Glitch

The yellow structure is the Laniakea supercluster which contains about 100, 000 galaxies. The red dot in the image is the Milky Way our home which has roughly 300 billion stars.

“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Astrophysicist

Whether the universe is a giant accident, a glitch, or something else entirely is one of the oldest and deepest questions humans have ever asked. The honest answer is that science does not yet know why there is a universe at all. But what science does know is astonishing- the universe appears to operate according to remarkably consistent mathematical laws. The strength of gravity, the charge of the electron, the speed of light, and countless other properties seem finely balanced. If many of these values were even slightly different, stars, planets, chemistry, and life as we know it might never have emerged. This raises a profound thought- if the universe is an accident, it is an extraordinarily orderly one.

Some scientists and philosophers argue that the universe may indeed be the result of chance. Given enough time, enough universes, or enough cosmic possibilities, one universe was bound to have the right conditions for life. We happen to be in the one where observers can exist to ask the question. There are others who find this unsatisfying. They point out that the universe is not merely capable of producing life—it is comprehensible. The same mathematical principles describe galaxies, atoms, black holes, and the firing of neurons in the human brain. The fact that a tiny creature on a small planet can understand the motion of distant stars is itself mysterious. Then there is the idea of a glitch.

In modern language, a glitch suggests an error in a system. But a glitch compared to what? An error implies a correct version from which something deviated. To call the universe a glitch assumes there is some larger reality or framework beyond it. This is the territory of philosophy and speculation rather than science. Yet there is a beautiful possibility hidden inside the question.

What if existence itself is neither accident nor design in the way humans understand those words? Think of this-

A wave is not an accident of the ocean. It is simply what the ocean does.

A flower is not an accident of a seed. It is simply what a seed becomes under the right conditions.

Perhaps consciousness, stars, galaxies, love, grief, and healing are what the universe does when it unfolds according to its nature. From a somatic perspective, this question mirrors the way many people view trauma. A traumatized person often experiences themselves as a mistake. They ask, “What is wrong with me? Why did this happen? Am I broken?”

But healing frequently reveals something unexpected- the symptoms were not glitches. Anxiety, numbness, hypervigilance, and shutdown were intelligent adaptations of the nervous system. They were not errors. They were survival strategies. In the same way, perhaps existence is not a cosmic malfunction. Perhaps what appears chaotic from our limited perspective is part of a larger process we cannot yet see.

The universe has spent roughly 13.8 billion years turning hydrogen into stars, stars into elements, elements into planets, planets into life, and life into beings capable of wondering why they exist. That is a strange accident. An even stranger one is that the universe has produced a creature that can sit quietly and ask- “Am I looking at the universe, or is the universe looking at itself through me?”

Perhaps that question matters more than the answer.

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”- C.S. Lewis, from the book- Mere Christianity