What is the Universe In Reality?

Today, even a 5 years old kid knows about the universe. Everyone would agree that the universe is the space outside our planet, for some it is just the stars and the darkness in the sky. Yet, we know so little as to what the universe is in reality. Physicist around the world theorize that the universe is expanding, that it contains something called black energy, and that we might live in some giant void, but what is the meaning of all this with relation to the existence of the universe? What is the true nature of the Universe? This seems simple questions that someday some astronomer would come to answer, but they are not simple at all and the answer is beyond the knowledge of any living human in the present and in the past.

I want to mention and to speculate on some questions that have drove my head insane of curiosity. First, what is the universe? Although everyone thinks of the universe as the part outside our planet, this answer is not satisfying at all; It does not explain anything about its existence nor its meaning. For me, the universe is some sort of space or dimension perhaps filled with some mysterious energy, which physicist and scientists call dark energy, that is part of the wholeness of any existence and of the unthinkable. I know my definition is totally outside any logic and ambiguous to its every essence, but the universe itself is ambiguous. The point is that the universe might belong to some other part, to some giant object or nature that is beyond knowledge. Thus, the universe might not be infinite but finite in some sense. For some people the universe itself is this giant object or nature that exist beyond end and encompass everything. Actually, a dictionary definition would say that the universe is "the totality of all matter and energy that exists in the vastness of space, whether known to human beings or not." Perhaps this may be true, but there is nonetheless the possibility that there exist something more to this totality, something more behind the physics and the mechanics of the universe, something that may be even greater than the universe itself. Well, this is only a rare and fictional thought, but I really find it very interesting to learn all I can about the nature of the universe. Perhaps behind this nature is the explanation of questions that has puzzled humanity throughout the centuries, like the belief in God.

Whether there is a God or not, the answer most likely lies in understanding the nature of all existences, especially that of the universe. There must be a nature to everything we see and perceive, something that is essential and insidious to the meaning of existence and the universe. Creation have been for long time one of the explanations for this; the idea that a God created everything we see and perceive. However, if there exist a God, then where does this God comes from? The existence of a God as a powerful omnipresence could be just nonexistent as the search for an illusion. Nevertheless, there might be a God that is the nature and the mechanics that allows for everything to exist in such a perfect balance of harmony. That is the God I believe in, and though this is a very different God advocated by any religion or moral code, and in essence this concept is not a God, I still believe this God is more important than looking for some unnatural, supernatural being or deity whose existence is based hugely on superstition. Even if such a God exists, its existence does not contribute to humanity's benefit. Thus, using creation as the fundamental theory for understanding the universe would carry us to nowhere and would not be helpful for really understanding anything.

When we think of the universe, we must think of it as something outside our world, outside of what we know. Seeing and analyzing the topic in a different perspective might shed lights on its real value and nature. An example of this is seen in a very interesting article in Discover:

"Figuring out the nature of the real world has obsessed scientists and philosophers for millennia. Three hundred years ago, the Irish empiricist George Berkeley contributed a particularly prescient observation: The only thing we can perceive are our perceptions. In other words, consciousness is the matrix upon which the cosmos is apprehended. Color, sound, temperature, and the like exist only as perceptions in our head, not as absolute essences. In the broadest sense, we cannot be sure of an outside universe at all."

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos

This perspective of the universe is so remarkably different and interesting than most people conceptual understanding of the universe. It is just another form of seeing the universe, a point I want to make that the universe might be something very different from the outer space of the Earth where other planets exist. I believe that the existence of the universe is the key to the understanding of life itself, but in this part of the article my thoughts are seen conversely:

"For centuries, scientists regarded Berkeley’s argument as a philosophical sideshow and continued to build physical models based on the assumption of a separate universe “out there” into which we have each individually arrived. These models presume the existence of one essential reality that prevails with us or without us. Yet since the 1920s, quantum physics experiments have routinely shown the opposite: Results do depend on whether anyone is observing. This is perhaps most vividly illustrated by the famous two-slit experiment. When someone watches a subatomic particle or a bit of light pass through the slits, the particle behaves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other. But if no one observes the particle, it exhibits the behavior of a wave that can inhabit all possibilities—including somehow passing through both holes at the same time. Some of the greatest physicists have described these results as so confounding they are impossible to comprehend fully, beyond the reach of metaphor, visualization, and language itself. But there is another interpretation that makes them sensible. Instead of assuming a reality that predates life and even creates it, we propose a biocentric picture of reality. From this point of view, life—particularly consciousness—creates the universe, and the universe could not exist without us"

discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos

Based on this perspective, the universe is just but an allusion, a perception, something that has no physical existence but exists in the mental consciousness of people. This example is indeed a very radical point of view, but it just make us wonder about the true nature of things and allows the use of imagination to intertwine with reality to provide distinct, yet tentative explanations. The point is to think about what other lens can we use to analyze something as insidiously intangible as the universe. When we do this, the universe comes to have meaning in unforeseen ways, not necessarily true ones, but provocative and productive ones nevertheless.