One of the best summaries I’ve read on quantum mechanics, was written by Nobel Prize winner, John Archibald Wheeler, in which he noted that “we live in a participatory universe”. In this line of thinking, physics gives rise to the participation of the observer .. and the participation of the observer results in information .. as in, the participation of the observer creates new ingredients in the universe, which contribute to forming the universe, as in, contributes to the continual evolution of the universe.

This means that the observer is a participant, just by his/her mere existence …. the cat, in Schrodinger’s famous mental conception, is alive or dead, not independent of the observer, as many physicists have discussed. Rather the observer’s observing is itself a factor in the making of the result. The observer participates, whether or not he/she realises that he/she participates.

This agrees with Niels Bohr‘s suggestion to his students, at the end of a life-time of thinking about our quantum physics, that Man is inside the equation, simply by being there. Man is “entangled” in this “participatory universe”.

And so, it follows, as Wheeler asserted, that the “laws” of the functioning of the Universe (physics) make man’s participation in the flow of events – as in, in the observable material reality – a given.

If indeed our participation in the flow of events is a factor in the formation of the universe, then it follows, that that participation – our participation – is a form of creation. That is, our actions – and actually our thoughts – are information that add to the world (to the observable universe).

This is both: old and new. Old in that this line of thinking is inherent in any serious understanding of quantum mechanics. It is also old in that physicists, including Wheeler and Bohr, sought, early on, to extend their views beyond the realm of mathematics (the language of physics) to philosophy, and perhaps more importantly, to psychology (the understanding of the inner life of – and, in – Man).

For many thinkers, it is not a coincidence that the laws of quantum mechanics seem to appear, most clearly, at the minutest of scales, particularly inside the atom. And so, in this understanding, our thinking is an active participant in the creation of the observable reality in the Universe - and we actually have no choice regarding that participation. It happens by our mere existence, whether or not we understand that reality.

This line of thinking is new (at least, outside the domains of some schools of philosophy), in that, it gives a, literally, cosmic aspect to human thinking, actions, and will. Yet, those who study old civilisations and the true ideas behind ancient conceptions of the Divine, would say, that: this line of thinking, this understanding, is actually very old - indeed is as old as man began to understand the true meaning and purpose of his reality.