" over the intervening light years, thoughts from more distant components will be moved back in time until they are in synchronisation with each other, simultaneity being an unnecessary concept in this case. Ultimately, it will contact the original big bang, and be capable of affecting events to guarantee its own genesis, thus making itself inevitable.
This consciousness now exists as a standing wave on the space-time continuum, from ultimate future to earliest past, and exists and acts only to guarantee its own coming into being: god, yes, but a totally selfish god that, on a billion worlds speaks out from burning bushes and starts wars and creates supernovae so that it will come into existence to do all these things. 
While a certain attention to avoid the extinction of one promising species may appear benevolent, who knows?
Their function may merely be to create electronic sentience or cosset cats, and, function fulfilled, they may be junked or left to moulder on evolution's junk heap with the coelacanths and tree-ferns.

I trust you have noticed I wrote this with my tongue stuck very firmly in my cheek.


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## Chupacobra (May 13, 2007)

j. d. worthington said:


> As for this identification of us (our consciousness) with the universe,


 
I think that I possibly didn't explain exactly what I meant.

I tend to see 'consciousness' as the Universe becoming aware of itself, not as something peculiar to human beings, although 'consciousness' does help define what being human is of course. So from that, I like to imagine that the evolution of consciousness is a natural part of the evolution of the Universe. 

All wild, philosophical musings of course, with no proper proof, but I love to dream!!!



			
				mosaix said:
			
		

> The Universe got on quite well for billions of years before we came along,


 
And then we looked into the box and observed the cat! On the other hand, perhaps the Universe was still in the process of evolving towards self awareness?


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## j d worthington (May 13, 2007)

Chupacobra said:


> I think that I possibly didn't explain exactly what I meant.
> 
> I tend to see 'consciousness' as the Universe becoming aware of itself, not as something peculiar to human beings, although 'consciousness' does help define what being human is of course. So from that, I like to imagine that the evolution of consciousness is a natural part of the evolution of the Universe.
> 
> ...


 
Welllll.... This still falls into the category of the "teleological fallacy"... but, as you say, it's an interesting thought-experiment, and can be fun to play with.


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## mogora (May 13, 2007)

Chupacobra said:


> And then we looked into the box and observed the cat! On the other hand, perhaps the Universe was still in the process of evolving towards self awareness?



And that philosophy is what gave me many irritations towards an otherwise very good TV show  (Babylon 5).

There's no evidence to suggest that the universe is evolving towards, or even needs, consciousness.  To me the idea seems little different than any other religion that strives to give H. sapiens a more exalted place in the universe.  All observations and knowledge place our position as utterly insignificant.


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## Chupacobra (May 13, 2007)

mogora said:


> To me the idea seems little different than any other religion that strives to give H. sapiens a more exalted place in the universe. All observations and knowledge place our position as utterly insignificant.


 
But then I did say...



> not as something peculiar to human beings,


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## mogora (May 14, 2007)

But it's still treating that thing that we think so important - consciousness - as some great end product.  There's no reason to think it's important or something that the universe 'wants'.


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## Urien (May 14, 2007)

I observe the experiment, the probability wave collapses. Everything is made of sub atomic particles, probability waves collapsing all over my universe.

By my will is it made real... perhaps yours helps... a bit.

FROM TIMELESS POINT TO TIMELESS POINT I CREATE THE WORRRRRLD. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

..."eh? Time for my meds. Again already?"


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## Quokka (May 14, 2007)

Actually I was about to say that the importance or impact of conciousness upon the universe can possibly be tied to ideas of an observer or the observer effect? The Double Slit theory is a pretty famous example but as is often the case its used to promote so many different view points/ beliefs that its hard to seperate the facts from the myths.

There's also been some study of the importance of information, didn't Hawking discuss some implications of information in relation to black holes fairly recently? I don't think it was completely convincing but to be honest the specifics of this level of study are well over my head . 

There's always some talk about how we create reality, chicken and egg style, I read an article on it not that long ago but I cant remember by who. But again it seems to be trying to bring humans into an important part of the universe's existence.

To be honest this often has the feel of trying to explain what doesn't fit, because we don't have a complete understanding of the universe, in a similar way that religion has done for centuries (and I definately think there's an argument that for some people Science has become their religion).

