# Are you the universe? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 29, 2019, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243 "2019-06-29T00:04:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/121 "2019-07-07T04:53:31Z")
A sane response might have to do with what Carl Sagan said about “if you want to make an apple pie from scratch you need to invent the universe”. In the you exist in a web of connections and not as something standalone, although using that as a metaphor for being the universe seems iffy to me. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/122 "2019-07-07T06:01:49Z")
My money, after some thought, it on the web of connections. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/123 "2019-07-07T20:07:07Z")
Let’s just settle it again once and for all. Are you, or other people, an object that measures many light-years wide? No? Then game over. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/124 "2019-07-07T20:23:24Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Let’s just settle it again once and for all. Are you, or other people, an object that measures many light-years wide? No? Then game over. Well, the questions that he asks aren’t vast, but they are half-way there. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/125 "2019-07-07T21:51:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Let’s just settle it again once and for all. Are you, or other people, an object that measures many light-years wide? No? Then game over. But what if it’s not meant to be literal like in the like where the guy says you are the tiger. Another part where he says you aren’t the doer of the deed or the enjoyer of the strawberry. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/126 "2019-07-07T21:55:12Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > But what if it’s not meant to be literal like in the like where the guy says you are the tiger. Another part where he says you aren’t the doer of the deed or the enjoyer of the strawberry. If it is not meant to be literal, then the only answer is “maybe, if that is how you see it”. If you don’t like that answer, then tell us what answer would make you happy. edited to add: And if you would _please_ directly quote someone who actually said this we might be able to put it into some sort of context. Your interpretation of what you think the context is will not help. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/127 "2019-07-07T22:32:58Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Never mind guys, it turns out that isn’t true and the site that I got it from is a cult in disguise: [Woo Myung | Master Woo Myung's Webzine | Find Your True Self Meditation | Let’s find God, Buddha, heaven and paradise within | Online Meditation | Letting go Meditation | Meditation Dalai Lama | Reflection Meditation | Zen Meditation | Chakra Meditation | Gazing Meditation | Breathing Meditation | Vipassana Self-Transformation Meditation | Walking Meditation | Action Meditation | Exercise Meditation | Osho Rajneesh Meditation | Meditation Deepak Chopra | Meditation Thich Nhat Hanh | Woo Myung Wikipedia | Woo Myung Eric Hoffer Book Award | Woo Myung Calligraphy | Woo Myung Quote | Woo Myung Song | Woo Myung Music | Woo Myung Wisdom | Woo Myung Truth | Woo Myung Accolades | Woo Myung Creatives | Woo Myung Bestseller | Woo Myung Amazon | Woo Myung Review | Woo Myung Drawings | Woo Myung Painting | Woo Myung Art | Woo Myung Words | Woo Myung Founder | Woo Myung Master | Woo Myung Teacher | Woo Myung Speech | Woo Myung Lecture | Woo Myung Seminar | Woo Myung Time Line | Woo Myung Overview | Woo Myung Talk | Myung Words | Woo Myung True | Woo Myung Advice | Woo Myung Gratitude | Woo Myung Life | Woo Myung Awaken | Sahaja Yoga Meditation | Headspace Meditation | Mindfulness Meditation | TM Meditation | Zen Meditation | Church Meditation | Subtraction Meditation | Method to Find Your True Self | Subtraction Method | Mind Subtraction Method | Woo Myung Quora |](http://woomyung.com/meditation-method/meditation-method/) Well, they even try to tip you off by putting _ **woo** _ right there in the name, _my yung_’n. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/128 "2019-07-07T23:04:05Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I have been going to one for years, he can’t help with these questions. What does he tell you about them? Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/129 "2019-07-07T23:25:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If it is not meant to be literal, then the only answer is “maybe, if that is how you see it”. If you don’t like that answer, then tell us what answer would make you happy. > edited to add: And if you would _please_ directly quote someone who actually said this we might be able to put it into some sort of context. Your interpretation of what you think the context is will not help. This is the link I mean: [https://anandbhatt.skyrock.mobi/3289760168-The-Most-Misunderstood-Buddhist-Story-The-Tiger-and-the-Strawberry.html?success=1](https://anandbhatt.skyrock.mobi/3289760168-The-Most-Misunderstood-Buddhist-Story-The-Tiger-and-the-Strawberry.html?success=1) > [@](#): > > The purpose is neither Humility nor Happiness/Peace. It is to stand up and realize that you are not dependent on any of those things. Granted, I may do this by a harsh any-means-necessary approach that smacks of arrogance but If this has not inspired you to stand up to that tiger instead of retreating back to “bliss” then yes, I have failed you. ‘You have to understand. Most people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured and so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.’ Humililty, Peace, Happiness, Guys in Orange Robes vs. Guys on Red Carpets, You vs. Me, all that is just part of the system. I don’t expect you to be “convinced” - it was my duty to try, and if someone was motivated instead of offended - all the better. This post was for that person, even though it is for you just as much. > [@](#): > > The “inevitable” demise is the illusion itself. There limitation of having only those “options” is the illusion - the notion of “utility” is what is samsara/maya. When the man realizes that he is neither the doer of action, nor the enjoyer of the strawberry, has no volition nor efficacy and that he is the tiger himself as well as the strawberry as well as the man - then he has metaphorically climbed up and killed the tiger. You are right in the sense that it is not an “option” - killing the tiger is the reality, the true reality, beyond the “options.” It is scary because it is not meant for the faint hearted, However, on a tangible non spiritual level you are correct, however if after reading this you still believe that you exist as an individual conscious being in between birth and death and have to get “the most you can” out of “life” then I have not done a good job with this, and have failed you. Truth is you don’t need the strawberry, never did - and yes you can “win” against the tiger. But don’t take my word for it, try it yourself. This is the quote I got it from. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/130 "2019-07-07T23:33:01Z")
