Does Your Mind Create The Universe? | Answers With Joe 

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.” ― Bill Hicks

Hey Joe, thanks for allowing me to create this video by watching it!

I like how you stick to scientific principles without completely dismissing out of the box ideas out of respect for life's many wonders...

"I've never been on a pirate ship" is exactly what a former pirate would say! Also, Zeno finally vindicated!

My mind cannot create a schedule, let alone a universe .

I've often thought about the idea my mind creates reality as it is able to be processed (observed). Didn't know there was a whole "-ism" attached to that idea...very interesting. And honestly...seems to be un-provable. I like when things can likely never be proven. Keeps us grounded knowing there are forces at work far beyond the human scope.

A basic concept in Tibetan Buddhism. "We are what we think. All that we are arises in our thoughts, and with our thoughts we make the world." (Dhammapada)

I feel cheated. Should've never learned object permanence as a toddler

Biocentrism: justifying the idea of an afterlife without gods, or: how i learned to stop worrying and love my mind.

"The universe is fine tuned for life"? Read Douglas Adams' description of the puddle waking up and finding itself in a perfect hole. :)

The double slit experiment: exists Scientists: you could make a religion out of this.

I've never been able to shake the idea of solipsism from my mind. When I was around 13-15, I remember sitting around and thinking that everything I see and experience is just a mix of signals my brain is sending in order to make existence easier to comprehend and survive in. That outside of my own thoughts, there's no way I could ever fully trust anything, including even this body I've had to lug around since birth. When I was a little older and found out that not only had people thought about this before, it's more or less a popular thought and has even been named, "solipsism". I didn't know how to pronounce it for years (lol) but I was so stunned and it has never left me to this day. It's almost like a thought poison tbh lol

Yes, i'm creating the universe and i like red. Proof? My bank account.

This channel should be called "existential crisis Mondays" (please don't stop making these science and philosophical videos)

this channel is seriously underrated I love his puns and his videos so informational with making me feel like I forgot it all and about to fail the exam the next day lol. but yes love your channel and the video editor great job :)

WHAT FULL CAPS COMMENTS? THERE ARE NO FULL CAPS COMMENTS HERE!

The longer, the better!! Love your 15 min+ vids

I've been pretty skeptical all my life but simultaneously in the "I WANT TO BELIEVE" pool when it comes to the supernatural and this kind of thing really lets my imagination fly! Whenever there's a haunting the entities end goal appears to be isolation by keeping people out but we could also interpret that as avoiding observation. Supposing these kinds of things exist, maybe just by being present and by extension observing we destabilize what/where they are or whatever condition allows them to exist in the first place. This sort of threat on their existence would certainly provoke the kind of behavior we're used to hearing in stories. If we really wanted to amp this up we can bring the simulation in and wonder if these things live in memory but start bugging out once loaded in by observation. As for the main topic, I've always played with the idea that consciousness had an impact on reality but has been diluted over time by our growing population basically rendering this impact inert. Maybe Gods or fantastic creatures really did once exist when the population was small and less aware but beliefs more localized/concentrated. We are much more aware now, even when a concentration of people believe the same thing we are still highly connected and aware of a wide variety of others beliefs thus reality settled into a neutral state as our understandings combined and canceled each other out.

My brain can’t even wake itself up when the alarm clock goes off, how is it supposed to create a universe 😂

Didn't know the universe relied on PS1 era rendering techniques to save on memory. Also, does this mean that life is the largest open-world game?

Psychedelics make me feel this is so, strongly. I've often felt like I created what I was observing. Which, looking back, was just a product of my observation 🤔 This is quite the rabbithole.

Thanks for covering this, Joe. The mind-benders are my favorite videos.

The unfalsifiability issue is what happens when theories of ontology go from the how into the why realm. Joe I thought this was a great video. You're right to find idealism interesting. I watched this after your video that touched upon Rare Earth hypothesis My IQ has risen 10 points

I myself have at least 2 extremely vivid, realistic dreams every week. Everything always seems so real, yet in the dream there is always at least one thing that does not work as it should had it been actual reality, but with the dreams being so realistic my brain doesn’t pick up on these what I believe are clues from my brain trying to tell me it is in fact a dream, but thankfully I do not have nightmares with this realism. What if these dreams are another version of us, in another universe and our conscious is picking up on the frequencies and our brains pick it up like an am/fm radio and play it in our minds.

