Is consciousness connected to the expression of an 'infinite intelligence?'

I was intrigued by a headline in Popular Mechanics:  Scientists Finally Found the Gravitational Wave Background, Ushering in Astronomy 2.0.

Apparently, scientists and astronomers have once again discovered some “thing” non-material.

Worth remembering:  "The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence." – Nikola Tesla

This is another indication that what we perceive as space is not empty.  And these waves are ubiquitous.

“After a 15-year-long study, the scientists have finally ‘heard’ what they were looking for: the gravitational waves that should be filling the universe.”

Gravitational waves have been known for fifteen years, having been discovered about 100 years after Einstein predicted them.  They are “physical ripples in spacetime.”

Everything Creates Gravitational Waves, Even Us

Everything, even humans, apparently create these waves, although they would be quite faint unless we could follow very large objects, which the Webb telescope did in its scan of the galaxy and universe.

“So far, we’ve only been able to detect gravitational waves when they were at their shortest wavelength, right before and during the merging of the objects creating those waves. As two massive objects orbit closer and closer in the lead up to a merge, they start orbiting faster and faster. And as they orbit faster, the gravitational waves they emit also increase in frequency (vibrate faster) and shorten in wavelength.”

The objects used to detect these waves are pulsars and black holes.  As gravitational waves pass between a pulsar and the earth, the distance between the two objects changes in a way that can be measured.

As a pulsar “flashes” the time it takes the light to reach us is measured.  The speed of light is constant and scientists have measured the regular flashing intervals for fifteen years; so now when a different amount of time is measured for the light to reach us from the same pulsar, they know that the distance between the earth and the star has changed.

“Watching their pulsar clock for 15 years gave the scientists the chance to let those incredibly long gravitational waves pass through and leave their mark on the pulsars’ timing.”

Their Scale Boggles the Mind

So that the scale of these nonmaterial ripples in spacetime is incredibly vast – it took 15 years of observation to be able to locate the wave.

To me, this suggests that these waves must be on the scale of what we have discovered as the collection of galaxies known as a Supercluster – Our own being the Laniakea Supercluster.

This suggests that the entire universe, which presumably is composed of other superclusters, is of a scale that is far beyond our minds to understand or imagine.

We might need to ask ourselves whether our own or other senses might be responsive to these waves at our scale.  We know that some whales “sing songs” and that brings up the other connection to how this mathematical “scale” is expressed elsewhere within our consciousness…

“It’s like a choir, with all these supermassive black hole pairs chiming in at different frequencies,” Chiara Mingarelli, a NANOGrav scientist who worked on the new findings, said in a press release.  And it seems as though these waves actually form a loud background to the entire universe, but fortunately not one that is audible to humans.

Reminiscent of the Music of the Spheres

I have to admit that the science behind this is opaque to me and I’ve done my best to explain it.  But calling it a choir took me in another direction.

It was Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher known specifically for his knowledge of geometry and music, and their confluence, who first use the term “the music of the spheres.”

It is interesting to note that Pythagoras is believed to have spent years at the Egyptian pyramids, studying sacred geometry – or the way in which perfect mathematical truths comprise the building blocks of the universe as their spiritual perfection is manifest in form.

Here is how ChatGPT explains Pythagorean philosophy:

“According to Pythagorean philosophy, the universe was believed to be harmonious and governed by mathematical principles. Pythagoras posited that the celestial bodies, such as the planets and stars, moved in precise and predictable patterns, creating a celestial music or harmony.”

This is a beautiful way to almost synchronize the harmony of mathematics with the actual discoveries of the physical universe.

But then this paragraph from the artificial intelligence got me, as the AI sought to reassert the dominance of modern science:

“Although the literal interpretation of the music of the spheres has been discarded in modern science, the metaphorical and symbolic aspects of this concept continue to resonate in various fields, including music, philosophy, and cosmology.”

Why Is a Literal Interpretation Wrong?

Well, if the mathematics that accrues from the latest scientific discoveries like gravitational waves show the relationships that Pythagoras posited, and actually do express the perfection of the musical scale, that would be quite a step out of the current narrow scientific paradigm into a more mystical view of the universe.

It is precisely the mathematical perfection of music that can evoke any sense of the “scale” of the vastness beyond our minds – perhaps if the metaphor continues – by opening the heart.

If we go a step further and suggest that perhaps the Egyptians, with their monuments using the precise measurements in their architecture to evoke different levels of consciousness, as a few rogue archeologists have suggested, then it would seem that modern science might do well to take a closer look at ancient wisdom.

Unfortunately, so much of antiquity has been lost, much of the Egyptian science wiped out by the fire of the Library of Alexandria.

What Have Rogue Archeologists Suggested?

To those who are interested in this line of inquiry, you might look into the work of John  Anthony West and R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz.

Schwaller spent years studying the Temple of Luxor and wrote his seminal man, The Temple in Man that John Anthony West amplified in his work, “The Serpent in the Sky”.

What West and Schwaller proposed was that the symbolism of the Egyptians was more than a language like ours; rather it was a way to embody a deep connection with the universe as it was understood by an ancient science that we have lost.

A query of ChatGPT about West yielded this:

“West suggested that the intricate symbolism found in Egyptian art and architecture was a deliberate attempt to convey profound spiritual and metaphysical concepts. He believed that the Egyptians understood the fundamental principles of human consciousness, such as the nature of perception, the workings of the subconscious mind, and the potential for spiritual transformation.”

Anyone who wants to look for a deeper connection between such sacred geometry and nature need only look at the many spirals (on snails, flowers, and many organic entities including the galaxy) that seem to be based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, or the constant Phi that seems to be memorialized along with Pi in the Great Pyramid.

The numerical sequence with its geometric expression later found its way into much Renaissance art as the “Golden Mean.”  The sequence is infinite with each number being the sum of the previous two numbers.

The so-called Golden Ratio or Phi constant is 1.618033988 – or the mathematical relationship between a number in the sequence and its next companion number.  the first few values in the sequence are:[1]

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144.

The fact that this mathematical (and also musically harmonious) relationship is expressed everywhere in nature leads me to an inescapable conclusion, whether one agrees with me or not, but that somehow consciousness is connected to the expression of an Infinite Intelligence and that its perfection must ultimately be loving.

(Tom Bunzel was a contributor to Collective Evolution and now writes for The Pulse.  His new book "Conversations with Nobody: Getting to Know ChatGPT" – a book written with AI, about AI and giving a taste of AI, is available on Amazon.)