There were a few bits here on a koan page which I think imply similar: [These Zen Buddhist Koans Will Open Your Mind | HuffPost Religion](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zen-buddhism-koan_n_563251dce4b0631799115f3c) But as soon as I saw they were referencing that the world isn’t something “out here” or that from nothing the mind comes “not true”, I started to think otherwise. It seems like these people don’t understand how the universe came to be and think awareness is some miracle. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/131 "2019-07-08T01:02:23Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > This is the link I mean: [https://anandbhatt.skyrock.mobi/3289760168-The-Most-Misunderstood-Buddhist-Story-The-Tiger-and-the-Strawberry.html?success=1](https://anandbhatt.skyrock.mobi/3289760168-The-Most-Misunderstood-Buddhist-Story-The-Tiger-and-the-Strawberry.html?success=1) > > This is the quote I got it from. No-Where did the quote about you being the universe come from? Please provide a direct link so that we might possibly read it in context. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/132 "2019-07-08T01:44:50Z")
It’s more like a phrase you hear being said around. The Broward people call it “becoming the universe or realizing you are the universe”, the page I linked to mentions it as well, the koans I also linked hint to it in how they challenge the notion of identity or essence, and then you have “scientific” aspects here: [https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/an-interview-with-deepak-chopra-you-are-the-universe/](https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/an-interview-with-deepak-chopra-you-are-the-universe/) Or here:[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/432204895485923473/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/432204895485923473/) The responses on this reddit give a better detail: [Reddit - Dive into anything](https://www.reddit.com/r/StonerPhilosophy/comments/2n1qn3/a_question_about_universe_experiencing_itself/) Well at least the first few replies: > [@](#): > > What it means? > > Atoms are not discrete balls floating in space. They are more point-like excitations of a field. (Think of standing waves in a body of water.) > > There are no discrete things or objects of solid substance; things as we perceive them are merely changing forms and patterns in nature (the universe) as a whole. You are not a small and lonely being lost in a foreign universe; you are a direct expression of the whole of the universe as it currently is; you (as everything else) is a brief movement in the dance of nature. You do not exist independent of the perceived outside; outside and inside are two sides of the same coin. > > The seed is no different from the tree. They are the same thing viewed from different perspectives in time. Birth and death are really no different; waking life is really no different from dreamless sleep. > > The nature of the human perspective is experience. This is why we say that we are the universe experiencing itself: A dark cloud is the universe clouding itself; the sun is the universe lighting itself; the rotating planet is the universe spinning itself. > > The ocean waves; the planet rotates; the sun shines; the heart beats; the stomach digests; the brain thinks; the body acts. These events are no different in nature. The thinker of thoughts is the waver of oceans, not a little man behind the eyes of the body; the waver of the ocean is spontaneous, as is the thinker of thoughts. Nature is not being moved; nature flows without direction; nature is not concerened with tomorrow, for it is dancing today. > > Look at a tree, see how it moves in the wind. > > Notice your thoughts arising, even the thought “I am thinking.” > > Notice that the movement of the tree and the movement of thought are two expressions of the same thing. > > Stop labeling the tree and yourself; notice that all separation is a consequence of the labeling process; allow all boundaries to dissolve. > > Feel the swaying of the tree as much as you feel the arising thoughts and the other bodily sensations. > > Feel intuitively that what you refer to as I is a form in the universe experiencing itself. > [@](#): > > If you understand this and it is not significant, than you have known it for a while now. > > I think the aha moments mostly come from people raised to believe in predestination or our bodies being a “temple” kind of thinking. It can often be rather disturbing to those who haven’t before thought about the meaning, or lack there of, of sentient life among a universe filled with inanimate matter. > > For me it was looking into my friends eyes and realizing that there really isn’t that big of a separation between me and him at the atomic level, we are just atoms rearranged to move through space unpredictably, and at our most deconstructed for we are no more than the minerals in the earth. > > The shock comes from (for me) the realization that everything you have ever experienced, everything everyone has experienced, all the pain, anguish, love, and efforts we put into our lives is done and experienced by nothing more than a unique collections of particles, nothing more. It can bring about a certain fear, carelessness or comfort to one’s live when you understand that all human emotion is but a complex electric signal communication network between cells and that all conscious observers are really all the same being that split into two cells at the beginning of life. We share one consciousness with all other life forms. There is no self. The individual is an illusion. Death of the ego. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/133 "2019-07-08T01:48:10Z")