Personally I tend to like the simpler explanations, out of all the infinate possibities for how the universe developed, it did so in the one way the could support human life, proof of god or the importance of humans? I don't think so, the odds weren't 1 in a billion it was a dead set certainty because if it hadn't developed this way a different creature would be looking out at a different world asking the same question, or maybe no creature at all would. Someone can probably post the name of that theory, I can't think of it off hand.

Having said all that evolution as it's understood at the moment happens without the requirement of conciousness, so is it possible that the physcial laws, humans and conciousness itself could be trialed and adapted/discarded by the universe in the same way that character or physical traits are in a evolving organism on Earth? 

I suppose that does raise the issue of can a single entity evolve without conciousness or just entities via generations (as with life, as we know it)? and what exactly are the external influences?



Sorry I've kind of wandered well of topic a bit here.... happens alot


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## Chupacobra (May 15, 2007)

mogora said:


> But it's still treating that thing that we think so important - consciousness - as some great end product. There's no reason to think it's important or something that the universe 'wants'.


 
But surely the thing is, beings which develop self awareness are as much a part of the universe as everything else? And therefore, that quality called 'consciousness' is also a part of the universe. The universe itself is become self aware, at present through the medium of human consciousness. And there is no distinction between humans and the universe at large. But that doesn't have to imply that I'm trying to say humans are particularly important in the general scheme of things, it's just that we are the only beings capable of self awareness that science currently allows for.


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## Quokka (May 15, 2007)

Personally, I don't think the connections are that simple. My conciousness does not directly affect any other organism or piece of matter you could name, so say an animal in Brazil or the moon. That's not to say there isnt connections, I like the idea that we are all quite possibly made up of matter that once made stars and galaxies, I think there is comman heritage and links between everything that exists in what we now consider the universe... and quite possibly with aspects that we are yet to understand or be aware of.

Exactly what those connections mean is why we have Science Fiction and why I enjoy conversations like this .

But to expand upon your idea, if conciousness of smaller components was to affect the larger whole. Then just in regards to humans in our current state, I'd argue that our kowledge and impact is so small that we would affect the universe's conciousness in a similar way that a lone single celled organism could affect the conciousness and self-awareness of the entire planet.

Still it would be a start?

By the way if you havent read Greg Bear's _Blood Music _I'd recommend it, the ideas explored particularly in the second half directly deal with the idea conciousness affecting the universe.


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## Chupacobra (May 17, 2007)

Quokka said:


> But to expand upon your idea, if conciousness of smaller components was to affect the larger whole. Then just in regards to humans in our current state, I'd argue that our kowledge and impact is so small that we would affect the universe's conciousness in a similar way that a lone single celled organism could affect the conciousness and self-awareness of the entire planet.


 
I'm not trying to say that consciousness affects the Universe to any significant degree. It may do of course, but that's not the gist of my position.  

To me, the Universe is evolving towards universal self awareness, the ability to observe itself as the living entity that it will eventually be. If it's not through our species consciousness, then it will happen somewhere else. 

Thanks for the tip about Greg Bear by the way. I've read a few of his novels and enjoyed them. I'll look out for a copy of 'Blood Music'.


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## Interference (Aug 27, 2007)

God knows everything - We are the only conscious beings in the Universe - Between us, we know everything - We are God.

I was going to use the idea of the Universe itself becoming self aware as a kind of explanation of the God factor - I may yet still, I haven't counted all my votes yet - because I felt at the time that the God factor needed to be explained.

If the Universe hadn't turned out the way it did, we wouldn't be here to talk about it - weak anthropic theory - so if we are here to talk about it, the Universe _had_ to turn out the way it did.

For the Universe to turn out this way _requires_ us to be a part of it (is that the Strong Anthropic theory?  This always confuse me), so we are the Universe.  And in part, that's all you or I can know.  My Self exists, because my Universe exists, and my Universe is there because of Me.

The latter carries some excuse for the God factor - the observations of design, the interpretations of synchronicity and coincidence, faith moving mountains and healing powers etc - but the former needs none.

I *believe* there to be many credible examples of what we call Mind Over Matter, I believe there to be some examples of telepathy, of OOB experiences, of accidental timeslips, of honest-to-God magick, and I believe they may be related to the fundamental nature of existence as an element of Time.  Consciousness is unnecessary for physics to apply, but it's damned handy if you want to make a note of it.

