Big Wow!

Phallus impudicus

Strange Things of the Universe

(Image from Wikipedia)

According to Wikipedia, the astrophysicist Paola Zizzi, Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of Padova, Italy, has a loopy theory about consciousness:

Italian astrophysicist Paola Zizzi is perhaps most notable for her work in the field of Loop quantum gravity theory that regards the early universe as a kind of quantum computer. She proposed that the universe could have achieved the threshold of computational complexity sufficient for the emergence of consciousness during the period of cosmic inflation, in a paper entitled "Emergent Consciousness: From the Early Universe to Our Mind," which has become known as the Big Wow theory.

In a small corner of this possibly conscious, quantum-computating universe occurred a perhaps not unrelated 'big wow' moment, reported by The Sun Online (Mike Sullivan and John Kay, "Docs fight to save man's willy," April 24, 2007, h/t Big Ho), during which some diners in the London restaurant 'Zizzi' were interrupted by a fellow in a deep blue mood of deflationary expansiveness:

Horrified diners watched in shock as a maniac . . . burst into the Zizzi eaterie in central London and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. He then leapt on a table and dropped his trousers as customers fled screaming. . . . Stuart McMahon, who was eating supper with his girlfriend, said: "This guy came running in then charged into the kitchen, got a massive knife and started waving it about. Everyone was screaming and running out as he jumped on a table, dropped his trousers and popped his penis out. Then he cut it off. I couldn't believe it."

Seeing is not always believing, it seems, concerning the loopy acts of the ridiculously insane. Anyway, I juxtapose these two random bits of information because both involve the name "Zizzi" and synergistically teach us a lesson about consciousness and futility:

"Futility" (1918) by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun --
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, --
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

The universe despite Paolo Zizzi, gives no indications of consciousness, aside from in such occasional detritus as human beings. As for that insane fellow in the restaurant 'Zizzi', the man's unmanned manhood was reattached under conditions of general anesthesia.

In other words, unconsciousness.