It's like the old Zen saying, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?" That can be interpreted two ways. The biocentric view that the conscious observer literally creates that reality. Or the (I can't remember the word for it) view that our senses and brain give order and meaning to the world. So an object we label as a tree does fall and percussion waves are produced in the air, but it isn't a "sound" with any sort of meaning until it encounters an ear drum (or other suitable auditory receptor) and a brain to make sense of it.

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Nobody really knows what's going on and that's awesome.

When the Dreamer awakens, do we disappear.

quantum world be like: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a lion

If my mind is creating a universe, then why does it hate me?

Once I had a dream about being on a game show, and was asked what was Elvis Presley’s first album named. I answered “it was self named Elvis Presley”. I know nothing about Elvis and have never listened to him. My question is can you dream an answer you really don’t know or did I maybe hear it when I was a baby or something?

Nothing is real And nothing to get hung about Strawberry Fields Forever

lol "im lookin at you Aristotle" i love his videos they are one of a kind. and I love quantum mechanics and that was the best description of the double slit experiment I've heard

The theory of Biocentrism, in a way, harks back to the ancient's theory of vision - that light doesn't strike an object and enter our eyes, but our eyes emit beams that illuminate the world, effectively revealing it. I watched this a few days ago, so can't remember if it was this or another of your videos that talked about how observing a patch of space effectively "creates" everything - all the stars and galaxies - we see there in that patch. It's the same kind of thing.

YOUR mind creates MY universe, Joe! ( wipes brown smudge off nose)...

Biocentrism does match the available data, but that doesn't mean it's true. There are plenty of hypotheses that match data that end up being completely bogus. Interesting idea, though.

when i learned about observer effect, that was my first thought and somehow i feel somewhere deep inside that this is true

9:48 Just last week one of my children tested this theory, leaving a stopped up sink running, then exiting the room. The wave function broke down when I went in to discover a flooded bathroom.

You just gave one of the most concise, succinct explanations for dreaming I've ever encountered, and one which is compelling; so much so that it almost seems self-evident.

In "The Tao of Physics" it shows how eastern mystics like Lao Tzu understood certain natures of the universe and quantum mechanics in the same way that Einstein did...some of the observations are almost verbatim, but are coming from 800 BC and understood through meditation instead of an empirical view of the physics. Explain that...

The Earth doesn't exist, I knew it! #noearthsociety

You asked what constitutes observation, in quantum mechanics. Good question. In the double slit experiment, a collapse of the wave function is seen even when the experiment is done on the slit the particle has not gone through. The experiment, in those cases, neither observe not interfere with anything,, and yet an effect is still seen. This implies that the important part of the experiment isn't the act of observing/interfering, but whether knowledge can be gained about the state of the system (see also the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment). Knowledge is ultimately what quantum mechanics seems to be dealing with- not whether or not a particle has been observed/interfered with. From this point of view of knowledge, then, it seems consciousness may play a role that seems hard to separate from the experiment itself. In that sense, there is no "out there". Perhaps, as Max Planck said, "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

I love your "I'm the Centre of the Universe" theories. Makes perfect sense to me that this video is actually my creation.

I had a dream where Danny Devito gave me life advice and I swear it is the most profound moment of my life. If only I could remember what are those advice

thank you for the backwards analogy about "wow our hands i built perfectly to fit these gloves" Been looking for a way to express that frustration about the goldilocks zone for some years and you nailed it.

I just watched the video on "is there a god?". Now, I am new to the channel and in my "spiritual searching " throughout my life have seen and heard just about everything. But to my surprise , Joe's simple yet honest reflection of lifelong memories he has and how it has influenced his concept on "God", really struck a chord for me. Thank you sir! Your point of view really explains exactly how I feel on this topic. It was refreshing and sparks a whole new "investigation" for me.🐾

I had two of those dreams in my life. I'm 31 years old and the last time that happened was around the age of 18. I have no Idea why I made those dreams at all as it doesn't seem connected to anything relevant with my life. I don't remember much now, but the first time I dreamt I was walking in the streets of a city and it was pouring rain. I took refuge in a saloon. The feeling and coldness of the rain felt 100% real, down to the reaction of my skin. The second time and the weirdest was a plane flying over me, not any plane mind you. It looked like future tech not quite sci-fi looking but like something the military could do in the next 50 years or so that passed through the sky while I was walking in a forest. There was so much details and it seemed so real that when I woke up I really tried to remember how it was made and looked like. In this one, its the details on the plane and the sound/vibrations that made it so real.

