Are We the Universe’s Way of Understanding Itself?

I. The Cosmic Mirror

It’s hard to hold your one-year-old daughter and not wonder how any of this is possible.

Not just how she is possible — this little miracle with tiny hands and a heart that beats strong and steady — but how we are possible. How any of this is. The galaxies, the gravitational waves, the fact that we can even have the capacity to wonder about these things at all.

On a recent evening, I found myself looking out the window of my daughter’s bedroom after a long day. The air was still, stars quietly blazing in the night sky above my house in Huntsville. My daughter resting in her crib, asleep. And I remember sitting there in the stillness of her darkened room, the soft rhythm of her breath filling the space—and thinking: We are on a rock spinning through infinite blackness… and somehow, right here in this crib, sleeps a soul I’ve been entrusted to protect.

That kind of moment shifts something in you.

It also makes you want to go deeper — beyond headlines, beyond surface-level inspiration posts on social media. So when I tuned into Lex Fridman’s recent podcast with astrophysicist and author Janna Levin, I wasn’t just expecting a lesson in black holes and wormholes. I was hoping for something more — something that could stretch my mind, sure, but also tap into the part of me that wants to understand not just what’s out there… but why we’re here at all.

That episode didn’t disappoint.

It asked one of the deepest, most mysterious questions of all:
Could consciousness be the universe trying to understand itself?
Or — from my perspective — is it more likely that consciousness is the key clue that we were designed to understand the universe… because the One who made it wants us to?

II. The Scientific Stage: What We Know About Consciousness

Here’s the thing about consciousness:
No one really knows what it is.

We live in a time of astonishing scientific advancement — we’ve mapped the genome, landed rovers on Mars, photographed a black hole’s shadow. And yet, the thing we experience most intimately — our own awareness — remains one of the most elusive phenomena in all of science.

In the podcast, Janna Levin describes consciousness as “the hard problem.” It’s not like explaining gravity or the chemical makeup of a star. It’s deeper. It forces us to confront a kind of paradox: How can neurons firing in a lump of matter inside our skull give rise to subjective experience? Why do we not only react to the world but know we’re reacting?

And beyond the neuroscience, physics has some weird things to say too.
The observer effect in quantum mechanics — where particles behave differently when they’re being watched — has led some to speculate that consciousness might be baked into the very fabric of reality.

Now, I’m not suggesting that staring at an electron creates the universe. But I am suggesting that there’s something strange — maybe even sacred — about the way consciousness seems entangled with existence itself.

Levin floats the idea that consciousness might not be a random evolutionary byproduct but something fundamental — like space, time, or gravity. A prerequisite, not an accident.

And to be honest, that tracks with my experience of the world.

III. The Universe Observing Itself… or Being Observed by God?

Carl Sagan once said, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” It’s a beautiful quote — poetic and profound — and it’s echoed in the scientific and philosophical circles that Levin and Fridman travel in.

But if I’m being honest, it always struck me as… incomplete.

Yes, we are made of stardust. Every element in our bodies was forged in the heart of dying stars. But that doesn’t answer the deeper question: Why do we care?

Why does the universe “knowing itself” even matter unless something or someone imbued that knowledge with meaning?

To me, the more profound possibility is this:
Maybe we’re not just the universe trying to understand itself.
Maybe we are the means through which God experiences — and reveals — His creation.

The miracle isn’t that the universe evolved a mechanism to become self-aware.
The miracle is that we were invited to participate in something infinitely larger than ourselves.

Here’s how I think about it:
Just like a painter leaves something of themselves in every brushstroke, maybe our ability to contemplate the cosmos is evidence that we were designed to do so — created in the image of a Creator who wants to be known.

This is where the scientific meets the spiritual — where logic alone can’t fully explain the “why,” and faith steps in to offer a deeper lens.

IV. Humble Confidence in the Face of the Infinite

It’s humbling to think about how small we are.

The universe is incomprehensibly vast — stars that exploded before the Earth existed, galaxies hurtling away from us at terrifying speeds, black holes bending time itself. From a purely scientific view, we’re not even a blip on the cosmic radar.

But my faith teaches me something else:
We may be small, but we are known. And we are wanted.

That’s not wishful thinking. That’s how I reconcile the awe I feel looking through a telescope with the reverence I feel kneeling in prayer.

Science grounds me. But it doesn’t give me identity.
Faith does that.

