The Universe Is Like An Algorithm

The universe is like an algorithm. However, this idea anthropomorphizes the universe because it suggests that the entity, which we consider to be all-encompassing and cosmic, actively perceives each and every one of us.

The universe being “like an algorithm” merely compares itself, in simile form, to a form of data collection which studies inputs and outputs to discover processes. To be clear: the universe is not an algorithm; it is like one. We can observe that our routines create patterns around us, and those patterns almost temporarily blind us from seeing alternative outcomes or realities, other than the ones we want. Fairy tales have taught us that seeing is not believing, and if we will it, we can have it. But, alas, first came Buddha who said, “Desire is the root for all suffering.” What was being referenced was immortality, pleasure, and material goods. We also have Taoist teachings about acceptance–and how we should be more like nature, accept our fates and our lives, to not aspire to aspire, and simply wait for aspiration to reach you. Then your spirit will live eternally. My tone might sound nefarious or judgmental; however, I intend only to be extreme.

I often wonder about what it means to be present. I question how much time must be spent in the present to be at peace. The stories we tell are part of the past. Even as we create stories, they become memories. Therefore, the more effort we put into remaining planted to the Earth, having wanderless thoughts, in control, there are no more sounds left to sing. Inspiration and complacency, or rather, acceptance, somehow live within the same idea. The algorithm which we call a routine becomes first nature where two things occur: panic or indifference. There is a possible third outcome, but it is much more complex in that it requires the individual to actively pursue a life that attempts to achieve enlightenment. The more we wait for the aspiration and inspiration and peace to reach us, the more we are distracted by the novelty in which we live: reality. We have nowhere else to turn but to the signs and symbols we rely on and “receive” from the universe. Unique to us. It sounds so bleak when considering how hopeless we can be, so we search for a reason behind what matters to us so as to avoid suffering.

For example, one day, a newly discovered song might make its way into our library and thus suddenly play everywhere henceforth. At the grocery store, in cafes, at the bank, the clubs and bars, at the truck stop, and on aisle 7 of the craft store. What came first? Our awareness of the song, or the song's existence before it came into our perspective? Had the song been playing all along and we had just never noticed it? Like an algorithm, the universe reads the personal data that we put into it, which later becomes the words we speak and manifest. We are fed ads and signals from the universe that serve as our definitive responses to the spirit of the Earth.

But the signs are always there; we just do not have the capacity to see them because we do not need them yet. Did our awareness precede the song's existence, or did the song persist, a hidden melody until unveiled by our perception?Sometimes the things we need most are there all along, but because we are looking in the wrong direction, we are blind to an alternate reality that might suit us. Sometimes we do pick up the signs but do not understand the words… yet.

If rest is what you need, what you desire most, and for the first time in your years of existing, you find a deck of affirmation cards that emphasize how to live an anti-capitalist lifestyle, what would you do? This deck of cards reminds the reader that they have the right to rest and feel unabashed by doing so. We assign meaning to whatever it is that we find most convenient. Flip the script any which way, and we can locate the precise moment in time something was “meant” for us. But can we really? A cigar is sometimes just a cigar, and that is what we gather from it. Maybe that is the lesson. On this rock which feels so vast and unafraid to be, to die, to exist. A tree does not look at its neighbor to ask them, “Why are we here?” “Why, brother, do our roots twist together to support each other. Is that love brother?” Life is nothing but the intangible becoming tangible, being made handleable. But everything dissipates, fades, dies, becomes dark matter within the chasm of the galaxy. So why then do we know so much? How can we be so sure? So right. We mistake how much we feel for what it is that is truth and fact. We are not our thoughts or feelings. We control them, even the ones that are uncomfortable. We are not our bodies.

We are not our soul but a soul existing within, existing within, existing within our minds within our bodies, within our thoughts, feelings, words, names, clothes, houses, world, city, culture, solar system, galaxy, universe, all folding in on each other like a house of cards, and we are… What are we left with when nothing is left? When everything goes back to the way it once was–nothing. Star dust? A single-celled organism floating in space until we start again.

And what it was is what continues to be: life and death over and over again. Until we use up all of the sun's energy, in epochs, eons, we humans might not even see it occur. And what then? What next?