The Intelligent Universe

Abstract

The universe does not just consist of more or less empty space containing galaxies and quasars, and the formless material existing before the universe became transparent. The universe includes us as well, not only because we have been formed from atoms created shortly after the Big Bang, but also because we have started to think about the universe, of which we are such a small part. Apart from us, matter in the universe possibly exists in other forms that are capable of thought. The universe has begun to speculate about its own existence.

Barberini: ... You think in circles or ellipses and in constant speeds -simple motions that your mind finds appropriate. But what if it had pleased God to let his stars move like this. (With his finger he draws an extremely complicated figure in the air at varying speeds.) What would you then get from your calculations?

Galilei: Dear man, if God had constructed the world like this (he repeats Barberini’s figure), then God would have made our minds like this (he repeats the same gesture), so that they would recognize even paths like these as being the simplest.

Bertolt Brecht, “The Life of Galileo”