Is the Universe Conscious?

Everything we experience is linked to our consciousness. Despite this familiarity, consciousness remains a mystery.

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How do you feel right now? Happy? Sad? Excited? Do you feel hot or cold? Maybe hungry? Everything we experience—our thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions—comes to us through our own consciousness (Pang, 2023a). It is what we are most familiar with and the only way our minds can access the world (Pang, 2023b). Despite this intimate familiarity, consciousness remains one of the greatest mysteries. We lack any good scientific explanations for it and even struggle to accurately define or measure it (Zhao et al., 2019). We have good evidence that consciousness is linked to the brain because changes to the brain—whether chemically through medication, alcohol, or psychoactive drugs, through brain damage, or through targeted brain stimulation—impact consciousness (Yaden et al., 2021; Damasio, 2006; Riedel et al., 2016). At the same time, there are baffling phenomena—like blindsight, amnesia, or split-brain patients—where people can respond correctly to a cue while denying ever perceiving this cue (LeDoux et al., 2020). Even without these complications, it is not clear how a specific brain state would give rise to a subjective experience. The Australian philosopher David Chalmers (1995) labeled this the hard problem of consciousness. Even if we could map every experience to a specific brain state, it is not clear why such a biological configuration should result in a subjective experience.

The quest for answers

Scholars have been trying to solve this conundrum for a long time. Myriad suggestions and explanatory theories have been proposed, ranging from suggesting that brain states and experiences simply are the same thing (Smart, 2022), through the notion that consciousness is the integration of information within a system (Tononi et al., 2016), to more exotic suggestions, like it being a relativistic phenomenon linked to a specific frame of reference (Lahav & Neemeh, 2022).

These theories are intriguing, and many have advanced our understanding of specific aspects of consciousness, but none seems to satisfactorily answer the most fundamental questions about consciousness. That is why some experts have taken a completely different approach by asking if consciousness could be a fundamental aspect of the universe.

Getting down to the foundations

Science helps to build up our knowledge but we need a foundation of fundamental facts and principles that cannot be explained by anything underlying.

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Scientific knowledge is a bit like a high-rise building, where every new level relies on the ones below. Any explanation is based on previously established facts and principles. However, there needs to be a starting point: fundamental facts that cannot be explained by anything underlying. For a long time, atoms were believed to be the fundamental building blocks of matter (the name atom comes from the Greek word for “indivisible”). We now know that atoms are made up of smaller particles called quarks, leptons, and bosons (Close, 2004). Some have suggested that these subatomic particles are made up of vibrating strings, a theory with ardent supporters and passionate critics (Ritson & Camilleri, 2015). We may also find something else that is underlying what we now call fundamental particles. However, this is just kicking the can further down the road. Ultimately, if we want to understand the universe, we need to accept that there are fundamental entities that we can use to explain other things, but that cannot themselves be explained further.

Consciousness is a mystery that seems qualitatively distinct from anything else we know. That is why some scholars have suggested that it is a fundamental aspect of the universe. According to this view, asking why there is consciousness is akin to asking why there are laws in physics. It is not a wrong question; it is just not scientifically answerable. Fundamentalism is no longer just a fringe theory but has some respected supporters (Hoffman et al., 2022; Schurger & Graziano, 2022). Just to be clear: This is still a controversial notion and neither proven nor established doctrine among experts. However, it is a view that is gaining traction and has profound implications if found to be true.

A conscious universe?

We still don’t know what gives rise to consciousness, but if it is a fundamental aspect of the universe, it may not be limited to human minds. Many researchers believe that many (or even most) animals are conscious (Pang, 2024). If consciousness is woven into the fabric of the universe, it may arise outside of the wet organs we call brains. Panpsychism is the view that everything in the universe has at least an element of consciousness in it (Goff, 2001). This view holds that even a grain of sand has a minuscule amount of consciousness—nothing comparable to our experiences, but not zero. Panpsychism has a long history in both Western and Eastern philosophy, and while there are some strong contemporary defenders, it seems a bridge too far for many scholars (for example, Frankish, 2021). This view also has many problems: Why do we have a single, united conscious experience and not a fractured one constructed by the many parts of our brain (and body)? How can we perceive our own consciousness but not others? These are just some of the problems panpsychism faces.

If consciousness permeates the universe, it is unclear whether (and how) this is either united or separated. We could be part of a larger conscious structure. Alternatively, the whole notion of panpsychism could be complete nonsense. We simply don't have enough evidence or understanding yet to truly know. Consciousness could be fundamental; it could be a purely physical process; it could be in a category of its own; or it could be something entirely different from all these options. For now, consciousness remains a mystery but given the importance it has to us and the possible implications if any of these theories were true, it is worthwhile investigating further.