You are my favorite person to watch right now. Glad to have found you. Brain candy. :D

Ive had dreams where Ive hurt myself and woke up in that pain until my brain woke up

I'm a scientist & think everything has a logical explanation. Yet I've also experienced many "Astral Projections" thru meditation. The experience is so real it's beyond words.

I spoke to Lanza at a conference where we were both speaking about a couple mistakes he made in his book, including where he contradicted himself between two main chapters. Surprisingly, he didn't want to talk about it. ;-) And just while we're here, yes the collapse is affected by consciousness, but it isn't just human consciousness that performs the observation. Hugs!

Ur brain is so used to making these things up that when u sleep ur brain tries to keep the process going

Love your videos but when you do videos like these I get a little creeped out. Lol Keep it up. Obviously you are doing something right if you make people think.

I always wonder if our world looks different from what we see. Everything we see is our brains interpretation of it. It's a very interesting simulation we're living in.

I think the fact that observations collapse wave functions has less to do with consciousness and more to do with the method of observation; as you stated, we use photons to detect things, and those photons have to interact with the quantum particle we're trying to observe, which alters the state of what we're observing.

I wouldn't talk to Deepak Chopra about hard sciences though. He's all woo all the time. I don't think he means to deceive, exactly, but he's pretty goofy. Edit: I guess you all have convinced me, Chopra probably knows that he's full of it.

Egocentrism: I am so important that *I* create the entire universe simply by my being here.

I can’t even fold my tea shirts the way my wife wants me to , but this brain created the universe. 😂

I like Robin Williams comment best, "Reality, what a concept."

if I put a pizza in a preheated/running oven, and then go into a room out of visual range, the behaviors of the pizza+oven system/waveforms are deterministic enough that, even without observing the system directly, the scent of a cooking, finished, or burnt pizza will "render" in my nostrils as a function of time (barring, eg, an open kitchen window preventing airflow from kitchen to nostrils). Whether or not the visual representation of the system exists while unobserved, the system still exists deterministically enough to generate observations, both for conscious (human) and unconscious observers (eg if the pizza burns long enough, the smoke alarm will announce its measurements). Whether the system is actually extant vs a highly probable quantum state when unobserved seems to be moot if it generates passive observations through things like airflow (a chaotic system which would itself lend a "render pressure" to the system - if every new collision between an N2 or O2 molecule and a cheese molecule that might loft a cheese scent molecule on its way to my nose changes the scent waveform, any system where its distribution of entropy is being messed with seems to be getting observed.) Sidenote: the Schrodinger's cat experiment doesn't usually specify the cage/box the cat is in is soundproof... I'd argue that the potential for such an observation would inherently collapse the waveform even if the sounds of the cat blended with random background noise before it got to human ears or mechanical ones - conveyance of information (the antithesis of entropy) collapses any macroscopic waveform IMO, regardless of observation/receipt of information.

Ive spent months over the last few years pondering on deep questions . Everything is more incredible than we realize.

Enjoyed the topic... can't help to think of the the of - If a tree fall in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?

The universe I created smells like pizza right now. Mmmm pizza.

“The Universe is Fine Tuned for Life” - when you first mentioned this near the beginning of the video, your position on my credibility graph dropped significantly - because it sounded like you accepted the statement at face value and believed it. A lot of times, I would have paused the video right there and wrote a comment telling you that you were wrong - and why. But today I was eating - and didn’t want to pause - so I let the video play to the end. I am so glad that you brought up the “fine tuning” again at the end and clarified your position on it (and your credibility in my eyes has been restored). I do have 2 points though. You said that 99% of the universe would kill us immediately. But - it’s not 99% - its actually closer to 99.99999999999% of the universe - and also more than 80% of the planet we live on! The second thing is how you define “a little bit different”. When the universal constants are written in scientific notation with exponents - what may look like a small change is actually a pretty huge number. The constants actually do not need to be the exact number they are in order for our universe to exist - but they do need to be within a “range” of values. For each one of these constants, look up what the range is - and then write it on a piece of paper WITHOUT using scientific notation. Write down all those 0’s and then come back and tell us again why you think that range is “very small”. It’s actually pretty huge - and like you said, even if they were completely different, a universe unlike ours may have still formed and produced sentient life! As far as the Double Slit experiment goes, I personally think that it is a valid piece of evidence that could be used to support the simulation hypothesis! I enjoyed this video. Thanks Joe!

Hey Joe! I would love to see a video on ego death. Can you make one, please?

This is what we do. We question and contemplate. It's all good Joe.

