I was reminded recently that we seem to be trapped in a Catch-22 Universe. What makes it a Catch-22 is that no one is qualified to penetrate the mystery of the cosmos without skill in advanced mathematics, and yet those who have this prerequisite are so tied to numbers that they see reality in no other way. On the face of it, the universe isn’t a set of equations. It’s the all-embracing reality that gave rise to human life. This obvious fact doesn’t faze the number-crunching that supposedly unravels cosmic mysteries.
The mystery has deepened to the point of incomprehension. The most advanced mathematics applied by physicists is totally abstract and disconnected from any physical evidence (there is no physical evidence for superstrings and the multiverse, for example). The more effort we put into understanding the universe, the farther from human it becomes.
So why is the universe so friendly to humans? Our DNA is the most complex physical object in existence, so far as we know, which implies that over the past 13.8 billion years, the tiniest glitch could have—indeed, should have—detailed the possibility of such a delicate strand of organic chemistry. It’s as if the whole cosmic enterprise, from the quantum level to the creation of stars and galaxies, was all set up for us. In a sense, once you see that we live in a human universe, which far from being outlandish, is the most convincing conclusion.
The human universe is gaining ground due to a crisis in mainstream physics, which a decade ago was still talking optimistically about a Theory of Everything that would unite the basic forces that hold physical reality together. Now, the Theory of Everything is either muted or not referred to. The standard model that looked so promising has reached not a triumphant climax but a dead end. The concept of the multiverse, in fact, was like an escape hatch. Standard physics can’t explain the incredible unlikelihood of how human beings evolved in a setting of mindless random physical activity. By leaping into the multiverse, with its infinite variations on the cosmos, randomness somehow creates the mind simply by taking a zillion tries before success is attained.
Imagine that you are in a car with a friend acting as navigator. You’re in an unknown country, so you ask him which way to turn at the next intersection. He replies, “There are infinite ways to turn at the next intersection, but don’t worry, they lead to infinite other intersections where we can also take an infinite number of turns. Eventually, we’ll get to Kansas City.” Physics finds itself talking this way when dealing with the multiverse.
But the situation is even messier than that. Some of the most basic questions have also become more, not less, mysterious, such as: Where did the universe come from? What is it made of? What existed before the Big Bang? How did consciousness arise in the cosmos?
That last question drives to the heart of the matter. Fred Hoyle, a prominent British astronomer in the Fifties and Sixties quipped, “The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747.”
That’s a perfect example of how randomness can be carried to the point of absurdity as the engine of creation. But Hoyle was referring to the infinite complexity of assembling a higher life form, which is physical. Consciousness has the fatal disadvantage that it isn’t physical, and trying to create it out of physical “stuff,” even given zillions of random combinations, doesn’t work.
You wind up with a Catch-22 universe when physical explanations don’t work and yet are the only explanations allowed. We humans are the living contradiction that blows physical theories apart. Everything seems designed, almost from the first instant of creation, to construct a cosmos that would pave the way for human beings. This is more than the oddest of all odd coincidences.
In a human universe, we are the goal of creation, not as a sequence of trillions of events, but as a single concept. If the multiverse exists, there is room for countless universes whose wholeness is defined by other goals. In our universe, wholeness is about us. Given every choice it had to make for 13.8 billion years, pure consciousness knew in advance that it wanted to morph into human consciousness. To this end, it created the perfect home for us.
Change the percentage of methane or carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, and we couldn’t exist. Earth’s distance from the sun is a perfect Goldilocks balance between too close and too far. Getting even more basic, such as the existence of photosynthesis or the fact that water is a universal solvent, changing any one of these ingredients kicks the legs out from under higher life forms. Yet winning the lottery in both physics and chemistry would be irrelevant without the mind.
Mind is the only creative power that can overcome randomness simply because it wants to. Cosmic mind proved this assertion through the human universe, but every person proves the same principle by countless acts of free will. A random universe is messy, filled with infinite events, from colliding quarks to colliding galaxies, that splat everywhere like paint thrown against a wall. But the human universe—the one that is such a perfect fit for Homo sapiens—is like a precise blueprint drawn up to reach a foregone conclusion.
As part of being a contrarian species, Homo sapiens today has fallen into a morass of self-doubt. Conventional wisdom points to the global climate crisis as an example of our hubris, the arrogance that pitted us against Nature. The solution is to return to a state where humans are aligned with Nature. Or to be accurate, more aligned. We are already the centerpiece of the human universe. What we need to do is to take that insight to the point of fruition. The never-ending story of evolution needs to be reclaimed as our story, and the only creators with the power to define our evolution are us.
DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, FRCP, is a Consciousness Explorer and a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is co-founder of DeepakChopra.ai, his AI twin and well-being advisor. He also co-founded Cyberhuman, a transformative suite of personalized health and well-being solutions. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is also an Honorary Fellow in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He is the author of over 95 books, translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers.
For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution. His mission is to create a more balanced, peaceful, joyful, and healthier world. Through his teachings, he guides individuals to embrace their inherent strength, wisdom, and potential for personal and societal transformation.
In his latest book, “Digital Dharma” (Harmony/Rodale), Chopra navigates the balance between technology and expanded awareness, explaining that while AI cannot duplicate human intelligence, it can vastly enhance personal and spiritual growth. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of their top 100 most influential people.” www.deepakchopra.com.
