Minding the Universe

I read an article about how a study finds similarities between the human brain and networks of galaxies in the universe. Maybe we should be minding the universe a bit more carefully if it truly is, as the playwright once said, the mind of God.

Camerae Ready

Surprising? I don’t know. It seems as if the universe uses a lot of its same basic structures over and over at different scales, and these structures often have mathematical counterparts. One of the more famous examples is the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, starting from 0 and 1. That is, 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, 8 + 13 = 21, etc. So, the actual sequence looks like 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and on and on.

What’s interesting is that this pattern shows up with some frequency in nature. Perhaps the most robust and convincing example is the spiraling nautilus shell, which is composed of chambered sections called camerae. Each chamber is equal to the size of the two camerae before it, creating a logarithmic spiral.

But there are there other examples as well: tree branches, flower petals, the seeds in sunflowers. It may extend to much larger phenomena as well, such as hurricanes and spiral galaxies.

So, perhaps it should not be surprising to find that brains and the universe are largely defined by their networks (that is neurons and galaxies) made up of nodes connected by filaments. In short, both are kinds of reticula. To read the actual report, go here.

Assuming the authors have a legitimate point, what do we make of the similarities between the universe and the human brain? Are we supposed to consider the idea that the universe is itself a thinking organism of some sort, that we exist in the mind of God?

Panpsychism

That’s too great a logical leap for me to make, but maybe it does lend support to the pseudo-scientific notion that the universe is conscious. In his book Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, philosopher Philip Goff considers the idea that consciousness is not something special that the brain does but is instead a quality inherent to all matter, a theory known “panpsychism.” To read an interview in which he discusses the notion, go here:

 Goff isn’t alone in wondering about the consciousness of the universe. Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel has discussed it in Forbes, and NBCNews highlights other thinkers in its article “Is the Universe Conscious?”

I don’t know what to think about all this. It feels a bit like the Gaia hypothesis (which is the idea that the interconnected biological systems of the Earth act as one, enormous organism), except extended to “infinity and beyond” (in the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear).

Our Town

Back in my college days, I was in a staging of the play Our Town, in which I played the character George. I don’t remember many of George’s lines but I do remember a scene in he was speaking with his sister Rebecca at the end of Act One:

REBECCA: I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.

GEORGE: What’s funny about that?

REBECCA: But listen, it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God–that’s what it said on the envelope.

GEORGE: What do you know!

REBECCA: And the postman brought it just the same.

GEORGE: What do you know!

I doubt Thornton Wilder was the first writer or mystic to envision the universe as the mind of God. But I do wonder what he’d think about the fact that here in the third decade of the 21st century, it has become an idea taken seriously by the likes of philosophers, physicists, and science journalists. What do you know!

Featured image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NautilusCutawayLogarithmicSpiral.jpg. Nautilus shell cut in half. Photo taken by Chris 73 | Talk 12:40, 5 May 2004 (UTC)