You are at the center of the Universe

And you have the whole thing to yourself…

We are used to being able to locate the center of things, one way or another. It feels normal for us to assume there should naturally exist a center or a core to everything, be it geometrically (as in the origo of a circle), density-wise (like a gravitational center or a point of balance), socially (leaders, centers of attention), or in any other arbitrary way of assigned importance; be it capitals, data centers, central banks, heads of this, chiefs of that, you name it.

There is just this penchant that we have for all things centered, in the middle, in focus. Clearly then, the most important of all should be the center of the Universe. But how exactly would one even begin looking for answers to this question?

One seemingly obvious way to go about it would be to consider the Big Bang, and the singularity that was at the core of it all, and take that “starting point” as a center. But therein already lies the caveat, for the singularity of the Big Bang is the most important singularity for a reason — ALL of matter AND geometry AND time arises from that one highly local point (of no-space and no-time), which means that every single particle and spatial coordinate of the Universe was once condensed into one. There is simply no way of distinguishing between them now, and we all - being a bunch of stardust - are also completely equal within. Indeed, looking for a geometrical or material center of the Universe seems to be a futile effort for several reasons, but perhaps we can turn to something else.

Conscious participator

So what other options present themselves as potential candidates for the title of a universal center? An increasingly popular topic in physics is that of consciousness as a fundamental property of the Universe, most recently beautifully elaborated on in a paper by Sir Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff. While their work has tremendous implications on a very wide spectrum of our scientific disciplines (which are all very exciting topics for further considerations in their own right), one aspect of their work is that it particularly underscores the importance of consciousness and the role it plays in the structure of the Universe.

But there’s no need in invoking complex theories and intricate concepts such as the Diosi-Penrose reduction or looking for any relevant physical mechanisms in the microtubules of our neuron cells to arrive to this conclusion. We can follow quite logically the notion that all the information that we as an observer (or more correctly, a participator) gather about the Universe has to be internalized by our own minds, and thus our very physical presence plays a crucial role in the process.

In other words, we are reliant on our senses in experiencing anything at all about the Universe.

“A shocking observation!” you might exclaim sarcastically, but I invite you to follow through with the implications. Every single one of our experiences comes to us in the form of information one way or another, and no matter the source or the distance traveled before reaching us, it has to be comprehended locally, by us. Be it a radio wave from a distant galaxy millions of light-years away, diligently gathered and conveniently depicted for us in a visual manner via a radio telescope, or the photons from these very letters you are reading right now arriving at your retina, it is you and you alone who will eventually receive this information and make sense of it. Thus it is your consciousness that stands in the center of your experiencing the universe, for all practical intents and purposes.

It doesn’t matter where the information is coming from, or who has done the “processing” of it before it has reached you - in the end you will have to deal with it yourself, and rely solely on your own capacities in coping with it. Your consciousness is the alpha and the omega when it comes to constructing an internal picture from any sources of information that exist around you in the Universe. Nobody else can do it for you, and it is this process of internalization that we simply call understanding.

Private Universe

But it goes further. Because our understanding of the Universe is intrinsically tied to our presence in it, the differences as experienced by each individual participator result in some remarkable consequences.

Varying physical realities

The very physical existence of a specific part, or indeed the shape and form of the whole Universe fundamentally depends on “who is asking”. While this might seem like a strange concept, it is not a new one, and we know this to be true since Einstein’s work at the very latest.

Perhaps the most fascinating fact about a starry night sky is that it is not a picture that is homogeneous in time. Those stars and galaxies visible from our planet form a very bumpy-wavy canvas of spacetime. Among the light sources observable with the naked eye, in case of Alpha Centauri for example we see the star as it was about 4.4 years ago, while the Andromeda Galaxy’s most recent state as observed by us comes with a delay of over 2.5 million years.

This in turn means that from Andromeda’s perspective we are just about entering the pleistocene period, and from their point of view this is the actual, true state of things. Since information propagation is inevitably bound by the speed of light, an observer on a distant world experiences a fundamentally different universe than their counterpart here on Earth, or another one located somewhere off in the other direction. Better yet, if the two specimen are far enough apart, light (and thus information) from one to another will never be able to bridge the distance, meaning that not only do they not exist for each other, but neither does the very region of space in which the other resides. This is due to the fact that the Universe is expanding, and the farther away the two points in question, the faster they are moving away from each other. Our observable Universe is actually a bubble outside of which lie regions of space forever closed off from us (barring time machines and wormholes), because those regions move away from us faster than the speed of light.

