Biocentrism Says Existence Is a Matter of Perception

“Without consciousness, space and time are nothing.” - Robert Lanza

As maniac as this idea may seem, it stands as a relatively popular theory known as biocentrism, or the theory of everything. It’s the idea that consciousness is responsible for the existence of the universe, not the other way around as physics would have you believe.

As all that we know from physics continues to yield more questions than answers, medical doctor and scientist, Robert Lanza, has presented this new way to approach the “why?” question. His theory of everything places biology first, suggesting that the “web would not exist without the spider.” A shared consciousness, which kindles our collective web of all things known, is responsible and necessary for the existence of the universe and, without this shared consciousness, there would simply be nothing.

From a different angle, this notion could be explained by suggesting that things don’t exist unless you are there to observe them. This has been countlessly demonstrated by the famous double-slit experiment, in which entangled particles only present themselves as identifiable when they are observed. When they are not observed, they do not exhibit any unique properties within any specific orientation of space and time, but rather present themselves as a wave with infinite possibility across all of space and time.

Through physics, we’ve made significant progress in understanding the nature of our universe. Matter is studied as we track its motion and behaviors, and various physical theories are put to the test against the laws we’ve mostly come to accept. And while this scientific method can allot a certain level of confidence to its known facts about the nature of our universe, it must insist that no scientific fact be considered an absolute truth.

Even science admits that the very nature of truth is a matter of perception, and thus can never be absolute.

This fact - that there are no facts - also presents a problem for the theory of biocentrism, and it all comes down to the “truth” about space and time. Biocentrism regards both space and time as mental tools that we use collectively to form a frame of reference for our existence, rather than regarding them as physical objects that can be measured. If you can’t measure space or time, then you can’t prove that they exist, or that anything exists within their respective boundaries, including the theory of biocentrism.

It’s funny and ironic to think that nothing is true yet, as you observe it to be, it is.

"Look Again at That Dot."

Earth from Saturn, as captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in April of 2017

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us." - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Take a moment to observe one of the many now-famous images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, in which Earth was wondrously captured as the only source of light between the acting frame of Saturn's rings.

While this image may prompt thoughts of our sheer insignificance in the grand scheme of things, challenge yourself to examine this photograph from a different angle.

Consider just some of the many, many factors needed to sustain life on a planet, amidst the desolate and violent conditions of space: being the right distance from the sun to allow for water to melt, being in the “habitable zone” of the galaxy to avoid deadly radiation, having a near-perfect circular orbit to maintain consistent warmth and light, having a moon that creates tides, and so on. And, by the way, it doesn’t hurt to have “gas giant” neighbors, like Saturn, to attract asteroids and comets, often preventing them from reaching us.

As it seems, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Whether by luck, by fate, or perhaps by something we do not yet understand, behold life.

From the first microorganisms to the ~8 million species that now reside here, life on Earth has evolved over the years. Us humans, the luckiest of the bunch, have even grown to possess a heightened state of consciousness, for better or worse. That is to say we have the ability to do extraordinary things like imagine, perceive, and love.

Let this image of Earth pose a thought, not on insignificance, but on what can become of being in the right place at the right time. Whether by luck, by fate, or perhaps by something we do not yet understand, behold.