3:02 - who said that reality required HUMAN consciousness? Why is everybody so anthropocentric?

This whole thing sounds a lot like the psychological aberration known as Solipsism.

Great topic! This is the kind of stuff that runs through my mind while I'm shaving in the morning. Really, you hit a nerve with me. Thanks!

What I find absolutely astonishing is that so many people have no issues whatsoever with accepting the simulation theory as a possible basis for reality but push away any form of spiritual explanation/additional context. Why does it feel so much more right for humans to belittle their existence, to decrease the significance their existence has? Is it because science tells us that only provable facts are important and worth research? Is it because society is rewarding egocentric behavior? Is it because our brain uses categories and labels to navigate the huge amount of perceived signals? Science works on the principle of proving itself wrong until you get to the right answer. But over time we have learned that there isn’t always just one right answer. So many factors influence the results. Even those who say people interpret the term consciousness in the double slit experiment/quantum theory wrong are biased without acknowledging it. How do you know that a photon doesn’t care about consciousness when you don’t know if each particle itself bears consciousness or if the fact _some_ form of consciousness will observe the results to a random point in time? Maybe it’s enough to change the outcome if a scientist or computer looks at the data in the future because there is no such thing as time in the quantum world. To be honest, I think we should finally move away from drawing this random line between respected science fields and fringe ideas. What once was fringe science is now the basis of all research. Who knows, maybe we could make some breakthroughs if we only accepted that consciousness exists. There’s not just a crisis in cosmology, there’s a crisis in science. Do you know how many medical, psychological and nutritional research was disproven recently? From flawed data to biased researchers, funding only supporting very specific and biased research, highly flawed set ups of experiments and much more. So, so much research, which we worked with for decades, suddenly isn’t replicable. Meta data analysis shows opposites are often as true as the original outcome. I wouldn’t be surprised if we‘d see something similar in other fields if we had the ability to observe things on both a broader spectrum but also from a very individual perspective.

Awesome work and channel Joe! Keep up the good work! Thank you for making me look forward to my Mondays! Greetings from Brazil!

I have an absurdly strong connection with this theory, please hear me out. I'm 18 now but since when I was a kid I have been really really fascinated with the universe and how it works. I slowly developed "theories" and explanations that outside of the context in my head will sound absolutely insane. Now I watch this video and realized a lot of my thinking corresponds to the research done in biocentrism. I have NEVER read anything about bio centrism or any of these ideas prior to this video so this is kind of a brain fuck for me. I do not believe that the answers of the universe lie within our actual physical world but in the world of consciousness. I wish I can convey better the feeling (for a lack of better word) that I have toward this subject. I don't know why I wrote this comment anymore except that I want answers or clues or something; seeing a FULL ASS theory fall in line with what I've been trying to shake off as "crazy nigga thoughts" really makes me think there is more to this.

The weirdest dreams are when you are aware of being in a dream but being confused to weak up. And the starting questioning if your in a dream in a dream.

Very like the Buddhist view of the ultimate nature of reality called emptiness

Biocentrism sounds like the spiritualist ethic in Stellaris, Weird.

This is basically a really expanded version of the "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound" question

Love your videos Joe! Keep up the good work. I'm glad to see you succeed.

My lucid dreams create the universe.

I searched Biocentrism concerning the environment and yet here I am being deeply invested in this theory.

this video cured my depression, thanks Joe♥️

I thought decoherence shows that consciousness is _not_ required for collapse? And thats why quantum effects don't scale to the macro world. And that the measurement apparatus is just as good at collapsing waveforms. Now, many worlds and quantum immortality? That's cool. And I'm immortal. And so are you. Except my you isn't And your me isn't either.

My intuition has always been that reality is as if you had a TV trying to play several channels at the same time. Static. We are like the characters of one of these TV shows. We our tuned into a certain channel and can only see and interact with things inside our channel.

This is such an underrated channel

Biocentrism might be how it is, but I really doubt it. It's fun to think about, I guess, but how could we know? What could be the mechanism?

The seventh principle makes me think of the object permanence theory. When a child is very young they think that things don't exist when they can't see them (if someone is hiding, to them it means they don't exist). As we grow, we learn they do still exist. However, when I experienced derealization it was as if I had unlearned object permanence and the possibility that something that wasn't directly in front of me still existed just didn't make sense. Really weird to explain if you haven't had or can't remember having derealization (which most people will experience).

1:35 "it was philosophers that created our view of reality ... then science came around and proved them wrong" Actually philosophers still shape our view of reality, it's just that they got much better in Math, and we call them theoretical physicists ;)

We project the World. Wherever we are the World is.