And this is where the idea of humble confidence comes into play — a philosophy that’s become something of a cornerstone in how I try to live and lead.

Humility says, “I don’t have all the answers. I’m not the center of the universe.”
Confidence says, “But I was made with intention. I was given the ability to think, to love, to create. That matters.”

Being both small and significant — that’s the paradox we’re all living in.
And honestly? It’s beautiful.

V. The Black Hole, the Soul, and the Signal Beneath the Noise

Black holes came up quite a bit in the Fridman-Levin conversation. We’ve all heard of them — those mysterious, star-eating monsters that warp space and time. But what struck me most in their discussion wasn’t just the science — it was the metaphor.

Janna Levin described black holes as the purest objects in the universe — defined by only three things: mass, spin, and charge. No matter what goes into them — light, matter, entire solar systems — the result is always the same. All that complexity gets boiled down to something simple and absolute.

In a weird way, that made me think about us — about what gets boiled down when life strips everything else away.

We’re all surrounded by noise: jobs, to-do lists, phones buzzing, bills, expectations, failure, fear. But deep down, I believe there’s a core to each of us — something not reducible to spin or mass or neural activity. Something that remains.

In science, we talk about entropy — the idea that things fall apart, become more disordered over time. But what if your soul is the counterpoint to that — the organizing force that holds on to meaning even when everything else feels chaotic?

Just like gravitational waves ripple through spacetime when black holes collide, I believe our choices — our love, our truth-telling, our integrity — ripple through the lives of others in ways we can’t always measure. Maybe consciousness isn’t just the universe becoming aware of itself, but the soul becoming aware of its purpose.

And maybe black holes aren’t just cosmic erasers. Maybe they’re reminders that what really matters in the end is what cannot be reduced.

VI. Aliens, Wormholes, and the Limits of Human Imagination

Of course, no modern cosmological conversation is complete without aliens and wormholes. And the podcast got into it.

Levin speculated about the Fermi Paradox, the vastness of the cosmos, and whether alien civilizations might be out there — or whether we might be the only ones. She also entertained ideas about wormholes as potential shortcuts through spacetime — perhaps even tools for travel between distant corners of the universe.

All fascinating stuff. But here’s what stood out to me:

The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know.

And that’s a powerful, necessary truth — because it humbles us. We like to pretend we’ve got it all figured out. That our technology is the pinnacle of evolution. But when you zoom out — really zoom out — we’re toddlers fumbling with the edge of the divine.

And yet, even in our ignorance, we imagine. We dream. We question. We build telescopes that peer back 13 billion years. We write equations that hint at hidden dimensions. We send signals into the dark, hoping someone out there might answer.

Why?

Because we hope. Because something in us is hardwired not just to survive, but to seek.

Whether or not aliens exist isn’t even the biggest question to me. The real question is:
Why do we care?

And I think the answer is this: Because deep down, we know we’re part of something much bigger than ourselves.
We just want to know what it is.

VII. When Science Points to Wonder — And Wonder Points to God

I don’t believe science and faith are opposites.
I believe they’re dance partners in the same mystery.

Science gives us tools. Faith gives us context.
Science shows us how. Faith asks us why.

That’s why I love conversations like the one between Lex and Janna — because they bring us right to the edge of what we know, and then gently invite us to stare into what we don’t.

And in that space — between known and unknown — is where wonder lives.

It’s also where God lives.

Not as a gap-filler for things we haven’t figured out, but as the author of both the questions and the answers. The One who made the universe — and made us capable of discovering it.

So when I look at my daughter, I don’t just see the product of biology or evolution.
I see the miracle of a mind awakening. A soul unfolding. A person who will one day ask her own questions about the stars and what they mean.

And I hope she’ll live in that same paradox I’ve come to embrace:

That we are small… but not insignificant.
That we are made of dust… but breathed into by God.
That we will never know everything… but we were made to keep seeking.

Final Reflections: A Universe That Asks Us to Ask

So now I leave you — not with conclusions, but with questions.

What if your consciousness isn’t an accident… but a calling?
What if your curiosity isn’t just biology… but evidence of divine design?
What if your deepest questions are holy?
And what if the vastness of space isn’t meant to make you feel lost…
…but to remind you that you were made to find something greater?

Maybe we’re not just a way for the universe to know itself.
Maybe we are the way for God to know us, and for us to know Him.

And maybe — just maybe — wonder is worship.