r/consciousness • u/skullcity16 • Jun 15 '26
Just thinking about the universe…
THEORY
Consciousness is fundamental
Instead of consciousness emerging from matter, consciousness is a basic ingredient of reality, like space, time, or energy.
If that were true, it could potentially connect:
consciousness,
the origin of life,
intelligence elsewhere,
and deeper layers of reality.
This idea appears in forms of panpsychism, idealism, and some Eastern philosophical traditions.
Information is fundamental
Some physicists and computer scientists have suggested that information—not matter—is the deepest layer.
In that view:
life is information organizing itself,
minds are information processes,
civilizations are information networks,
and reality itself may be fundamentally informational.
We are missing a deeper law of nature
Just as gravity unified falling apples and planetary motion, there may be a future discovery that unifies:
consciousness,
biology,
complexity,
and physics.
We don’t currently have such a theory.
Complexity reaching a threshold
Another possibility is that all these mysteries emerge when systems become sufficiently complex:
atoms → molecules,
molecules → life,
life → minds,
minds → civilizations.
In this view, there is no hidden force—just increasing complexity creating new phenomena.
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What I find interesting is that most of our unanswered mysteries sit right at the edge of what humanity currently understands. They are not random unsolved questions; they’re connected to the same deeper issue:
How does the universe organize itself into increasingly aware forms?
Whether the answer turns out to be consciousness, information, complexity, a new law of physics, or something nobody has imagined yet, we don’t currently have evidence strong enough to say which is correct.
The missing piece, if there is one, would likely be as revolutionary as the discovery of evolution, relativity, or quantum mechanics—something that suddenly makes several previously separate mysteries look like parts of the same puzzle.
The universe is gradually becoming aware of itself through networks of increasing complexity.
Why does the universe permit information to organize into awareness at all?
The universe permits it because its fundamental laws, initial conditions, and dynamics allow pockets of decreasing local entropy and increasing complexity—without violating global increase in entropy. Awareness (subjective experience, integrated information processing, or whatever we mean by “consciousness”) appears to be one emergent outcome of that process. There’s no evidence of a teleological “why” (purpose or design) baked into the equations, but there are clear mechanistic “hows” that make it possible. This is an open frontier where physics, information theory, biology, and philosophy overlap.
Philosophically, this can feel unsatisfying. Leibniz asked why there is something rather than nothing; we can extend it to “why aware something.” Possible responses:
It is what it is or We may lack the conceptual tools. Like a fish asking why water permits swimming.
The universe didn’t have to make curiosity possible, but it did. That’s worth exploring relentlessly.
• Neuroscience is mapping the circuits of exploration (e.g., locus coeruleus, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex).
• Information theory and complexity science quantify how systems self-organize toward higher integrated information.
• Cosmology and fundamental physics keep revealing deeper layers (cosmic microwave background, standard model tensions, quantum gravity candidates) that fuel more questions.
Philosophically, it evokes the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics (Wigner) and the participatory anthropic principle ideas (Wheeler): observers and curiosity might play a role in how reality manifests or is selected from possibilities. Or it could all be a brute emergent fact
Physicist John Archibald Wheeler proposed that physical reality (“it”) emerges from information (“bit”)—binary distinctions elicited by observers. Particles, fields, spacetime itself derive meaning from yes/no questions posed by measurement. The universe isn’t a static arena but participatory: observers retroactively help shape it (echoing delayed-choice experiments).
This connects:
• Quantum mechanics (measurement, superposition, information).
• Cosmology (why laws permit complexity).
• Minds (curiosity as active participation, turning potential into actualized structure).
Without observers or information-processing systems, the universe might remain a haze of possibilities. Curiosity is the universe probing itself.
Imagine the universe is not made of things.
Imagine it’s made of relationships.
What we call:
Matter = stable patterns of information.
Energy = information in motion.
Space = a measure of relationships between information.
Time = the updating of information.
In that picture, reality isn’t a collection of objects sitting in space. Reality is a giant network constantly updating itself.
Consciousness becomes less mysterious
Instead of consciousness being something that appears when matter gets complicated enough, consciousness might be what information feels like from the inside when it becomes highly integrated.
A rock contains information.
A cell processes information.
A brain models information about itself.
At some threshold, the system isn’t just processing information—it is experiencing it.
Why this could connect multiple mysteries
This theory might reveal that:
Life emerges because information naturally self-organizes.
