Davies’s Consciousness in the Cosmos

Physicist and polymath Paul Davies asserts the heterodox view among scientists that consciousness is something very significant in the evolution of the universe. “Although we see consciousness only in response to some set of physical systems, nevertheless it seems to me to play an absolute and fundamental role. Because at one level, all of science, our whole understanding of the universe, comes through our own consciousness. It's actually the starting point of all inquiry” (Davies, 2006b).

But what of the minuscule place of consciousness amidst the unfathomably vast universe? Davies muses: “Is consciousness on the surface of our planet just a little embellishment on the great scheme of things or does it have fundamental role? I should also say that whether it's fundamental or not, we surely have to explain it. It has got to fit into our scientific picture of the world, but I don't think we've got a clue as to how to go about it because none of the concepts from fundamental physics, like mass and momentum and charge, seem relevant at all.”

Consciousness as Fundamental and Quantum Tied

With respect to whether consciousness really matters to quantum physics, Davies says that physicists are sharply split and that he himself has oscillated. “I used to think that consciousness was just getting in the way of understanding. But because I'm convinced that consciousness is a fundamental part of the universe, I'd like to find a place for it in physics. And the one place that it has been ‘on again and off again’ is within the realm of quantum physics. So, consciousness could enter quantum physics at the point of observation where the rules of the quantum game change as a result of that observation or measurement” (Davies, 2006b).

Davies is critical of the many-world interpretation (MWI) of the Schrödinger equation that governs the wave function of quantum mechanical systems. While MWI adherents argue they are literalists, Davies counters that “it's a way of trying to get rid of consciousness from playing a fundamental role in quantum physics.” He calls MWI a “missed opportunity,” because “if we're going to actually incorporate consciousness into our description of physics it's at the quantum level that we should attempt to do so.”

Can one then go from consciousness at the quantum level to consciousness at the universe level, not just as metaphor but to actually explain reality? Davies focuses on the challenge of giving a cosmic significance to consciousness because, as far as we know, there are so vanishingly few conscious beings in the vast universe (Davies, 2006b, 2006c).

Cosmic Future and Universe Saturated by Mind

Davies looks to the far future of the universe. “It seems entirely possible that human beings or alien beings or any sort of conscious beings are going to spread out across the universe. We think a universe of 13.8 billion years is old; in fact, it's exceedingly young. There's no reason why it can't go on for trillions and trillions of years. There's absolutely plenty of time for it to become full of minds, full of observers. And we can imagine a time in the far, far future when mind and the universe in effect merge: they become one. And so the act of observation which at the moment is limited to maybe a little corner of the universe could saturate the whole universe. The whole universe could become self-known.”

But could what might happen in the future affect what has happened in the past? Davies explains: “Part of the weirdness of quantum physics is that observations which are made now can affect the nature of reality in the past.”

This is not “backward causation,” he stresses, but a selection among myriad alternate possible histories, a developmental history of the universe that makes sense only in the quantum realm. This is why Davies can say that “observations made in the very far future can affect the nature of reality today and even back at the Big Bang.”

Davies concludes with the grand vision: “if you buy this whole quantum physics package and you have this universe saturated by mind, saturated by observers, then indeed the whole character of the universe, including the original emergence of its laws and the nature of its states, become inextricably intertwined with its mentality, with its mindfulness” (Davies, 2006b).