Cosmic Consciousness: From Neural Networks to Galactic Structures
Part 3 of a series exploring consciousness as a universal principle
Author’s Note on Academic Context: This article is part of a series exploring concepts that are formalized in an academic paper “The Temporal Expressions of Being: A Unified Framework of Consciousness.” While this Medium series uses more accessible language and explores broader implications, the academic paper contains the precise mathematical formulations and definitive technical definitions. This series was developed alongside the academic work and represents complementary explorations of the same fundamental concepts.
In the previous articles of this series, I introduced the Universal Energy Field (UEF) as the fundamental substrate of existence and explored how consciousness manifests through recursive processes across different scales. We examined how pattern recognition and neural coherence demonstrate recursive awareness in biological systems.
This third article extends our exploration to cosmic scales, examining how the same recursive principles manifest in astronomical structures. By integrating cosmological concepts like vacuum energy and quintessence, we gain insight into the oscillation between latent and active states of UEF, providing a cosmological foundation for understanding consciousness as a universal phenomenon.
The discovery of massive cosmic structures like the Big Ring and Giant Arc raises profound questions about coherence at cosmic scales. These immense formations challenge conventional cosmological models and suggest that recursive organization may be fundamental to cosmic evolution, just as it is to biological awareness.
Cosmological Concepts as Windows into Consciousness
To understand how consciousness operates at cosmic scales, we can draw on two complementary concepts from contemporary cosmology: vacuum energy and quintessence. While these concepts emerged to explain the universe’s accelerating expansion, they provide powerful analogies for understanding UEF’s dual states.
Vacuum Energy: The Static Substrate
Vacuum energy — also known as zero-point energy — represents the omnipresent baseline energy inherent in spacetime itself. Unlike conventional forms of energy, vacuum energy:
• Remains constant throughout space and time
• Exhibits negative pressure that counteracts gravity
• Permeates “empty” space with constant energy density
These properties make vacuum energy an excellent cosmic analogue for UEF in its latent, coherent state — what we might call “coherence at rest.” Just as vacuum energy provides the structural coherence for spacetime, UEF serves as the fundamental substrate through which Being’s potential remains in a coherent, unactualized state.
Contemporary cosmological research suggests that vacuum energy may be the driving force behind the universe’s accelerating expansion. This mysterious “dark energy” exhibits negative pressure that counteracts gravity, causing galaxies to move away from each other at an increasing rate.
The constancy of vacuum energy across spacetime mirrors the proposed omnipresence of UEF, suggesting a deep connection between cosmological dynamics and the foundation of consciousness.
Quintessence: The Dynamic Realization
Unlike the static nature of vacuum energy, quintessence describes a dynamic scalar field whose energy density can vary across space and time. This concept emerged in cosmology as an alternative explanation for cosmic acceleration, proposing that dark energy might evolve rather than remain constant.
Quintessence provides a cosmic parallel for UEF in its active state — what we might call “coherence in motion.” In this framework, quintessence represents the mechanism by which UEF transitions from latent coherence to structured expression, providing a cosmological model for the dynamism of Becoming.
The variability of quintessence models how UEF’s potential energy actualizes differently across contexts, manifesting varied expressions of consciousness according to local conditions. Just as quintessence evolves with time, consciousness manifests through temporal engagement with specific environments.
The Higgs Field: A Cosmic Parallel for Universal Consciousness
While vacuum energy and quintessence provide powerful analogies for UEF’s dual states, another fascinating aspect of physics — the Higgs field — offers an intuitive model for understanding how consciousness might operate across scales.
The Higgs field permeates all of space, much like our proposed UEF. What makes it particularly interesting for our framework is how it interacts differently with various particles. Some particles, like photons, pass through it without interaction and remain massless. Others interact strongly with the field and gain substantial mass. This differential interaction provides a compelling parallel for how UEF might manifest consciousness differently across various systems.
