The Thinking Universe

There are billions—yes, billions—of galaxies in our universe.

Each galaxy contains billions of stars.

That’s not poetic exaggeration; it’s a statistical truth. And yet, despite this unfathomable scale, we have no evidence of life beyond our small, pale-blue world. No voices answering back. No signals, no signs. Just silence.

It’s staggering to consider the possibility that we might be alone. Not just as a species, but as the only thinking beings in the entire cosmos.

If that were true, our significance would be beyond comprehension. We wouldn’t just be inhabitants of the universe. We would be its only observers, its only storytellers. The ones who assign meaning to what otherwise just is.

But here's the catch: that "meaning" is a human invention. It's how our minds interpret existence. Meaning, purpose, significance—these are terms born of consciousness. If we’re the only species to think in these ways, then yes, we are the ones giving the universe a mirror.

Yet we must also be careful. Just because we define meaning in our terms doesn’t mean it's the only way to perceive it. There may be other modes of awareness—unknown, invisible, or simply beyond our comprehension. Even on Earth, we coexist with other forms of life whose ways of relating to existence are entirely different from ours. Who’s to say they don’t experience something akin to meaning, in forms that language can’t grasp?

Whether we’re the only thinking species or not, one thing remains clear: the act of contemplating the universe may be the closest thing to touching its essence. And in that contemplation, maybe we do become something more. Perhaps not the center of it all, but a brief flicker of awareness in an otherwise indifferent vastness.

The universe is something that at once amazes and terrifies me for its vastness and the impossibility of comprehending it. The only thing I can do is use it as inspiration to write music. My latest EP was partly inspired by all of this. It´s called From a Secret Land and you can listen to it here.

Have a nice day,

Claudio.