“The Universe is a manifestation of Life, not the other way around.” This is the central statement of Biocentrism. Robert Lanza, Matej Pavsic, and Bob German, a biologist, a theoretical physicist, and an astronomer respectively, combined their knowledge to craft the most recent work (Jan 2023) on Biocentrism: “The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality”.

In quantum physics, a particle only becomes real (collapses into matter) when an observer detects it. It may sound odd, but in the quantum realm, dominated by infinitely tiny particles that make up atoms, traditional laws of physics do not apply.

The quantum universe is filled with energy waves. Analogously, imagine throwing a stone into a calm lake. Waves form and expand in circles in all directions from the impact point. Each segment of these circles represents a potential state of the original particle in the universe.

Transposing this idea to the visible world, consider a person landing in a football field. Imagine a 360-degree circle around this person. In the next second, we would have 360 distinct versions of this person, all in different actions and appearances. As time goes by, these “versions” move forward, expanding the circle and generating new versions, each distinct from the existing ones, without ever having two exact copies.

Facing this scenario, what would be the “real” version? In more technical terms, there is a wave function originating from the initial particle. When a conscious observer appears, the collapse of this wave function occurs, “creating” a real particle. In other words, when observing one of the people in the field, all other “versions” disappear and only the one you saw continues to exist.

Well, the key here is the “conscious” observer. I never found anything in quantum physics books about this. But the theory that Lanza wants to prove is that a conscious observer is necessary for the particle to leave the energy state and turn into a piece of matter. For this text to work, we need to “accept” this idea, but it’s important to make clear that this is only a theory. Nothing has been proven about this yet.

If this idea seems complex, you are not alone. Even Einstein had difficulties accepting the laws of quantum physics. If it confuses you, you are in excellent company.

Now, let’s discuss Biocentrism. Some clues that led to the development of this theory include universal “coincidences”, such as the Golden Ratio, among other numbers that frequently arise in nature. Surprisingly, if these numbers were slightly different, life as we know it would be impossible.

Analyzing these and other coincidences, the theory of Biocentrism was proposed. Basically, it states that a universe without Conscious Observers would not exist. The energy waves of the quantum universe would never be incited to collapse and form matter. Without matter, there would be no Universe.

An interesting reflection to understand this is:

“Imagine a vast forest devoid of any conscious life. No animal is present, neither in the forest nor around it. Only trees and vegetation. Now, imagine that a gigantic tree is struck by lightning, its trunk explodes and falls. Would the lightning, explosion, and fall of the tree produce any sound?” And what do you think? Would there be sound in this situation?

If you answered yes, you are not alone. That is the most intuitive response. However, sound is a biological and conscious perception. The fall of the tree would generate a vast displacement of air, which would propagate for miles, possibly even affecting some branches on its way. But, without a conscious observer to recognize the vibration of the air as “sound“, sound does not exist.

The theory of Biocentrism is still in development, with the authors adding more theoretical basis and experiments every year. They seek to unify Quantum and Classical Physics to create a single set of laws that can describe both the quantum and visible worlds. The “Conscious Observer” may be the key to this connection.

According to Biocentrism, life creates the universe, because life is the Conscious Observer. Therefore, if the universe existed before life, it would remain in an infinite wave or energy and would never truly materialize.