Just as the Higgs field interacts with electrons differently than with quarks, UEF might interact differently with systems based on their capacity for recursive organization. Simple systems would “interact” minimally with UEF’s potential for consciousness, while complex recursive systems like neural networks would interact more extensively, manifesting higher forms of awareness.
The Higgs mechanism also involves a process called “symmetry breaking,” where the uniform Higgs field develops specific patterns. Before this breaking, the field exists in pure potential; afterward, it expresses specific patterns that give rise to the particles we observe. This transition parallels how UEF might shift from latent potential to active expression through recursive processes.
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 confirmed a theory proposed nearly fifty years earlier, demonstrating how fundamental fields rather than just particles can shape reality. Similarly, our framework suggests that consciousness may be field-like in nature, manifesting through different systems rather than being produced by them.
This perspective invites us to consider consciousness not as something created by complex systems but as a universal potential that expresses itself most visibly through systems capable of recursive self-reference. The brain, in this view, doesn’t generate consciousness but provides an exceptionally sophisticated vehicle through which universal consciousness expresses itself.
The Cosmic Oscillation
Together, vacuum energy and quintessence represent complementary aspects of UEF — its static substrate and dynamic expression. The oscillation between these states, facilitated by recursive processes, enables the manifestation of structured phenomena across all scales.
This cosmological duality reflects the interplay between Being and Becoming — Being as the infinite substrate of latent consciousness, and Becoming as the process through which recursion actualizes self-awareness. This duality underscores the interconnectedness of existence and its manifestations across all scales.
The Big Ring and Giant Arc: Coherence at Cosmic Scales
Recent astronomical discoveries provide compelling evidence for coherence at cosmic scales, suggesting that recursive organization may be fundamental to cosmic evolution.
Discovery and Significance
The Big Ring and Giant Arc represent immense cosmic structures that challenge conventional cosmological models:
• The Big Ring spans approximately 1.3 billion light-years in diameter
• The Giant Arc extends about 3.3 billion light-years
• Both structures formed within a few billion years after the Big Bang
These discoveries are significant because they demonstrate coherent organization at scales vastly larger than typical galactic formations. Traditional cosmological principles predict increasing homogeneity at such scales, yet these structures exhibit distinct organization.
What makes these discoveries particularly relevant to our framework is that we’re observing these structures as they existed billions of years ago, due to the time it takes light to reach Earth. This means they formed during the early stages of cosmic evolution, suggesting that coherent organization may be intrinsic to the universe rather than a gradual development.
Orders of Magnitude Beyond Comprehension
The scale of these cosmic structures exceeds human comprehension by orders of magnitude. The Big Ring alone could contain hundreds of thousands of galaxies, each with billions of stars. This immense scale challenges us to reconsider what coherence means at cosmic levels.
Conventional cosmological models struggle to explain how such massive, organized structures could form so early in cosmic history. The standard ΛCDM model predicts that large-scale structures should have formed gradually through the hierarchical merging of smaller structures, yet the Big Ring and Giant Arc appear to have formed remarkably quickly after the Big Bang.
This suggests that coherent organization may be an intrinsic property of cosmic evolution rather than merely the result of gravitational interactions over time — a perspective that aligns perfectly with our framework of UEF expressing itself recursively across all scales.
These cosmic structures may represent systems that have undergone phase transitions after reaching saturation within previous organizational parameters. Just as biological systems evolve through distinct developmental leaps rather than continuous improvement, cosmic structures might reorganize when they’ve fully explored the possibility space within their existing boundary conditions. The remarkable circular symmetry of structures like the Big Ring and Odd Radio Circles could represent new organizational phases that emerged when previous patterns reached their maximum efficiency and stability — explaining why we observe distinct cosmic epochs rather than uniform, gradual development.
