John Dalmas 142 18 http://www.johndalmas.com http://www.johndalmas.com/webonizer_sitemedia/johndalmas.jpg http://www.johndalmas.com/guest/1/?refType=article&refId=27 Guestbook Posts http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/27 The suggestion that the entire cosmos may be alive or conscious in some manner reminds me of the Gaia Hypothesis advanced by the scientist James Lovelock, who suggested that the entire biosphere of the planet Earth functions as a single organism. Creatures such as human beings are in a sense like the cells of a multi-cellular organism; they form a part of the whole even though they may have no awareness of what their function actually is. The Gaia Hypothesis is attractive because of the way in which ecological systems are so remarkably self-correcting. The interactions between different species add up to a functional ecosystem, even though every species, as far as we can tell, evolved merely for its own benefit and survival. Yet, the survival of a given species does depend upon a functional ecosystem in which to live, much as the survival of a single cell in a multi-cellular organism depends upon the survival of the larger organism. Whether an ecology or even the sum total of all global ecologies can really be considered to be a single creature (named Gaia after the Greek Earth Goddess) is debatable, but there is at least a certain similarity. Your own hypothesis of the conscious universe would not have as obvious a basis, but it would fit with the anthropic principle, as well as fitting with your own personal definition of God. Is it possible that the creator of the universe also IS the universe? Can something create itself? That would violate a scientific principle known as "causality" which states that all events have causes and the cause of an event always comes earlier in time than the event which it causes. This is an interesting principle in itself, one which we have never seen to be violated, but which, if you consider its full logical implications, creates a tremendous puzzle. If every event has an earlier cause, and each cause (which is also an event) necessarily has an earlier cause of its own, then the events which currently occur in our universe would seem to have resulted from an infinite series of earlier events. There can be no first event, because if there was, that first event would itself have no earlier cause, hence, it would violate the principle of causality. Perhaps we might modify the principle of causality. Maybe every event has a cause, and every cause is earlier than the event which it caused, with one exception, that being the first event, which was not caused by an earlier event but which instead had no cause. How can an event happen without a cause? We don't know. But the idea doesn't seem any less believable than the idea of a series of events which extend infinitely far back in time, having no beginning. Either way, it's pretty weird. But then, reality is under no obligation to conform to human concepts of normality. So, if the universe itself is conscious in some way, it might well prefer to nurture the existence of other, smaller intelligences within it, if only for amusement. I certainly do not buy the Judao/Christian/Islamic concept that God created human beings so that we could worship Him, or so that He would have an appreciative audience for His magnificent acts of creation; this implies that God is an egotistical creature who craves praise, and that is a very petty motive for such a (supposedly) great being. It would be much easier for me to believe that God (whoever or whatever God actually may be) created life or created the conditions under which life could evolve, for His own amusement, rather than so that He would be elaborately and continually praised. If God is indeed great, wonderful, terrific, powerful, wise, compassionate, creative, etc., He would be well aware of His own greatness and would have no need for us to constantly tell Him how great He is. The whole argument of the Anthropic Principle is desgined to use scientific reasoning to arrive at religious conclusions, and I personally don't find it very persuasive, although I do not find it to be entirely ridiculous, either; I don't think that any human being really knows for certain how the universe came into being, or whether the universe was created deliberately or accidentally, and whether, if it was created deliberately, it was designed in such a way as to facilitate the emergence of intelligent creatures such as ourselves. My own hypothesis is that in some other universe, very different from ours yet strangely similar in some respcts, students in a high school science class were assigned the project of creating a universe, and they came up with ours. I would imagine that their teacher was pleased with their work. David Palter 2008-04-10T17:48:30-05:00