I read two quotations yesterday about the nature of the universe. Both are by men who were physicists, astronomers and mathematicians (yes, both were active in all three domains).
The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality: the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.
Sir James Jeans
The universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal mind…..to put the conclusion crudely – the stuff of the world is mind-stuff.
Sir Arthur Eddington
If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you’ll know how allergic I am to the machine model of human beings, living creatures and the universe. We are NOT machine like and we shouldn’t treat others as if they can be reduced to an assembly of parts. Every single person is a unique irreducible whole. Nor should we treat “Nature”, the planet or the universe as machine like.
Understanding the universe as more like the phenomena of the mind than of a machine brings with it a whole other set of values. It encourages wonder, humility, curiosity, a delight in uniqueness and diversity.
In Medicine it leads us to remember that the subjective experience of reality of any human being can only be partially known, partially revealed through story and behaviour, never understood solely in terms of measurements, investigations and data.
Where does a thought begin and where does it come from? Seeing the universe as more like a thought undermines the common attempt to seek simple cause and effect. There are no clear beginnings. There are no simple causes and predictable outcomes.
Life and the universe are more complex, more nuanced, more creative, more multifactorial, more interactive and inter-relational.
Well, anyway, that’s how I see it…..just a thought…..
Heroes Not Zombies 
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