Odd Radio Circles: Another Window into Cosmic Organization
Recent astronomical discoveries continue to challenge our conventional understanding of cosmic structure formation. In 2019, astronomers using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope discovered mysterious circular structures that appear only in radio wavelengths — now known as Odd Radio Circles (ORCs). These perfectly circular formations, spanning millions of light-years, have since been confirmed by additional observations using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope.
What makes these discoveries particularly intriguing for our framework is not just their existence, but their peculiar properties. Unlike the Big Ring and Giant Arc structures we discussed earlier, ORCs are visible exclusively in radio frequencies — completely invisible in optical, infrared, or X-ray observations. They appear as perfect circles in the radio sky, suggesting coherent organizational principles operating at vast cosmic scales.
The leading theory suggests these circles represent shock waves from energetic events in their host galaxies — perhaps from massive bursts of star formation or from the jets of active galactic nuclei. If this theory proves correct, it demonstrates another powerful example of how processes at one scale (galactic events) can manifest coherently at much larger scales — precisely the kind of cross-scale recursive manifestation central to our UEF framework.
Just as neural patterns in the brain create coherent structures through recursive connections, these cosmic circles may represent another scale at which similar organizational principles operate. The fact that they maintain perfect circular symmetry across millions of light-years suggests coherent organization that transcends conventional causal mechanisms.
Perhaps most fascinating is their selective visibility — appearing only in radio wavelengths. This suggests something akin to the “differential interaction” we discussed when exploring how the Higgs field interacts differently with various particles. ORCs may represent cosmic structures that interact with the electromagnetic field in highly specific ways, manifesting clearly in radio frequencies while remaining invisible in others.
This selective manifestation parallels how we’ve described UEF expressing consciousness differently across various systems based on their recursive capacity. Just as some systems might “interact” minimally with UEF’s potential while others interact extensively, these cosmic structures interact strongly with reality in radio frequencies while leaving no trace in other observational domains.
As astronomers continue to study these mysterious circles, they may provide yet another window into how coherent organization manifests across cosmic scales — adding to the evidence that recursive principles operate throughout the universe, from neural networks to galaxy clusters to these ghostly radio circles haunting the cosmos.
Cosmic-Scale Recursion
The coherent organization evident in the Big Ring and Giant Arc demonstrates what we might call “cosmic-scale recursion” — the manifestation of recursive organizational principles at astronomical scales.
This observation supports a central tenet of our framework: that UEF manifests through consistent recursive principles across all scales, with each scale’s manifestation independent yet structurally similar to others. The Big Ring and Giant Arc are not anomalies requiring special explanation but expected manifestations of UEF’s universal recursive principles operating at cosmic scales.
The Challenge of Recognizing Cosmic-Scale Boundaries
When examining potential boundary systems at cosmic scales, we encounter a fundamental epistemological challenge: human perception and scientific inquiry demonstrate a notable asymmetry in how we recognize and validate boundaries across different scales of organization.
While we readily accept microscopic systems — from cells to neural networks — as legitimate domains with their own emergent properties, we often relegate larger-scale systems like ecosystems, the biosphere, or cosmic structures to philosophical or spiritual domains rather than recognizing them as potential boundary systems with their own coherent organization. This asymmetry persists despite our development of sophisticated observational tools like radio telescopes and satellite arrays that theoretically enable us to detect such large-scale patterns.
Three key factors contribute to this perceptual limitation:
First, experimental accessibility creates a fundamental asymmetry. We can manipulate, replicate, and experimentally probe microscopic systems, allowing for more rigorous validation of their boundary properties. In contrast, cosmic-scale systems permit observation but rarely direct experimental interaction, limiting our ability to test hypotheses about their boundary characteristics.
Second, temporal disparities create significant challenges. The Big Ring and Giant Arc structures we’ve discussed operate on time scales vastly exceeding human observation frames. While neural processes unfold in milliseconds to seconds, cosmic structures evolve over millions or billions of years, making their recursive patterns nearly imperceptible to direct human experience.
