Jul 17, 2022
The Nature of Reality Seems to be Evidence that Reality is a Sentient Multidimensional Hyper-Organism Sustaining Undiscovered Physics of Consciousness
Hello world.
This article is 100% a riff inspired by a great video Chris Lehto put out explaining his theory that the universe is a hyper-organism — his video really helped coalesce some similar thoughts I’d been having. As a thought experiment I think this is worth considering from the perspectives of both philosophy and physics and, as Chris says in the video, this theory can be considered testable:
In a nutshell
For the purpose of my article I’ll describe his theory as the view that all of reality is a recurring series of patterns representative of the collaboration of distinct individual and collective autonomous agents (living[sentient/conscious/active?] things) spread across every visible and discernible scale which results in the creation of increasingly complex autonomous agents at higher levels of complexity and scale. Your cells make your organs, your organs make you, you make the world, the world makes the universe — higher up and farther down than we can see. This is an ontology of reality that reaches into the scale of immeasurable belief by virtue of how it builds on itself.
I feel like his theory as he expressed it is built around there being a universe and not a multiverse (If I’m wrong about my understanding I apologize). I definitely think there’s a multiverse and I think that viewing reality as a multiversal hyper-entity seems to explain a bunch of what we’re seeing at galactic timescales in our particular universe — but only if we’re able to imagine or accept life existing at incomprehensibly nonhuman scales of both space and time.
Why do I think there’s a multiverse?
There are two important concepts to understand when considering the technology evident when the United States discusses Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: The Nuts and Bolts, and The Woo.
The Nuts and Bolts: This is the physical aspects of these craft as we understand them (hardware and some software). This is the machine that works in ways like how we think machines work. (The is an F-16 or a Minivan piloted by aliens, or future humans, or past humans, or alternate humans, or nonhumans, or what the fuck else there could possibly be I guess.)
The Woo: This is the strange effects associated with these craft which seem metaphysical or incomprehensible and are representative of these technologies interacting with undiscovered physics of consciousness (some software and interface). The Woo doesn’t operate the way we think technology operates so we reject its existence. Also this is often where the real bullshit happens for cultural or social reasons and not science reasons (some of it isn’t bullshit though).
The Woo is important but we don’t like thinking about it because it doesn’t make sense. It’s real. It’s part of a system. We can try to intuit how this system can work and we can use those intuitions to try and test them — same as everything else — but we’re not comfortable doing that with this because of the nature of this subject.
In fact parapsychological research has already confirmed and validated a bunch of this stuff but the mainstream is unwilling to look at it. This is despite the fact that there is as much evidence for some parapsychological phenomena as there is of psychological phenomena.
With that out of the way: This comment I made to Avi Loeb (linked below) further details why I think there’s a multiverse. Something about The Woo is real and in order for it to operate as it seems to operate there has to be undiscovered physics of consciousness and the most logical way to connect all of these undiscovered physics with our reality is very well complemented by the existence of something like a multiverse. I cover this in greater detail below and elsewhere in my writing.
Undiscovered physics of consciousness don’t only have to exist at human scales. In fact it seems unlikely that this would be the case.
The long and short of it is that undiscovered physics of consciousness can easily play a role in accounting for some or all of dark matter or dark energy as a result of the activity of many small conscious entities — or perhaps a very large one — in ways we can’t yet measure because of wavelengths and timescales.
The Big Bang, The Big Crunch, or The Big Breath?
Dark energy and dark matter are befuddling. Everything makes sense if we ignore what we’re seeing. That’s pretty unsustainable though, right?
There’s a force out there in the universe that pulls stuff and there’s a force out there that pushes stuff and they’re inconsistent in ways that result in the amazing natural beauty of the structure of the universe.
Why draw breath?
The cells in our lungs don’t give two shits about the fact that our bodies are breathing, they care that our bodies are a healthy place for them to do what they need to do to be awesome cells. They can do everything within their limited power to influence the body when the feel something is wrong, but they can’t think about the nature of lungs like we do. They have awareness and understanding but it’s much, much simpler version of what we have.
You draw breath because it’s what you must do to live. This act includes all the cells in your lungs but does not call on them distinctly. They are all important to your continued survival. They matter.
Breathing exercises the components of the lungs: Individual cells, individual things made out of cells, things made out of things made out of cells. It’s something that has to happen for the whole to exist independent of the will of any individual member of the whole.
h3re B generalizations (4 science!!!!1):
What is an inhalation? An increase in tension and pressure which tests the rigidity of components.
What is an exhalation? A release of tension and pressure which tests the elasticity of components.
