Is the universe just trying to ask itself 'who am i'/'what am i'?

Question

is the universe just curious about itself all this time?

i am not trying to anthromorphize the universe as it were. but maybe i am.

we all know and understand the accepted explanation that everything(space,time,

matter, gravity,energy),maybe i'm not sure, begun in the big bang, and through time everything is

evolving, and since we are just but evolving matter that gained consciousness (a wonderful thing),

and begun asking and explaining everything around us, and since we are but just made of the same stuff as the universe is (i always thought i had a twin star) and begun the same time as it did, it begs the question then, is the universe just trying to know itself, through us(evolving conscious lump of particles), just trying to to explain what it is made of? and where is it heading?

are we just a part of the universe or are we the universe trying to know and explain itself?(that certainly gives meaning to the saying 'i am one with the universe')

Answer 1

This is a perspective that is both philosophically gratifying and scientifically correct.  As Carl Sagan said [approximately], "We are the local eyes and ears of the cosmos, star-stuff contemplating the stars....We are a way for the Universe to know itself."

And, "These are a few of the things hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of evolution."

Answer 2

Yes.  It is ridiculous to think of ourselves as anything but Universe, as Bucky Fuller might have said, dropping the "the".  To use an article like "the" implies that universe is an entity that exists seperately from something else, when in fact, universe cannot be considered as anything but everything.  

I will use the article though, just so I don't sound like a crackpot.   In order to realistically consider "our place in the universe," we must accept that the universe is integral to us and we are integral to it.  This universe would not, by definition, be this universe were you, or I, or the gnat that just landed on my keyboard, not in existence.  And obviously were there no universe, there would be no us.  

You're absolutely right: The very fact that we have emerged as a part of the universe means that the universe is self-aware.  We are at least in some way or in some part, that consciousness.  Now the question is, what are we supposed to be conscious of?

Answer 3

Hegel would have said, yes.  Since humans emerge from and are part of the universe, the investigation into whence we come is in that sense the universe trying to understand itself.

Answer 4

You have the beginning of an intriguing and inquiring mind.

Mankind is continually asking itself what its relationship is to  the universe. And, at the same time,  the universe is asking itself what its relationship is to mankind.

As far as science knows right now, you are correct that the universe and mankind are made out of the same substances. You and I and the far galaxies are all made out of atoms with little ions and other particles spinning around them. In effect, we (humans, cats, dogs, Saturn's rings, black holes, etc.) are all fields of energy.

Humans, through evolution, have come to interpret the wave lengths that we receive from those energy fields such that everything appears to have substance. In reality, we are only those atoms with ions and other little things twirling around us.

All of that, in a greatly condensed format, is as accurate as science can make it right now. And part of your questioning above thus becomes very relevant. So how do you answer the question in your last paragraph?

I have come to the conclusion after many years of thought,  that we are "one with the universe." But you can't simply say that and end your questioning at that point. Wrestle next with the implications of the statement for  day-to-day pragmatic value judgments. That's tough! Buddhism, with its search for an enlightened view of mankind's relationship with the universe, is a close as I have come to finding a way to deal with that  question.

(As an aside, I applaud your ability to have those thoughts and be able to begin to articulate them. But you might want to think about developing your writing skills so that you can express them in as clear a manner as possible.)

Answer 5

A physicist is the Universe's way of knowing itself.

It's an old quote.

It's also possible that the Universe works on highly predictable rules, and the cogs turn, and it runs down.  And you and i are soulless cogs too.

Answer 6

Some way the universe developed the capacity to become aware of itself and we are that result.