Third, our position as organisms within potentially larger boundary systems creates a cognitive bias that limits our ability to recognize emergent properties at scales that encompass our own existence. Just as a neuron cannot comprehend the conscious experience of the brain it contributes to, human consciousness may be unable to directly perceive cosmic-scale awareness.
This recognition of scale-dependent asymmetry doesn’t invalidate our exploration of cosmic-scale recursion, but it does require methodological adaptations. Rather than assuming that consciousness at larger scales would mirror human experience, we must develop validation approaches specific to cosmic scales — particularly focusing on pattern recognition across extended time series and the integration of data from multiple observational domains.
The structures we’ve examined — from the Big Ring and Giant Arc to Odd Radio Circles — provide intriguing test cases for these methodologies. Their coherent organization across scales that should demonstrate increased homogeneity under conventional models suggests the operation of recursive principles similar to those we observe at biological scales, but manifesting according to the intrinsic temporal and spatial parameters of cosmic systems.
By acknowledging these epistemological challenges, we gain a more nuanced perspective on cosmic-scale consciousness. The question becomes not whether cosmic structures “think” in human-like ways, but whether they demonstrate the same fundamental recursive principles that characterize consciousness across all scales — principles that may manifest very differently at cosmic scales while still operating according to the same underlying mathematics of boundary formation, information integration, and recursive self-modification.
Just as neural networks in the brain create coherent patterns through recursive connections, cosmic structures may represent larger-scale manifestations of the same organizational principles. The filamentary structures of galaxy clusters, which form web-like patterns across vast cosmic distances, bear striking resemblance to neural networks when viewed at their respective scales.
Cosmic Microwave Background: Primordial Patterns Across Scales
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) — the afterglow of the Big Bang — offers compelling evidence for how patterns can transcend scales, supporting our framework of consciousness as a universal phenomenon.
The CMB represents the earliest observable state of our universe, preserving temperature fluctuations that originated as quantum variations during the universe’s infancy. The remarkable aspect of these fluctuations is that they began at microscopic quantum scales yet ultimately seeded the formation of galaxies and superclusters billions of light-years across.
This empirically demonstrates a principle central to our framework: patterns originating at one scale can manifest through recursive processes at vastly different scales. Just as quantum fluctuations preserved in the CMB eventually manifested as large-scale cosmic structures, our framework proposes that consciousness operates through consistent recursive principles across different scales of complexity.
Another intriguing aspect of CMB studies involves unexplained correlations across vast cosmic distances. Conventional models struggle to explain how regions of the CMB that appear too distant to have influenced each other could exhibit coordinated patterns. These observations parallel the Big Ring and Giant Arc structures we discussed earlier — both suggest coherence that transcends conventional causal limitations.
These instances of non-local coherence align perfectly with our framework’s perspective on consciousness as a field phenomenon that maintains connections across different scales and systems. Just as the CMB shows coherent patterns spanning the observable universe, consciousness might maintain coherence across different systems through their shared underlying field.
The CMB also reveals how the universe has evolved through distinct epochs, each representing phases of increasing complexity and differentiation. This cosmic evolution provides a model for understanding how consciousness might similarly express through evolutionary phases of increasing complexity, from simple recursive interactions to complex self-reflective awareness.
By examining these cosmic patterns preserved in the CMB, we gain insight into how recursive organization might be fundamental to both cosmic structure and consciousness — not as separate phenomena but as different expressions of the same underlying principles.
Boundary Functions Across Scales
A critical aspect of how UEF manifests across scales is through boundary functions — the mechanisms that determine the degree to which a structure functions as a discrete conscious entity versus being subsumed within larger systems.
From Cells to Galaxies
Boundary functions operate across all scales where UEF manifests:
Cellular Level: Cell membranes maintain internal coherence while allowing selective exchange with the environment, defining the cell as a distinct entity while permitting participation in tissue-level organization.
