The QED was somewhat in jest, but the point absolutely remains. By "you" I don't mean some inflated ego or personality that is the universe, or that "you" are omniscient and/or consciously omnipotent in some sort of way. I also don't claim for consciousness to be an effect of the material universe.
What we must first do is inquire into what we mean by "self" - in other words, what do we mean when we use the word "I". Some talk about the "auto-biographical self," some about the "self" as it exists in spacetime, some about the "soul," some about naked presence and awareness as such. And I'm saying we just focus on what even materialists would agree exists, the physical organism - or, the "self" as it exists in a physical nature in space right "now" (with consciousness firmly embedded..."effect" or not).
Well, most people's view of that "self" is a portrait view from about 3 meters away. Truncated from the waist up. Maybe, if they're being generous, head-to-toe. That is who "I" am. A "skin-encapsulated ego," as Alan Watts put it. Cut out from the "outside" world from the boundary of my skin. But, in actuality, on one level, you are a collection of atoms, on another a community of cells and microbiota, on another the "total" human unit (that portrait view), still farther away you are the earth/"terrestrial" (for in the same way an apple tree "apples," the earth "peoples"...and remember your interdependency with those "external" organs?), further out you are the solar system, further still galactic, and so on. In other words, what "you" say you are depends on your perspective/POV/level of magnification/range of observation. But "you" aren't any one of them, you are all of them at once. Douglas Harding draws his self-portrait as such (while accounting for the "naked presence"/zero millimeter view as well):
(can't post link, will try to when I meet forum requirements)
I recommend reading his work to fully grasp the image (and direct ways of exploring that zero millimeter view).
But, that aside, let's go back and re-examine the idea of being cut-off by a skin barrier (the materialist's favorite view). It's my contention that the skin isn't a barrier, it's a bridge. It connects inside-to-outside. And space itself doesn't separate, it connects. The earth and the sun are connected in the same way that two ends of a stick are. Think of it this way, you have a bee here, and a flower there - seemingly separate as separate can be. But you don't have bees without flowers, and you don't have flowers without bees (or some other similar pollinating organism). Bees have been referred to as the sex organs of plants. Put any way you'd like, they are one continuous organism in the same way that your head and feet - while they look different as can be - are one continuous organism (one just seems more obvious). In the same way, you are not an organism in an environment, "you" are an organismenvironment (more clearly read as organism-environment...but just as inseparable as space and time (i.e. spacetime). If you can, check out the following Alan Watts clips on YouTube:
- Alan Watts - Organism-Environment, the transactional nature
- It all goes together - Alan Watts (from user Tragedy & Hope)
- How Do You Define Yourself? (also from user Tragedy & Hope)
(sorry, I would embed/link thesm directly...along with the above picture...but I can't because I don't meet the forum requirements for new members)
The problem is, we've come to only identify ourselves with the diversity, but you are also the Unity underlying and encompassing the diversity. Saying "I'm not the universe" would be like a wave saying "I'm not the ocean." But a "wave" is the entire ocean "waving" in that particular location (in the same way a green caterpillar is the entire environment "green caterpillar-ing"...for, like "them," we are not fixed things, but flowing events...verbs, not nouns).
So, again, from a purely "physical"/materialistic standpoint - here "I" am and I am conscious - one can easily (and definitively) come to the conclusion that the entire universe is conscious. Even if we were to go into total reductionist "I am my brain and only my brain" mode, it doesn't change the broader truth. Again, I'm not making claims to orders of consciousness (might "inferior" or "superior" beings to us have a conscious experience different than us, or one that we would even recognize as conscious?)...just that because we are, it is.