The Universe Within the Human Body: between quantumphysics and meditation

Nada Amine Awar

Human beings have always looked beyond themselves. They look at the sky and wonder how planets did they invade, and whether one day they might do it and invade Mars to build up a new life . People want to live on Mars despite its extreme hostility because it represents an insurance policy for humanity and holds the ultimate raw materials to build a self-sustaining civilization from scratch. They do not realise that there is a universe in the human body.
Inside every one of us is an extraordinarily complex world made of cells, molecules, atoms, and energy. Our bodies constantly build, repair, communicate, adapt, and maintain themselves. We are living systems made from countless smaller systems.This raises a remarkable idea: perhaps the exploration of the universe should not only be a journey outward, but also a journey inward.
The human body is made of an enormous number of cells. Each cell has its own function, yet no cell exists completely alone. Cells communicate, exchange materials, produce energy, repair damage, and respond to their environment. A human being is therefore more than a collection of separate cells. We are a living system in which countless parts interact. No individual cell needs to understand the entire human being. Yet through billions of interactions, a functioning organism emerges. We often call this harmony.
What happens when the harmony of the body breaks down-and how can we restore it?
The same idea can help us understand our planet. Earth contains plants, animals, microorganisms, oceans, rivers, soil, air, and human societies. These components constantly interact. Plants depend on sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, soil nutrients, and other organisms. Animals depend on plants and other animals. Humans depend on water, food, oxygen, soil, ecosystems, and countless organisms that we may never notice. Earth is not one giant organism in the scientific sense. But it is a complex interconnected system.
When we damage one part of an ecosystem, the effects can spread to other parts. The human body and the Earth are not the same thing, but both teach us a valuable principle:
Life exists through relationships between many parts.
To understand both the human body and the universe, science has had to explore scales that are far beyond ordinary human experience. At one extreme are galaxies and stars. At the other are molecules, atoms, electrons, and even smaller particles. This brings us to quantum physics.
Everything around us is made from matter and energy. A tree, a human body, the Earth, and the stars are ultimately connected to atoms and smaller particles. When scientists began studying atoms, electrons, and particles of light called photons, they discovered something extraordinary:
The very small world does not always behave like the world we experience every day.
This is the world of quantum physics.
At the quantum level, energy can be exchanged in discrete amounts called quanta. Electrons in atoms can occupy certain allowed energy states. They cannot simply take any energy value. Scientists also discovered that electrons and photons can display both particle-like and wave-like behaviour, depending on how they are measured. And quantum physics describes many outcomes using probabilities. A quantum system is represented mathematically by a wave function that allows scientists to calculate the probabilities of different measurement results. This does not simply mean that scientists are ignorant of what is happening. Quantum theory itself tells us that certain outcomes can only be predicted probabilistically.
Schrödinger's Cat
One of the most famous ways of illustrating the strange nature of quantum physics is Schrödinger's cat. Imagine a cat inside a closed box connected to a quantum event with two possible outcomes. Schrödinger imagined what would happen if the quantum description were extended to the entire system. The result seems absurd: the mathematical description could involve a combination of possibilities associated with the cat being alive and dead.
But Schrödinger was not saying that real cats literally exist half alive and half dead. The thought experiment was created to expose a deep question about how the quantum world connects with the ordinary world we experience. Quantum physics is also sometimes interpreted as proving that human consciousness creates reality simply by looking at something. That is not an established scientific conclusion.
In quantum physics, measurement involves a physical interaction that produces an observable result. Different interpretations of quantum mechanics continue to debate the deeper meaning of measurement. So quantum physics should not be presented as proof that our minds create the universe. Another extraordinary phenomenon is quantum entanglement. Two quantum systems can become correlated in ways that cannot be explained by treating them as completely independent classical objects. Experiments have repeatedly demonstrated quantum entanglement. Einstein famously found this deeply puzzling and referred to it as "spooky action at a distance." But entanglement does not allow us to send usable information faster than light.
Quantum physics may sound like something that belongs only inside laboratories, but it has become part of modern technology. Our understanding of quantum behaviour contributes to technologies such as lasers, semiconductor electronics, atomic clocks, medical imaging technologies, highly sensitive sensors, solar cells, and emerging quantum computers and communication systems. There is a remarkable connection here:
By studying the smallest parts of nature, humanity has developed tools that help us explore much larger worlds.
The atoms in our bodies obey quantum laws. Those atoms form molecules. Molecules form cells. Cells form tissues and organs. Organs form a human being. This does not mean that a human being can be explained by quantum physics alone. Different levels of nature require different scientific concepts. But the levels are physically connected. To understand the great universe outside us, we sometimes have to begin by understanding the incredibly small world within us. Then we look toward the sky.
Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun is part of a galaxy containing enormous numbers of stars. Beyond our galaxy are countless other galaxies. Stars, planets, and galaxies do not consciously cooperate like cells in a body. Their behaviour is governed by physical laws such as gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics. Stable systems can exist when physical conditions and forces allow them to persist. Science therefore connects the incredibly small with the incredibly large. And human beings stand between these scales: made from microscopic structures while living on a planet within a vast cosmos.
Human curiosity has taken us beyond Earth. We send spacecraft into space, study other planets, and imagine future human settlements on Mars. A person living on Mars would face questions that seem simple but are fundamental:
Where will the oxygen come from?
How will we obtain water?
How will we grow food?
How will we protect ourselves from radiation?
How will we communicate with Earth?
