Greetings!
This is a post about the universe! Yes, the
universe! You know how the Doctor and various characters in Doctor Who have
personified the universe as a conscious existence a couple times.
“There are some corners of the universe
which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything
we believe in. They must be fought.”
“You can't be too careful, can you? And it would
be a terrible tragedy for the universe if it turned out I was colour blind...”
“The outside universe is breaking through!”
“The dawn of time, the beginning of all
beginnings. Two forces, only good and evil. Then chaos. Time is born, matter,
space. The universe cries out like a newborn. The forces shatter as the
universe explodes outwards. Only echoes remain, yet somehow, somehow the evil
force survives... an intelligence of pure evil.”
“Oh, I did it again. I picked another stupid ape!
I should've known. It's not about showing you the universe, it never is. It's
about the universe doing something for you!”
“We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will
sing you to your sleep. This song is ending, but the story never ends.”
“The universe is big, it's vast and complicated,
and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and
we call them miracles. And that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen
one yet, but this would do me.”
“The cracks in the skin of the universe.”
“You've decided that the universe is better off
without you. But the universe doesn't agree.”
“I saw the birth of the universe, and I watched
as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained.”
Okay, so more than a couple times. Some of you might just brush
over that idea thinking it’s just sci-fi talk. It’s only fair, I mean, the
Doctor says a lot of crazy things. But, listen to me okay, this part of DW
science-fiction is a little more than fiction.
Introducing Brendan Cuffe!
"The universe is both intelligent and self aware, and I can prove it!
The atoms that comprise you are very, very old indeed. In fact, the matter that comprises you has existed in some sense since the big bang: Everything since has been a re arrangement. Our universe does not create material from nothing, merely rearranges. We are not just being that live in the universe, we are made of universe. We are children not of the stars, but of the big bang. Hold on to that thought.
"So what?" You might be asking. "So humans are intelligent, which is pretty cool, but it hardly means the universe is." I disagree. When I describe myself as intelligent and self aware, Most of my atoms are not. My hand is not conscious. But I contain a brain. That is what allows "me" as a whole to be considered intelligent. Most of 'me' unconscious, yet 'me' as a whole is, justified by that glorious organ known as the brain. When one looks at the beginnings of life and marvel at how it would someday become self aware, one in fact marvels at the fact that the system would one day contain brains.
So, I ask you, can one not look at the early universe, see the galaxies forming, and marvel at how that matter would someday become sentient? My brain is a part of my body, which grants me the label of '"intelligent''. But my brain is a part of the universe, made of ingredients forged ultimately at time's beginning. Sure, most of the universe is empty space, dead planets, balls of gas... But like me, it's a system, most of which doesn't think, some of which does. To quote Niel de Grasse Tyson, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." The universe has become intelligent, has become self aware, and is questioning it's own nature and origins, through us, and any other intelligent life forms."
~ Brendan Cuffe
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