One more degree in a hurricane
Let’s take a quick detour into climate science because climate science lets us visualize small changes in energy spread out over a big distance. One of the things we know is happening as the climate changes is that the the oceans are rising in temperature by what looks like small amounts. It looks like a small amount because we’re small compared to the sea and we naturally have a small perspective here. 1 degree of additional temperature is extra energy but it’s so little energy to us that it doesn’t matter to us.
But now add 1 extra degree of energy to hundreds of square kilometers of ocean surface area and drive a hurricane through there. A hurricane is a force of nature that takes what it’s offered and disrupts everything as much as it can. The changing climate gives a hurricane a lot of extra energy at the scale at which a hurricane operates.
Scale is important to consider and we don’t intuitively consider it beyond our own. The change in temperature means that the hurricane has access to way more potential energy which can cause it to be more volatile, and cause additional disruption to all the little things like us that live within its bounds.
To be clear: I’m not saying a hurricane is a hyper-organism, although I do think that planetary hyper-organisms are possible and I think the hexagonal storm on Saturn is evidence that somewhere in the infinite universe this can have happened.
The concept of a cycle of varying intensity which ebbs and flows exists in all forms of matter. Tectonic plates, tides, hurricanes, breath, blood. It seems reasonable to assume it exists in the energetic processes that comprise the remaining unknowns about how reality works.
What the fuck even is my point?
Look: We don’t know that the Big Bang happened as far back (or recently) as we think it did. We know it looks like it happened then because we assume a steady rate of expansion because it doesn’t make sense to us that the expansion/contraction of the universe would suddenly shift directions after trillions of years or whatever. Accepted physics doesn’t have a concept for something like a Big Breath, a slowing of the expansion or contraction of the universe, so it only ever made sense for us to think everything was all smashed together at one point.
There’s a big problem with this theory of the universe being the body of a hyperorganism: There isn’t enough visible matter in our universe for this system to be functional — and yet this system is logical and plausible. We need to look at what’s not there, think about what’s missing, and think about where it could be.
The answer seems to be “There but not the there where we’re looking”. A multiverse allows us to store all of that extra mass and energy in a way that seems to tie this particular narrative together quite nicely.
The unofficial Wizard of Canada and the Multiverse of Madness
In an infinite multiverse of realities where gravitational forces can bleed through into adjacent universes dark matter can be representative of a control system designed to maintain a macro-level cohesion to the whole process. This is a functional explanation for why something we can’t see is holding everything we can see together independent of any large narrative.
This can all be described as a material system where some of the materials are inaccessible to us because we are more constrained to this system than the system itself is.
And also:
We have feelings and emotions and there are undiscovered physics of consciousness and the belief of conscious entities is a functional component of reality (Placebo). There’s a lot of room for a lot of beautiful unknowable things here.
On Religion
I’m sorry to say that scientists are going to need to acknowledge that they were wrong about a bunch of stuff, often for honest and understandable reasons, in order for us all to move forward collaboratively here.
I’ve written about this before:
The true nature of physical reality is one where spiritual, religious, or divine concepts are some kind of true. This seems to be compatible with the metaphysical beliefs of many religions in a way that is both shocking and delightful. I’m a nontheist and am have always felt agnostic about which theistic religion ends up being “true” but I’ve always felt that if we found out it was one of them there would be a whole lot of horrible conflict. None of them would have had the same result.
Fortunately it’s “A bunch of parts of all of them” and that’s honestly the best we can hope for. Especially now with the world the way it is.
This seems to perhaps be a good indicator of The Best Case Scenario:
So anyway… a bunch of religions are right and that’s great. Yes it feels scary because this is obviously something that could be used to do a lot of harm by bad-faith actors but I’m confident we’re pretty much all tired of harm and that we can use this to come together somehow — although I’ve no doubt the process will be imperfect and harm will still happen.
Whatever else this means: it definitely means that you’re important. You specifically. Whoever you are. And so is everyone else.
There is an opportunity here for people of diverse faiths to come together in mutual recognition of the deep and meaningful shared truths at the core of their distinct beliefs if we can also recognize that these beliefs have often by necessity been central components to many of the dominant systems of power throughout the evolution of our civilization.
Look, I get that this is a long shot, but it’s describable in a single sentence and merits consideration. What fucking alternative are there? Does anyone see any of the conflict on the horizon as being likely of ending all conflict in a way that doesn’t suck bigly for everybody?
An ontology of reality that is compatible with a wide variety of our beliefs and history is an ideal next step in our evolution as a species of collective intelligences comprising greater collective intelligences.
We have an opportunity to find that here if we’re open to finding it.
If we’re not open to finding it then I’m not sure what that says about our participation in what is, I guess, a sentient multidimensional hyper-organism.