On Mars, things that we normally take for granted would become precious. A breath of oxygen would no longer be something invisible and ordinary. Water would become a treasure. A small green plant would represent food, oxygen, life, and a connection to Earth. Imagine standing on Mars and looking back at Earth as a small object in the sky. You might suddenly see our planet differently. The oceans, forests, rivers, soil, animals, and billions of human beings would all exist on one small planet. Things we normally treat as separate-air, water, soil, plants, animals, and humans-would become visibly connected.
Space exploration can therefore give us a new perspective on our home. We may travel farther from Earth and, paradoxically, understand its value more deeply. There is another journey we can make. The scientist looks outward and asks:
What is this? How does it work? What evidence can we collect? Can we test it?
The meditator looks inward and asks:
What does it mean to be alive? What am I experiencing? How am I connected to the world around me? How should I live?
These are different methods of inquiry. Science depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and evidence. While meditation involves attention, contemplation, and direct experience. One does not replace the other. Meditation does not prove quantum physics, and quantum physics does not prove meditation.
But both can begin with the same human quality:
wonder.
From the Body to the Universe-and Back Again
Perhaps our journey should move in both directions. We can look outward toward planets, stars, and galaxies. We can look inward toward cells, DNA, organs, the brain, and the microscopic processes that keep us alive. The human body itself is an extraordinary field of exploration. We still have much to learn about why diseases develop, why cells sometimes malfunction, how the immune system responds, why some tissues repair themselves while others do not, and how diseases can be prevented and treated more effectively.
If humanity can send machines across millions or billions of kilometres to study distant worlds, it can also continue investing in the scientific exploration of the human body. The two journeys do not have to compete. We can explore Mars while exploring ourselves. We can study distant galaxies while studying the smallest processes inside our cells. We can look outward and inward at the same time.
This brings us to an ancient idea that can also be understood through the language of science:
"From dust we were created, and to dust we return."
Scientifically, the human body is made of elements such as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and many others. These elements come through the natural world. Plants take minerals and water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Humans obtain them through food, water, and the air we breathe. Our bodies are therefore built from materials that already existed in nature. When a person dies, the biological processes that maintain the body stop. Over time, microorganisms, fungi, insects, water, and chemical processes break down the body's tissues. The molecules and elements that once formed the body return to the environment. Carbon can return to the soil or atmosphere. Nitrogen can become part of the soil. Calcium and phosphorus can return to minerals. Water returns to the water cycle. The materials are not simply erased. They become part of continuing natural cycles. In a simplified form:
Earth → plants → food → human body → decomposition → Earth → new life.
And the story goes even deeper.
Many of the heavier elements found in our bodies were produced through processes involving ancient stars. So, scientifically, we are connected to Earth-and Earth itself is connected to the history of the cosmos. We are made from matter that has travelled through an extraordinary cosmic history. This is why the expression "children of the universe" can be understood as a beautiful idea that reminds us of our physical history. The atoms in our bodies did not begin with us. The elements were formed through cosmic processes, became part of planets and living systems, and eventually became part of us.
We are temporary living arrangements of ancient matter. We are made from Earth. Earth is part of the solar system. The solar system is part of the galaxy. And the galaxy is part of the vast universe.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of this journey is not simply how far humanity can travel. It is what we learn when we return our attention to ourselves. We spend enormous resources trying to understand distant planets, stars, galaxies, and the origins of the universe. But the human body is also an extraordinary world waiting to be understood. Why do diseases appear? Why do cells become damaged? Why does the immune system sometimes fail to protect us-or sometimes attack the body's own tissues? Why do some diseases remain difficult to cure? How can we prevent disease? How can we repair damaged tissues? How can we develop better treatments? How can we help people live healthier and longer lives? These questions are another form of exploration.
Humanity may one day walk on Mars. We may discover new planets, observe distant galaxies, and learn more about the beginning of the universe. But wherever we travel, we carry something with us:
the matter of Earth, the history of life, and the ancient elements of the cosmos.
We are not separate from nature. We are part of it. We are not separate from the universe. We are made from it. And when our lives end, the matter that formed our bodies returns to the natural cycles from which it came. So perhaps the greatest exploration is not only the journey outward to the stars. It is also the journey inward-to understand the cells that make us, the body that carries us, the mind that questions, and the life that connects us to everything around us.
Humanity will continue to explore the universe. But perhaps we should also ask ourselves whether some of the enormous scientific resources we devote to exploring distant worlds could be matched by an equally determined effort to explore the human body.
What if we devoted far more of our scientific resources to understanding why we become sick, how diseases begin, why cells fail, how the body can repair itself, and how we can heal?
This does not have to mean choosing medicine instead of space exploration. The two fields can advance together, and discoveries in one can sometimes contribute to the other. But the question remains important:
If we can travel millions or billions of kilometres to understand worlds far away, how deeply are we willing to explore the world within ourselves?
The universe outside us is enormous. The universe within us is extraordinarily complex. Perhaps humanity's greatest achievement will be to explore both.
To look outward toward the stars.
To look inward toward the cells.
To understand the universe around us.
To understand the life within us.
And ultimately:
to explore the universe outside us while learning how to protect, repair, and heal the universe within us.
Because we are, in the deepest physical sense, children of the universe-made from ancient matter, born from Earth, and given the extraordinary ability to look back at the cosmos and ask:
Who are we, where did we come from, and how can we better protect the life we have been given?
And the final questions come:
If the money spent to invade space is used to study the human body?
If the money spent to invade space is used to study how to protect the human body from disease?
If the money spent to invade space is used in medical researches?
If and if and if ... here you can ask any question you might like to ask .... And you will surely find the answer by yourself.