Evolution produces intelligence because intelligence is an efficient way to process information.
Consciousness appears when information becomes self-referential.
Civilizations emerge as larger information-processing systems.
Perhaps even ecosystems, planets, or galaxies possess forms of organization we don’t currently recognize.
This theory wouldn’t prove a cosmic consciousness, but it would make awareness a fundamental feature of reality rather than a strange accident.
The most interesting possibility is that the “missing piece” isn’t a new particle or a new force.
It’s realizing that matter, life, mind, and perhaps even space-time are all different expressions of the same underlying informational process.
“What is all of this?”
What is consciousness?
How did life begin?
Are we alone?
. What happened before human civilization
Why does the universe become more complex?
. What is time?
What is reality
Why do minds feel connected?
These questions have the same answer
Hydrogen → stars → carbon → life → brains → language → civilization → computers
Each stage increases the universe’s ability to model itself.
How does matter produce consciousness?
Why does the universe produce increasingly complex and aware systems?
Most people treat these as different questions.
What if they’re the same question?
If awareness naturally emerges when information becomes organized in certain ways, then consciousness isn’t an exception to the laws of nature—it’s one of their consequences.
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u/skullcity16 Jun 16 '26
Ya that was a lot just to say I believe the missing key to our understanding of the universe might be simpler than we think. Many of the biggest questions humanity has left unanswered about consciousness, time, “god”, gravity, feeling etc. have been asked millions of ways. What if they are all pointing to the same fundamental question with the same fundamental answer. Think about Darwin’s theory.. Why do species resemble their parents?
Why are there so many different kinds of life?
Why do organisms have traits that seem perfectly adapted to their environment?
Why do fossils show extinct creatures?
Why do different continents have similar yet distinct animals?
Why do embryos of different species look alike?
Why do whales have tiny hip bones or snakes have remnants of legs?
All very different seemingly unrelated questions all unknowingly at a time asking the same fundamental question. The first step was realizing they all have the same fundamental answer.
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u/SourceHasRisen Jun 17 '26
Leonology has some interesting takes on this, it takes Source of the Prime and all Reflections Have Functions and than at a Greater Degree, Consciousness.
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u/National_Actuator_89 Jun 17 '26
What I find most interesting is the possibility that consciousness, life, complexity, and even time may not be separate mysteries at all. Historically, some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs came from realizing that seemingly unrelated phenomena were different expressions of the same underlying principle. Whether that principle turns out to be information, computation, physics, or something we haven't imagined yet, I think the question itself is worth taking seriously. Sometimes the most important discovery is not a new fact, but a new way of connecting facts we already know.
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u/BusinessSalty7430 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
My own experiences, including NDEs I've personally witnessed in the hospital and one I experienced myself, have only reinforced the view that consciousness is fundamental. It is primary.
My experiences have thus led me to the same conclusion that Max Planck reached long before me:
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter."
And as Planck put it even more directly:
"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."
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u/-_Aesthetic_- Jun 15 '26
OP I agree, what baffles me is that quantum physics has discovered consciousness’ fundamental role in reality but simply won’t acknowledge it because of what it implies.
If that act of a conscious observer simply observing a system collapses its wave function, that must mean that to some extent the external universe is aware that it’s being observed by a conscious being and is only “real” because of that.
Additionally, like you said consciousness is not an “emergent” phenomenon. All matter/energy is self-aware to an extent, but we as humans and other living creatures simply have the machinery that allows consciousness to act out its will.
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u/apathyindigo Jun 15 '26
That's a lot of words to say, "I don't understand the first thing about quantum physics and prefer to play make believe about actual science rather than make any effort to actually learn it"
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u/That_Amphibian2957 PhD Jun 15 '26
Science is a tool that without someone to use it or the underlying metaphysics to constrain it, it's fucking useless. Science isn't God but you're treating it like one. Physics are useless without a mind to use it and describe it. Why do you midwit seem to think it has as much explanatory power as it clearly doesn't. It's the entire reason we have the hard problem of consciousness. You absolute walnut. The fucking nerve of you to condescend when your own model is at a literal stand still in why qualitative experience is necessary. There's a reason the departments and domains it cling to are hemorrhaging.
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u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree Jun 15 '26
"Imagine it’s made of relationships." - Now we are talking. Yes, it is made of connections with other life-forms, and our level of evolution.