Maybe the Universe Thinks. Hear Me Out

Maybe the Universe Thinks. Hear Me Out

Sabine Hossenfelder 

To be more precise, the distribution of matter in the universe looks a little like the “connectome,” the network of nerve connections in the human brain. Neurons in the human brain, too, form clusters, and they connect by axons, that are long nerve fibers which send electrical impulses from one neuron to another.

Sure, we don’t know what consciousness is. But we do know that the only things we’re reasonably confident can think – brains – have a lot of connections, and send a lot of information back and forth through those connections. Even leaving aside that we don’t understand consciousness, high connectivity and rapid signaling seem conductive to thinking. That the universe is structurally similar to the brain raises the question whether it has similar thinking capacities.

This means if the universe is thinking, it isn’t thinking very much. For most physicists, this is the end of the story. But what if the universe isn’t as big as it seems?

...Let me be clear that there is absolutely zero evidence that non-local connections exist, or that, if they existed, they’d indeed allow the universe to think. But we cannot rule this possibility out either. Crazy as it sounds, the idea that the universe is intelligent is compatible with all we know so far.

Surprised to see Sabine Hossenfelder going down this road...