There is a book from some years ago called the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The story is that the earth is being removed so that the space can be made for a galactic superhighway. As a part of this our hero asks for the answer to the question of the meaning of life, the quest of physicists, and is given the answer 42. This, very British humor, is that this answer is probably just as real as any other answer that we may find. To quote Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow from their recent book The Grand Design we have the following:

“According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead M-theory predicts a great many universes were created out of nothing (my emphasis). Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science. Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states at later times, that is, at times like the present, long after their creation. Most of these states will be quite unlike the universe we observe and quite unsuitable for the existence of any form of life. Only a very few would allow creatures like us to exist. Thus our presence selects out from this vast array only those universes that are compatible with our existence. Although we are puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense, lords of creation.”

It is interesting, for in the last sentence respect is grudgingly given to consciousness, indirectly. To follow logically in our present model of consciousness and reality, biological beings with finite existences would determine the outcome of infinite choices. This is patently ridiculous. In fact, the answer in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to the ultimate question is given to the protagonist, as being 42 makes just as much sense.

This model does not logically fit with M-theory. It further does not fit with Quantum Mechanics. Subatomic particles have no physical presence, except as probabilities of noted effects or expression. This is most completely expressed by Von Neumann as “Actuality is mathematically impossible.”

The quantum world is the transition from something to nothing. It provides the answer to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”. It answers the question by saying that beneath everything there is nothing.

It turns out that in order for us to fulfill the role of ‘lords of creation’, as mentioned by Stephen Hawking humans must be able to exercise consciousness. This consciousness allows us to be aware and select the universe that accommodates our being. This consciousness arguably cannot be based in biology that did not exist at the time that the physical laws, that determine the behavior of the universe, were established. This consciousness has to be in the same nothingness ‘space’, from which quantum particles arise.

Physicists will argue that, if consciousness cannot be defined and measured then we cannot speak about it in a scientific way. It may be that we cannot define it in a measurable way, but it is evident. It also logically cannot be biology based. We, therefore have to, at the very least start in that place. If we do, then, we acknowledge that the basis of consciousness as being a dependent attribute of the universe and physical law, just as Quantum Mechanics.

In fact, M-theory in showing how multiple universes arise, merely shows us how the physics of the result is created. It does not tell us how the initial multiple universe states are initiated. In fact, if we go back to quantum Mechanics, the initiation is consciousness based, with consciousness necessarily operating out of time and space.