Most of us have been in Picard's shoes, looking up at night and imagining what it would be like traveling through space, leaving this planet, this galaxy and beyond, but what would happen if you looked back expecting to see the universe, and instead saw a giant galactic brain?
I once bought a DVD about the Universe, at the end it traveled 13 Billion light years to the 'edge of the Universe' which was perceived as a web of galaxy clusters. I thought it was pretty impressive. I found it more impressive when I studied psychology and how the brain transmits and receives information.
Just a quick overview, in the brain we have brain cells that have tentacle like things, they are called neurons, they are in contact with other cells and together they form cobwebs called a Neural Net. When the brain receives stuff, the info is passed on from cell to cell and forms a pathway, when it receives the same information, it travels down the same pathway. With repetition, the pathway becomes permanent and thus you have a permanent memory.
Notice I mentioned the word 'web' twice, this is why:
This is a Neural Net
This is The Galaxy
Now remember, this is a rendition of what scientists THINK the universe may look like. This isn't absolute. Yet you can't help but to think that there may be a realistic possibility that the universe, could in fact be a neural net. Is All the Universe a mind? We may never know, but an attempt to answer that very question would require an open mind, centuries of research, and an unprecedented marriage of Cosmology, astrology, Biology, and other sciences.
The problem is that there are many loopholes, questions, and the difficulty of fully understanding the magnitude of this theory beyond our current physical comprehension. In order to do that we have to use creativity and imagination, use them to come up with questions, and hypotheses'. Then we need to find a way to experiment in order to prove/disprove, and answer questions.
So for sake of argument, let's assume that the universe is a mind. What questions would we ask? If the universe is a brain and the galaxy clusters make up the neural net, what would that make our sun? Would that make dark matter similar to a synapses? There are articles about space plasma which spirals similarly to DNA sequences, is it possible to conceive DNA in a large scale, Plasma? Where would gravity, black holes, comets or blood, blood vessels, or other bodily chemicals fit in?
Let's compare:
Universe = Cerebral Cortex
Galaxy clusters = Neural Net
Galaxies = Neurons
Stars & Planets = atoms (funny how some stars have planets that rotate around them like Electrons around the nucleus on an atom)
Elements(Hydrogen, Helium, etc.) = Protons, Neutrons, electrons
Atoms = quarks,leptons
Protons, Neutrons, electrons = ???
By now you may say, "But Brain cells are used to transmit information, Galaxies don't". So here's another aspect to think about. Neurons transmit information by electrical signaling. As we all know, electricity is a form of energy. Stars emit light, and gravitational pull, which is received by other stars. Both light and gravity are also forms of energy, so with the knowledge that light, electricity and gravity are all the same in elementary terms, we can assume that the energy sent through the Universe, is the same as the Energy sent through Neurons.
Something else to think about; if they universe is in fact a brain, we may be able to determine the age range of our host (No, Not God!) If we are to do this though, we have to assume that our host's time is different than time here. Let's say 1,000,000,000 years our time is the equivalent of 1 year host time. We have determined that our Universe is about 13.7 Billion years old, that would make The Host about 13 Years, nine months old.
To further cement that, let's move to Expansion. The Hubble Law, states that the Universe is expanding. During the Big Bang the Universe expanded faster than the speed of light, then began to slow down had been decelerating but has since recently sped up. When a baby is first conceived, they undergo very rapid growth until birth, then there is little growth in the brain until puberty, which occurs between 12-16 years, and growth speeds up again. So could it be that our Host may be in the beginning stages of puberty?
I leave the rest onto, you. There are still questions to be answered, and answers to be proven. I leave you with one more thought. If our Universe is but the mind of another being, what will happen to us when it dies??
-F
P.S. To any physicists, biologists or cosmologists out there, don't crucify me, I'm pulling your leg.
