Ken Silber discusses some recent work (by an Oregon lawyer…) that may indicate that the universe is self replicating, and that we may even have created it ourselves.

This kind of stuff is always fascinating to me, because I have a (non-scientific, so far) belief in a teleology–that the purpose of life, and particularly intelligent life, is to help the universe come to know itself. I’ve been thinking about how one might derive an ethical system based on such a belief, but not hard enough, because I haven’t made much progress. This takes the idea one step further, in which the purpose of life and sapience is to not only give the universe consciousness, but to help it reproduce as well.

Interesting.