Another factor we ought not to forget is that relative movement and acceleration between two observers also adds to the differences in reality as experienced by each. Large distances and extreme accelerations once again add a dramatic magnifying effect on their observations of one another. Indeed our movement through space actually alters the Universe as we go along.

But we don’t need to “go that far” in our thought experiment to recognize that each of our experienced realities is indeed different on a physical level. While the aforementioned effects are much more apparent over vast stretches of space, nevertheless the principle still applies no matter the difference in distance and speed. You and I do not share the same Universe, at the most fundamental physical level.

Perceptual discrepancies

In addition, our perception of the universe is also bound by our organs and the way that our surroundings convey information to those organs.

It is imperative to understand that we do not perceive the reality as such, but only do so by means of various intermediaries; photons bouncing off surfaces, gases and liquids carrying waves of sound, and so on. Even our tactile senses are a combination of complex interactions of repulsive forces between electrons. We do not actually ever touch anything. We merely perceive the external intermediary forces that we internally interpret as touch.

These various intermediaries of waves, particles and forces form our perception of the Universe, and it is from those that we derive our understanding of what the physical world (probably) looks and feels like, yet they are merely a medium for carrying the information about reality, never the reality itself.

Also consider the following; a photon bouncing off a surface of a teapot and into your eye will never be shared by any other person - this photon was only meant for you, and no one else - an other observer will have to use their own photons to see the same teapot. This means that you experience the Universe around you through your own, exclusively private set of intermediary packets of information, not shared by anybody else.

The situation is further exacerbated by the “sensory equipment” we carry, which is also subject to variation. Our visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses all differ from person to person in their range and sensitivity, resulting in disparity and diversity of perception of the “same” surroundings. We are never really just observers, but active participators of our realities. Even when we assume a “passively perceiving” state, our physical presense is intrinsically linked with the reality we experience.

Note: A more technical formulation could be as follows: As physical constructs we form a quantum system together with the observed entity, and it is this combined system that undergoes a collapse in the evolution of its wave function, reducing the superpositional state into one of its alternatives, resulting in an effective measurement or observation of the entity in question. As such, in the case of a conscious observer it is the observer and the observed that together undergo a wave function reduction, which ultimately “selects” the aspect of reality, as opposed to the observer either having ultimate role in the creation of existence, or none at all.

In other words, what we experience as conscious perception of reality depends on who we are just as well as it does on what it is we observe.

Flavors of qualia

And if all the above wasn’t enough, consider that we have to add our inner narrator to the equation as well. If consciousness is our tool with which to measure the reality around us, we inevitably face the fact that there is no objective way of knowing whether our inner interpreter working on the understanding of the informational input does so in the same way as anyone else’s would. Indeed, even if it was possible to observe the same Universe, and through the same means as somebody else, the question of whether we would interpret it in the same way still remains.

Qualia is what we call the individual instances of subjective conscious experience. In the words of David Chalmers, who coined the term “hard problem” of consciousness:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive there is a whir of information processing, but there is also a subjective aspect.

Take a blue sheet of paper as an example. While you and I can agree that the color of the paper is what we both call “blue” (barring color blindness, in which case we already disagree on the perceptual level, see above), there is simply no way for us to know whether the experience of the color blue is the same for you as it is for me. We’d face the same difficulties trying to explain what the smell of hazelnuts is like, or the touch of silk to a person who has never encountered these things before.

How is it that we have our favorite tunes, colors, movie genres? Do these preferences come as mere effects of conditioning, or can we feel something that others do not?

Consider the dialogues with your inner voice. Can those dialogs alone affect your mood and the emotions you experience? Most would answer in the affirmative. The causes for those emotions are not of external origin - they are generated and processed by you internally - which only furthers your perceptual isolation from any other being you encounter. Sure, you can try to express them in speech, writing, music, or in any other way, but that will inevitably affect their form and meaning in the process, since they’d have to undergo the same encoding-decoding paths as any other information that the other party is a recipient of.

TL;DR

To recap, we can summarize the above in four main points:

• The Universe is centered around your consciousness
• The Universe is fundamentally different for you and everybody else
• You perceive this Universe through your own unique means
• You interpret this experience in your own unique manner

And there you have it. Congratulations. You are at the center of your very own physical reality, which you perceive, experience and interpret in your fundamentally unique way.

Feeling lonely yet?

It’s normal that you would. For it is this fundamental isolation that drives our conscious behaviour in everything that we do. Expressing ourselves through art, looking for a partner in life, conquering or serving others, crafting, manipulating, loving, hating, and any other activity we undertake that exceeds our basic instictual behaviors stems from the elemental fact that when it all comes down to it; we are completely on our own.