When I was a kid I would close my eyes and I thought no one could see me.

Did I miss the part about DMT??

Science is fundamentally a philosophical method. It is wrong to imply that it is somehow a replacement to philosophy.

I agree with your take on biocentrism. We can't know anything about the unobserved and therefore can't make any firm assertions about the unobserved BUT this doesn't mean the unobserved doesn't exist at all; it simply doesn't exist TO US (until we observe it). Another great video.

Started watching your videos this year, and I’m definitely not disappointed. So basically what I’m saying is, good shit Joe! Lol

If my mind created the universe, I’d be married to Cheryl Cole.

Biocentrism isn't saying that the kitchen downstairs doesn't exist when no one is there. It's saying that the upstairs + downstairs + your body are all part of consciousness which you essentially are. In this analogy you are the house (consciousness) AND everything inside including the body labelled Joe. Another way to look at it is within our body we have baroreceptors (a type of sensor) that measure blood pressure and prevent it from going too high or low. So in essence Joe is made of sensors that measure Joe. So the sensors are a part Joe but so there's more to Joe ie the blood and the rest of the body. In the same way the human body is a sensor that is within the "body" of consciousness. Consciousness is the whole and it is that which is aware. The human body is a sensor within consciousness but it's not all of it, there is also the world (that which is sensed). Combined the sensor and that which is sensed makes the whole ie consciousness. The weird part about this is that we generally believe and feel that our consciousness is limited to the range of our body (I can not smell what your nose is doing or hear what your ears hear or see what your brain is thinking) and that all bodies have separate consciousnesses. That would be akin to saying that each sensor in the body has an individual consciousness because it can't read or be aware of the other ones signals when in reality we know that they are all sending signals to the same brain. If the above makes sense then the claim is that the consciousness with which different minds are aware is the same consciousness even though each mind has different information (what you are smelling/hearing/thinking). In essence the consciousness is not located in the body! For more info I'd check out Bernardo Kastrup (phd in philosophy and computer engineering) as he does a great job explaining this in he course on youtube. Another good scientist to check out is Donald Hoffman.

"This? AGAIN?!" - Copernicus rolling over in his grave

Joe, please keep doing videos on less mainstream science videos. There are a lot of science youtubers who have covered every mainstream topic in every way. This is the first video I've seen on this topic!

In my personal cosmology, and this makes a whole lot more sense to me, an individual awareness IS the universe as well as a piece of the universe in the same. What we experience as the 'self' is a partition of the whole of reality. That partition operates in a certain space and time. What we call experience is our supra-awareness navigating the whole of reality as a fragment...yet, ultimately that fragment has access to everything. 'Past lives' are just experiences of that partition within another frame of reference (space and time). Enlightenment is just the liberation of that partition to freely move any where and any time within the everything. What Buddhists call nirvana is the dissolution of that partition, thusly becoming an individual becoming everything and being selfless, but I don't think that's the point of life at all. Awarenesses, like humans, have arisen in the universe because of the principle of self-organization. Our role is to experience, and what that experience actually is is our partition focusing the everything into a definable point thusly bringing order to chaos which allows enhanced energy flow...enhanced as in layers of order wrapped around a kernel of pure chaos as opposed to just pure chaos which is all energy going everywhere in every time.. What we call the 'universe' is really that chaos which connects all awarenesses to all other awareness (in zero time). What we see as stable physical constructs, meaning that they preserver when we aren't 'directly' observing them, are simply patterns that we transmit to ourselves and to each other through the pure transmission medium that is the true nature of the universe at large. The universe does nothing but transmit, though it is a primordial and incomprehensibly powerful 'transmitter'.

These principles sound to me like being made up after reading only the visible layer of modern science. Some quantum entanglement here, a little space contraction there... Then taking a broad view at their implications, and connecting the dots. Voilà, an elegant theory has born. It's just my intuition. I'm not trying to prove anything here.

The kitchen: Set the cooker alarm to go off in 5 minutes. Now run into the other room and wait for the sound. No photons involved. You don't have a cooker alarm? Damn. 🤔

Reminds me of a poem/riddle I wrote years ago. When the last star fades, its body decays, no longer beautifuly bright. What of its light, consumed by the night, when nothing with sight remains?

Hi Joe! What do you think of Rupert Sheldrake's study about morphogenetic fields? And do you think this is something that could fit in your channel? And Thank you for the great contents..