That's kind of where my thinking is leading me these days.

Oh, yeah, and my main point is the the Universe has already achieved consciousness, that this consciousness is what we call God and, while it is generally aware of all its bits and pieces, it probably doesn't _actually_ know your name, but it knows why you're a part of the cancer infecting this world - which it _does_ know all about.  Think multi-dimensionally, and I think the physics will follow.


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## Götterdämmerung (Sep 18, 2007)

This topic maybe related to quantum consciousness. I think this is like a new field of theory in science. There's an article on quantum consciousness here.  Rogers Penrose and Quantum Consciousness Quantum Consciousness  ---------------------------------------  Fact is, the whole concept of God is really a creation of the human mind. Without us, god would not exist, nor would the Universe. Of course, this means it's important for us to figure out what human consciousness is before we can truly understand what life menas.


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## Götterdämmerung (Sep 18, 2007)

Quantum consciousness is a new field. You should be able to google that word and come up with something.   The whole concept of God, for example, is a conception of the human mind. Here, the idea is that God didn't create us, it is in fact we who created the concept of God. Without us, God would not exist nor would the Universe.   Understanding the human mind would go along way in explaining the Universe and/or how we perceive the world.


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## Spartan27 (Oct 5, 2007)

j. d. worthington said:


> There's a major flaw in your construction here: while it is true that consciousness (at least what we call consciousness) cannot exist without the universe (it needs a physical plane in order to produce the electrobiochemical processes that we call thought), the universe can exist just fine without consciousness -- specifically us. We came into the universe 14+ billion years after it began to take form -- even the oldest living organisms, single-celled, are extremely recent phenoemena compared to the existence of the universe. We are an incredibly tiny and unimportant (save to ourselves) element within a whole so vast that we aren't really sure how vast it is... at least several million (or billion) light years, at any rate. And the chances are very much in favor of our being long-extinct before the universe experiences its final stages of "heat-death". So we are scarcely even a microscopic blip on the screen.
> 
> As for gods -- no, they don't exist. They are a construct we invented to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of how the laws of physical reality worked at a time when our experience (and instrumentation to aid in our observation) of the universe were extremely limited. The more we learn of the reality of it all, the less need there is for gods. As for this identification of us (our consciousness) with the universe, and any final destination... that's called a teleological fallacy -- the idea that there is a purposeful development or design toward which the universe evolves... something for which there is no evidence in favor of, and plenty against.
> 
> As for there being a direct line... well, in a manner of speaking, yes. But that is a certain branch of determinism, and must be modified with reference to quantum mechanics and chaos theory (not to mention other aspects of modern physics)... and so is true only in the sense that we have resulted from the workings of the laws of the physical universe, nothing more. It does not give us any importance in the universe as a whole -- far from it. It simply means that we, like the dinosaurs, the great apes, the sea turtles, and blades of grass (and pebbles, and stars, and gas clouds, etc.) are the result of the workings of the properties of physical entity. But our part in the universe as a whole is so negligible (after all, there are huge portions of the universe we've not even seen yet, and only know through certain effects or inference based upon such effects) that to equate us or our consciousness with the universe is, frankly, completely off the beam....


 
As for gods -- no, they don't exist. They are a construct we invented to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of how the laws of physical reality worked at a time when our experience (and instrumentation to aid in our observation) of the universe were extremely limited. The more we learn of the reality of it all, the less need there is for gods. As for this identification of us (our consciousness) with the universe, and any final destination... that's called a teleological fallacy -- the idea that there is a purposeful development or design toward which the universe evolves... something for which there is no evidence in favor of, and plenty against.

Where is the hard evidence that they don't? The above is an opinion. Not fact. Why so blunt j.d.?


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## Michael01 (Oct 16, 2007)

I wouldn't know about the universe existing because of me, but I'd definitely say that gods do exist.  They're communicating on this forum.  I'm not about to worship myself, or any of you, or anything like that, but ...

I don't think that between us we know everything, either.  I think there's more to deity than just humankind, and we've still got a lot to learn.  However, a lot of thoughts expressed here in favor of deity are very similar to my own.  I find that ... interesting, at least.

And Chris, you crack me up.  How can you describe something so profound so humorously?

This is an interesting discussion.  I'm going to have to rack my brain some more so I can contribute something more worthwhile than this hastily thrown-together post.


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