The key to the meaning of it all? Consciousness, my dear Watson!
Hello you raider of the lost ark.
A word to the wise: this week's dispatch is a somewhat dense one, but do bear with me--- or don't, skip to the end and check out the weird story about an unfortunate seagull... Either way, happy reading!
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the by-products of my recent hunger for stillness has been an uptick in my ruminating about the nature of consciousness... Fun! However, this dive back into the esoteric was also prompted by my attendance at astrophysicist Brian Cox's live tour show here in Ottawa last month. (As an aside: it is a low-level but ongoing mystery as to why I rarely attend live events... Except, it seems, ones featuring mildly-famous astrophysicists. #IGottaBeMe)
"Astrophysics is esoteric? Come on, EP-- it is hard science!" Well maybe it is both... Cox's show is meant for science geeks primarily (and frankly the audience there reminded me of my experience last year with the Weird Al concert--- so much wonderfully awkward dorkiness!). However, the show also encouraged us to think about the connections between the vastness of the universe, the unexplainable existence of consciousness, and the 'meaning of it all' (notwithstanding Douglas Adams' answer to this question). And so I have been doing just that!
In terms of straight up science, the show was awesome-- he used some truly breathtaking images to delve deep into the science around black holes (updating his show when the first pictures of the event horizon of a black hole were published only a few weeks prior to the launch of the tour), as well as exploring the possibility of the multiverse (yaaaaaaaaaaaas!), and the eventual extinction of the/our universe (don't worry: it's not for trillions of years... but I digress).
"But EP, what does all this boring science stuff have to do with meaning and the nature of consciousness?" Well gentle reader, get ready for some MAJOR RECREATIONAL HYPOTHESIZING: as many of you know, I am an enthusiastic amateur fan of theoretical physics-- both the big astrophysics stuff of the universe, as well as string theory and the smallest scales we can plumb for meaning. For me, contemplating these two extremes of our understanding of the universe-- and the resonance and synchronicity we find between these two extremes-- this is where I find the richest veins with which to think about the wholeness and 'oneness' of everything.
But wait! Smack dab in the middle of our efforts to understand the physical universe is the fact that we can contemplate any of this at all...
Here, consciousness is both the journey (how we contemplate) and the destination (what we contemplate)-- the way we both experience the universe and how we try to understand it and our place in it. But fundamentally it is this "hard problem of consciousness" (or qualia) that continues to throw both scientists and philosophers into a frenzy. From David Chalmer's original paper presenting this question: "The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect... It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."
For me, this conundrum of being conscious-- but not knowing how or why we are conscious-- is at the heart of exploring the universe for meaning and connection: put another way, despite digging deep into the neural correlates of consciousness, we can't just throw together all of these atoms and molecules that make us 'us'-- our component parts-- and get a conscious being. It is not about the 'stuff' we are made of that gives us consciousness. There is something missing in our accounting of the physical universe that allows us to exist in the universe and contemplate it at the same time.
I do think that the existence of consciousness on earth means that the universe is conscious-- and the possibilities and corollaries that flow from this conclusion excite me to no end. Through furthering our understanding of both the infinite and the infinitesimal of the physical universe, I continue to believe that we are also doing the work of cracking the consciousness nut. And that, in my opinion, is AHMAHZING!
Want to join me and dabble in the deep rabbit hole of amateur physics?
To go deeper into the micro-world of string theory, a solid first port of call is Brian Greene. His books "The Elegant Universe" and "The Fabric of the Cosmos" are life-changing. It is worth exploring this theory a bit if you are interested-- a lot of smart people are starting to coalesce around the possibility that string theory might ultimately be our theory of everything. I also liked this article about the connection between quantum physics and consciousness
For more macro-level astrophysics fun, you can start with the godfathers including Einstein of course (whose theories are still being proven-- he predicted the recent black hole discoveries many decades ago) and Carl Sagan, who is the most poetic scientist everrrrrrrrrrrrr. Also weave in some modern science-for-the-masses thinkers like Cox, Neil Degrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku if you are so inclined. And in case you are interested in chaos theory and how this plays into this whole line of thinking, don't miss the early work by Ellen Fetter and Margaret Hamilton
Are you not really very interested in the science, but you like pretty pictures of the universe?
Check out these cloud galaxies!
I also loved this recent compilation of astronomy’s most famous images
Want more eye candy? Sign up to receive an astronomy picture of the day
But wait! Is all this talk of the vastness of space and the mysteries of meaning just too overwhelming for your relaxing Sunday morning? Then please enjoy this gorgeous overhead video of a tree canopy gently blowing in the breeze. If there were ever a video to hypnotize you into loving nature and your physical presence on earth, this might be it.
Still too much? Then please enjoy this story about a seagull that fell into a vat of butter chicken (thanks Erika!)
From one universe-loving person to another, I am glad that we can probe the mysteries of our existence together. I hope you enjoyed this dispatch, and have a consciousness-filled week!
Until next Sunday,
The Earnest Platypus