We spend a lot of time thinking about life and the nature of being, as humans. Perhaps it's simply a byproduct of being sentient animals, perhaps—as the more spiritual among us would insist—that level of introspection is a mark that we are indeed God's deliberate creation, superior to and different than other animals.

A thought-provoking recent article on msnbc.com abridges and presents part of a new book, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by two leading scientists: biologist Robert Lanza, M.D., and astronomer Bob Berman.

The premise is a synthesis of biology, physics, astronomy, stirred together and thoroughly shaken with a healthy pinvh of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: what if Life created the universe, rather than the Universe somehow mysteriously created life? And that without life, then, there is no universe. From the article: "Some may imagine that there are two worlds, one 'out there' and a separate one inside the skull. But the 'two worlds' model is a myth. As we have seen, only one visual reality is extant; it is the one that requires consciousness in order to manifest. As Nobel physicist John Wheeler once said, 'No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.'"

Now, granted, this sounds more than a bit like that hoary old question about whether a tree falling in the forest makes any noise if there's no one around to hear it—but biocentrism suggests that the answer to that question must simultaneously be, "yes, no, maybe" and "it's complicated."