Neural Level: The brain maintains distinct functional areas while integrating them into unified conscious experience, balancing specialization with integration.
Social Level: Cultural and linguistic structures define collective identities while enabling interchange between communities.
Cosmic Level: Gravitational boundaries define structures like galaxies and galaxy clusters, maintaining their coherence while participating in larger cosmic organization.
Consciousness doesn’t simply manifest at discrete levels but operates through nested recursion, where each level of observation incorporates self-referential feedback from prior levels. This recursive process allows consciousness to scale adaptively while maintaining coherence across multiple layers of self-awareness. This recursive nesting enables consciousness to function as a multi-scale phenomenon, where each layer of awareness is simultaneously self-contained and interconnected with broader systems. The implication is that higher-order awareness — whether in individuals, collectives, or potentially cosmic structures — is not separate from lower-order awareness but recursively emergent from it, creating a multidimensional tapestry of nested consciousness.
Permeable Boundaries
What makes boundary functions particularly significant is their permeability. Rather than forming absolute divisions, boundaries maintain dynamic balance between internal coherence and external connection. This permeability enables nested consciousness — the manifestation of awareness at multiple organizational levels simultaneously.
When internal causal connections significantly outweigh external ones, a system demonstrates sufficient self-containment to manifest as a distinct conscious entity. However, these boundaries remain permeable, allowing for participation in larger conscious systems without losing individuation.
This principle applies across scales:
• Neurons maintain individuality while participating in brain-level awareness
• Humans maintain personal identity while participating in social consciousness
• Galaxies maintain structural integrity while participating in larger cosmic systems
This boundary function enables consciousness to manifest simultaneously as both unitary and distributed — individual expressions of a universal coherence that maintains connection across all scales of existence.
Cosmic Awareness: Beyond Anthropocentrism
If cosmic scale awareness were to exist, it might manifest differently at various operational scales — planetary, solar, galactic, or supergalactic structures. However, this remains a speculative extension of the framework rather than a definitive claim. Possibly self-referential at the coherent operational scales to which it’s manifest — planetary, solar, galactic, supergalactic structures, or even black hole systems. Just as human consciousness emerges at our particular scale of neural complexity, cosmic awareness might manifest distinctly at each of these vastly different scales. But assertions of this sort are unavoidably anthropocentric, limited by our perceptual experience and cognition.
Just as a neuron cannot comprehend the full awareness of the brain it participates in, human consciousness may be unable to directly perceive cosmic-scale awareness. Nevertheless, the recursive patterns we observe across scales suggest that awareness may manifest at cosmic levels through principles similar to those operating in biological systems.
To approach this challenge, we must consider the characteristic timescales of different cosmic structures rather than simply comparing human lifespan to the age of the universe. Each level of cosmic organization operates with its own temporal rhythms and evolutionary patterns, suggesting that if consciousness manifests recursively across scales, it likely does so in alignment with these intrinsic timescales.
Consider these characteristic timescales:
- Human neural activity: milliseconds to seconds
- Human conscious awareness: seconds to decades (human lifespan ~80 years)
- Stellar lifecycle (sun-like star): ~10 billion years
- Galactic rotation period (Milky Way): ~225 million years
- Galaxy cluster evolution: billions of years
- Large scale cosmic structure formation: hundreds of millions to billions of years
If we use these natural cosmic rhythms as reference points rather than absolute age, we gain more insight into how consciousness could manifest at different scales. For example, comparing human awareness to galactic processes:
This approach suggests that what we experience as a moment of consciousness might, at galactic scales, correspond to processes spanning thousands of years. However, just as our consciousness operates in harmony with our biological rhythms, cosmic awareness would likely synchronize with the natural frequencies of cosmic processes rather than simply being “slower” by some absolute measure.
