Boom! Creak! Splash! Crash! Those are the sounds of my brain reading this book. Deepak Chopra and computational physicist Menas Kafatos have written a book that aims to "not to put just another popular science book in the reader's hands. We have an agenda, which is to show that this is a participatory universe that depends upon its very existence on human beings."

That's a big claim. For two authors trained in science, their conclusions are far from scientific. But they are upfront about that from the beginning. Science, they point out, has found many answers to questions about our world. But on the big, important, metaphysical questions, science is coming up short because of the very methods that have served us so well over the past four centuries. Since science is based on observation and thus far answers to these questions are unobservable, maybe it is time to move on, they suggest, to other ways of viewing reality itself.

They examine eight mysteries: What came before the big bang? Why does the universe fit together so perfectly? Where did time come from? What is the universe made of? Is there design in the universe? Is the quantum world linked to everyday life? Do we live in a conscious universe? And finally, how did life first begin?

Do they answer these questions and meet the agenda they set out in the Preface? That depends, I suppose upon your own consciousness. I do not pretend to understand all the science in this book. But I gathered enough to know that we really don't understand a lot of things from dark energy to from whence our thoughts spring. The information I picked up in this book was astounding. Overall, I believe they made a good case for the need for a new scientific paradigm. The view of randomness is nearing its useful end, it is breaking down and failing to explain reality with any satisfaction.

I am a bit more hesitant to hang view of reality on their assertion that consciousness depends on humans. Our consciousness depends on humans, but if humans were wiped off the face of Earth and there were no other human beings in the cosmos, I think the universe would still be here. We may have a piece of cosmic consciousness, but is a very small picture of the whole. I don't believe in a human-centric universe but that the universe itself is conscious--that is an idea I can support. If for nothing else, I give this book five stars for entertainment. ( )

You Are the Universe is very interesting book. It views people as mini-universes living in a macro-cosmos. Deepak Chopra delineated the underlying implications so that individuals could better understand themselves as minuscule specks in the Universe. This book won’t be always understandable for readers who don't have a background in basic science. ( )