Is the universe aware of itself?
OPH proposes that reality becomes self-aware through organized parts that retain and use models of themselves. A scientific community can solve a problem no member could solve alone without becoming one additional person. Likewise, distributed thinking does not automatically imply one universe-sized subject. The essays distinguish settlement, exploration and learning: a stable pattern can be reopened by evidence, alternatives can be tried, and useful changes retained. Brains realize a rich version of that organization. Extending the same operational grammar to the underlying observer process is the common-operation hypothesis. Whether a particular whole has one experience also requires a rule selecting its experiencing unit. The proposal locates our thinking within the universe without adding a cosmic spectator behind it.
Also in Chapter 2: Why Is There Anything Rather Than Nothing?, Chapter 36: Why These Laws and Not Others?, Chapter 35: What Is Anything Made Of?, Chapter 40: Does It Feel Like Anything, and What Is Left to Decide?.
This answer comes from OPH, Observer Patch Holography. OPH is a rigorous, consistent and complete description of the unified, self-creating computational Universe we inhabit. Its consistency is machine-checked: the fixed point at its core is constructed explicitly, and a theory with a model contains no contradiction.
To understand OPH and check every step yourself, start with the free book Reverse Engineering Reality. It builds the theory from the ground up, and the OPH Notebook answers your questions while you read.
read the free bookask the notebookor ask sage:read chapter 37: Why Does the Loop Have No Beginning?watch a universe make its own particles