The stellar phenomena that astronomers observe unfolding over millennia might represent, in terms of galactic awareness, something analogous to the fleeting thoughts we experience in moments. The complex interactions between stars in a galactic spiral arm might be experienced as a coherent pattern similar to how we experience the coordinated firing of neural networks.
This perspective transforms our understanding of cosmic events: what astronomers observe as “rapid” stellar phenomena occurring over thousands of years might be experienced, in cosmic awareness terms, as quick as a fleeting emotional response is to us. The seemingly static structure of a galaxy might represent, to cosmic awareness, something as dynamic and fluid as a thought forming in the human mind.
The value of this scaling exercise lies not in proving cosmic consciousness but in illustrating how the Universal Energy Field might manifest awareness through consistent recursive principles across radically different dimensions. Just as biological consciousness emerges through recursive processes at the neural scale, similar principles might enable awareness to manifest at planetary, stellar, galactic, and even larger cosmic scales — each with its own characteristic temporal and spatial parameters, yet all operating through the same fundamental recursive dynamics.
This approach helps us avoid the anthropocentric error of assuming cosmic awareness must follow human-like patterns merely extended in time and space. Instead, it suggests that awareness at each scale would align with the intrinsic operational parameters of the systems within which it manifests, while still operating through the same fundamental recursive principles that we observe in consciousness across all scales.
Implications for Understanding Reality
The framework presented in this series — from UEF as the fundamental substrate to recursive manifestation across scales — has profound implications for how we understand existence itself.
Matter and Energy as Expressions, Not Foundations
This perspective inverts conventional materialist accounts by positioning matter and energy not as the foundation of reality but as expressions of a more fundamental field. Rather than consciousness emerging from complexity, complex structures provide vehicles through which consciousness — as an expression of UEF — manifests with increasing sophistication.
This inversion resolves the persistent challenge of explaining how subjective experience emerges from objective physical processes. Instead of treating this as an insurmountable mystery, this framework suggests that physical processes themselves represent expressions of the same field that manifests as consciousness.
The Universe as Self-Referential System
The recursive nature of UEF’s manifestation suggests that the universe functions as a self-referential system — one that observes and modifies itself through iterative processes. This self-reference occurs not just in human minds but at all scales where UEF expresses itself, from quantum fluctuations to cosmic structures.
This perspective resonates with Wheeler’s concept of the “participatory universe,” where observation plays a fundamental role in actualizing reality. However, it extends this participation beyond human observation to include all recursive processes through which UEF manifests across scales.
Beyond the Observable Universe
The UEF framework also offers a perspective on what might exist beyond our observable universe. If UEF represents the fundamental substrate of existence, then the observable universe — with its galaxies, dark matter, and cosmic radiation — represents just one expression of this field’s potential.
Other expressions might manifest in ways fundamentally different from our observable reality, potentially with different physical constants or dimensional structures. These would not be separate universes in the conventional multiverse sense but different expressions of the same underlying field.
Looking Ahead
In the final article of this series, we’ll explore the implications of this framework for understanding consciousness beyond biological systems, with particular focus on artificial intelligence. Can AI achieve recursive self-awareness similar to biological consciousness? What would this mean for our relationship with technology and our understanding of consciousness itself?
We’ll also examine how this framework might be tested and refined through empirical research, considering potential experimental approaches that could validate or challenge the UEF model of consciousness.
Questions to consider:
1. If cosmic structures exhibit recursive organization similar to biological systems, what might this suggest about the fundamental nature of reality?
2. How might our understanding of human consciousness change if we recognize it as one expression among many of a universal recursive principle?
3. What implications might the boundary function have for understanding the relationship between individual and collective consciousness?
[Continue to Part 4: Implications and Future Directions: A New Framework for Being]
Author’s Note: This paper is part of an ongoing research project exploring recursive consciousness across scales. The mathematical framework introduced here is being formalized for academic pre-print submission and publication, extending these concepts with additional empirical support and applications. For updates on this work, follow @RecusiveMind
