
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Wonders of the Universe - Messengers
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Attributed in The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom (2011) edited by Diana Doroftei and Matthew Cross.
“When you contemplate the universe, part of the universe becomes conscious of itself.”
Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 152
Transhumanism (1957)
Context: As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere too, through the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened before.
Max Velmans (2009) Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2. Routledge/Psychology Press, p. 298
As quoted in Introduction to Philosophy (1935) by George Thomas White Patrick and Frank Miller Chapman, p. 44
Variant translations:
I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.
Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Fourth Lecture, p. 74.
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)