The universe and its design is often one of arbitrary horror.

He never thought he was right. The horror of all that had died under his will had become mundane to him. You see, the first horror is the horror itself. The real horror for him was accepting it as necessary.

Though denigrated by some outside academia and research, she embraced knowledge for its own sake and what better way to honor that than reveling in the intricacies of the brain? If there were any answers to the human condition, if an immortal soul made its home anywhere, it was in its spongy gray folds.

The universe has become not only conscious and aware of itself but capable in some respects of choosing its path into the future--though all three, the consciousness, the knowledge, and the choice, are dispersed over a vast crowd of beings, acting both individually and collectively.

In the words of Lynne McTaggart: "Living consciousness somehow is the influence that turns the possibility of something into something real. The most essential ingredient in creating our universe is the consciousness that observes it.

Perhaps the universe is a big fat consciousness and the matter is just an illusion.