This seems like a more sane response from a Quora page asking the same: > **[Are we simply the universe experiencing itself? Is the universe compelled to...](https://www.quora.com/Are-we-simply-the-universe-experiencing-itself-Is-the-universe-compelled-to-do-so-when-it-happens-to-create-life-with-the-emergent-properties-of-consciousness)** > > Answer (1 of 33): WE might never know... We are just too limited in so many ways we could well be forever wondering. Thousands of years of philosophising and scientific or empiric research have NOT brought us one iota closer to the answers of those... > [@](#): > > Probably not. It seems that our organisms benefit from complex information processing, and hence evolved a bunch of fat cells into biological computers: our brains. These biological computers count the impulses of sensory neurons in extremely fancy ways, to predict future sensory input, with respect to the needs of the organism. These fancy ways include the generation of a dynamic world model, including a self model, and an integrated protocol of operations performed on this world model. I think it is this integrated protocol that we experience as our consciousness. > > Consciousness by itself is neutral: it does not want anything, and it does not identify with anything. To make our regulatory processes want anything, the organism corrupts them with an elaborate motivational system, creating pleasure and pain and various impulses, directed on future pleasure and pain. To make our regulatory processes identify with anything, the organism corrupts them with experiences of perspectivity, personhood, agency, a proprioceptive body image etc. > > Through meditation, we can turn off or modify these bindings, and as a result, may experience out-of-body experiences, depersonalization, loss of agency or feelings that we cause everything in the world to happen, loss of our bodily sensations or the impression that we are one with the universe, with God, with Gaia, with cells, with elementary particles, with another person, with a plant or with another arbitrary imagination. This may feel very surprising and overwhelming at first, but the miracle is not that you can experience not being you, but that you usually believe to be you! > > I suspect that the idea that our consciousness is a “narrowing down” of a universal consciousness is often the result of such experiences. But the universe is nothing that we can ever experience: our brains do not have access to the world “out there”, but only to a few electrical blips coming in through our sensory neurons. The particles in the sensors of these neurons do not touch the universe, but are merely entangled with particles that are an almost infinitesimal distance away. From the fluctuating patterns in these entanglements, our biological computers construct a dynamic universe. The universe exists inside of our brains: outside, there is only a pattern generator with an unknowable structure. If we experience that we are the consciousness of the universe itself, we are experiencing our normal integration process that is not properly identifying with our personal self model, but instead with our whole world model. We are still experiencing a representation created by our brains. > > It is quite plausible that organisms gain evolutionary advantages from minds, that they represent structure discovered in sensory patterns, that minds can be generated by brain activity, and that brains can be evolved by multicellular organisms. Conversely, it is not clear what advantage a universe gains by having a mind, what environment a universe would represent in its mind, what parts of greater cosmology create the universe’s mental activity, and how and why that universal mind would have formed. Cosmic consciousness is a beautiful idea, but it makes very little sense. > > Individual human beings likely do not partake in the same general consciousness (and how would they know: they have no way of truly experiencing one another; humans know each other only as projections that their brains create based on the available sensory patterns). But if individual humans turn off the personality bindings of their respective consciousnesses, they will no longer experience a difference between self and other, because their representation of their own personhood is no longer privileged over the representation they form of another person. > > Please note that I do not deny the experience that you are describing in your question. I just do not think that the experience indicates that the universe is conscious. (Even if it was, we could not know.) Instead, the experience of depersonalization (or satori) gives us valuable insights in how our brain creates a mind. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/134 "2019-07-08T02:23:14Z")
I get why the expression “waves on an ocean” means when they use it now. Though if this were true it would kind of render everything pretty pointless. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/135 "2019-07-08T04:32:34Z")
LIke I said it was in pieces across the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/136 "2019-07-08T04:59:07Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > LIke I said it was in pieces across the internet. Then the source of the quote is yourself, since you are the one that put the pieces together. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/137 "2019-07-08T05:18:05Z")
I’m not, didn’t you see all the paragraphs explaining it? ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/138 "2019-07-08T14:28:00Z")
I’m mostly wondering about the one in regards to atoms. The most I get from looking on the internet is that they are mostly empty space not excitations in a field. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/139 "2019-07-08T21:10:08Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Well, the questions that he asks aren’t vast, but they are half-way there. Nice pun. I’m trying to remember who said “I am two with the universe.” I think it was someone in a comic book. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243/140 "2019-07-08T21:13:13Z")
Gandhi is always calling the pizza shop down the street and asking them to make him one with everything. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-universe/836243.md?page=8)