Is the Universe Developing Consciousness?

Taken from JRE #1829 w/Bobby Azarian:

[TheGlobalfrog]

The fact that we are creations of the universe and that we are aware of its existence, would suggest it already has consciousness....

[camdenritter]

I always thought about how planets are so big that when standing on one, you can't even tell that it's round. I think this can be applied to the universe. It's so big, and we are so small, it's impossible to see what it is. Just like a cell on a human would have no clue what a human looks like if it could see.

I always thought the universe was possibly sentient. Planets are basically little cells compared to the entirety of it.

[zackv]

Yeah, that falls into a long held idea in Tao Buddhism. The consciousness we have is a single thing, not exclusive to any one being. So your conscious experience, your friends, strangers, animals, etc. Across all beings, across the entire universe are all one consciousness that belongs to the universe. Alan Watts explains this for western minds very precisely in his lectures. Our conscious experience is just the universe wanting to look itself in the mirror.

[claytonolsoncoaching]

Developing? Funny how we see ourselves as separate from “the universe”

[shainmays]

Ive missed this side of JRE, the edge-of-knowledge conversations are what brought me in to begin with

[chzyburrito]

Thank god Joe is bringing topics like these to the masses. It’s remarkable how much science and society as a whole ignores/forgets about arguably one of the most important questions of all time

[Nolongeriwholive]

Love the idea of chaos being an outward expression of a system demanding change. That is a fantastic way to think about and approach the “problems” in every aspect of our world. Brilliant.

[lejitthewastelandprince]

It’s very surreal yet comforting at the same time more & more people from all walks of life are not only having these types of conversations but becoming less surprised or shocked by theories like this. Almost normalized.

[matildoka]

This guy was talking about everything and nothing at the same time. That's a talent.

[JakeAyers]

“You are not in the universe, you are the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” – Eckhart Tolle

[illwyte]

I love how the conscious part of the universe wonders if the universe is conscious 😂

[FreshaDenaMofo]

Terence Mckenna talked about this a lot with his notion of the "transcendental object at the end of time", or "the great attractor". He often spoke about us as some kind of catalyst that nature uses as a strategy to achieve certain goals.

[RunescapeGod]

Terrence McKenna was speaking about a great cosmic attractor several decades ago. Crazy to see scientists coming to this way of thought now

[winstonsmith]

The universe has been there for a long time. It's not waking up. Humanity is waking up.

[johnlannigandroneworks]

I love this conversation. Joe is entertaining some serious philosophical talk. Refreshing to see and not difficult to see there is an audience that is waaaay ready to expand their consciousness.

[vaderguitarplayer]

I have seen the argument that we are the mental construct of the Universe, so a rippling out of the universe, each a limited view point which enriches the whole viewpoint. Sort of like showing your work in a complex math problem. Each step provides value almost apart from just getting the answer. The why, to the how to the what. Imagine a being that states "I am" and then tried to figure out what it can be. Imagine this as the universe. It splits itself until it can see itself from every possible viewpoint, focussing on every degree within the whole of anything and everything. Example on that. Light and dark or hot and cold are part of the same thing, difference is by degrees. Dark is absence of light, cold absence of heat. We see them as separate, and infinity so, because with our limited minds we can't process it as a whole mentally. But, if you categorize every viewpoint in a "database" then it serves a purpose when put together, quite literally putting infinity together piece by piece. I have seen it suggested that if we are the consciousness of the universe, we are just learning, and we are just learning about what has already happened. Like time is a concept, a focus on a degree rather than the whole. Time is thought to be a man made concept, but if we are potentially the universe's mind, then it would suggest that time is a tool to understand itself. Universe feels and makes things happen. We think and add meaning and value to those feelings. This would also suggest that there is no good or bad. So the "I am" simply "is" rather than "is something specific." The universe is everything, and we are only separate in a grand type of thought experiment that is being done to gain true meaning in "self." Watch Jim Carey's interviews or people who have compiled his stuff to claim he is not "crazy" but waking up to "reality". Now, if Jim is not crazy, and people are waking up to this, if it be true, then we would only be waking up to half truths, because we cannot fathom or grasp a whole truth which encompasses infinity. But why wake at all? Why be concious of the potential fact that we're just a "field of energy dancing for itself?" As Jim explains? Well, I think that if every person is a particle within a multidimensional mental abstraction, then some particles need to know what it is like to know, and some need to know what it is like to "finish" their part. A particle of god, or the universe, is playing out it's role exactly as it should and gets to. I believe the ones that come to such a knowledge are close to finishing their part of the thought experiment. Once finished it returns to the void or the source of everything and becomes like the budist joke "one with everything" having realized it was never separate at all. Meanwhile the rest of us are still playing things out wondering if we are in a Shakespeare comedy or tragedy day to day. I jest a little, however, I actually think these ideas have merit and personally believe it works quite similarly to how I've explained, but on a much more grand and incomprehensible (to a human) way. Certainly fun to think about and makes up for "why bad things happen to good people." Answer = infinity. In infinity everything happens. Like that new movie Anything Everywhere All At Once. Nothing matters in this idea, and at the exact same time everything matters because nothing and something are the same thing diferences are only by degrees. This means a multiverse is real, other lives are real, and quite literally anything you can think of is real somewhere somehow. We just happen to live here and now, and it works within the rules of this particular reality.

[SebastianLundh]

Joe seriously needs to have *Bernardo Kastrup* on his podcast. Kastrup's take on consciousness is what we all need. Kastrup basically argues that in the same way your brain is what your consciousness looks like, the inanimate universe as a whole is the 2nd person perspective of consciousness.

[vRyanLevi]

The amount of content that is provided by joe is amazing, he has had thousands of different topics and people with different content from all around the world. Thanks Joe for providing me with endless entertainment.

[passion]

"How about a Universe, with a full consciousness?"

SpongeBob: "That's God, Patrick. It's already been invented!"

[MacLethal]

It's wild how many people in these comments, and on this show, need to explore Hinduism. The entire backbone of Hinduism is the idea of Brahman, that the Universe is the supreme consciousness. -source, I'm Hindu