On Bubble Consciousness, Cosmology, Culture
A playful thought experiment.
This essay was inspired by a note I saw over the weekend, and I sense it will be just the first in a series of essays experimenting with conceptions of various forms of consciousness.
Next up, probably Glacier Consciousness, as I am connecting with Glaciers a lot lately as the Interim Executive Director of Glacier Nation. I invite you to connect with Glaciers, and us, today at noon eastern as we participate in the official launch of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.
Join our mailing list here and join us live here.
If you like or get something out of this essay, I warmly welcome you to “heart“ it below and/or restack it on notes so that others can play with this experiment. And, of course, the best way to support me is with a paid subscription.
Eleven years ago, on the balcony of my college dorm, I sat with my then-boyfriend in a moment of playful creativity, blowing bubbles into the warm Florida air. The bubbles, party favors from a joyful gathering the night before, drifted through the golden light of sunset, over the quiet campus road, over palm trees and students’ heads, drifting until they found a surface to land on, and in landing, popped.
Their delicate forms caught the spectrum of color and shimmered like tiny universes, alive in their brief, glistening existence.
As we blew those bubbles, we began a little thought experiment that has stayed with me ever since: if bubbles were conscious, just for the fleeting span of their lives, what would their consciousness be like?
Would their understanding of time and existence be akin to ours, or would it be something entirely different— each fraction of a second extended, alive with meaning? Might they know, with exquisite precision, the aerodynamics of their arcs, the temperature gradients of the air, the subtlest textures of the surfaces they touched? Surely, they would be masters of hydrodynamics and the mysteries of light, each glimmer on their surface telling a story that we, bound by our more cumbersome bodies, could barely begin to comprehend.
Bubble Cultures
This playful inquiry opened up a realm of imagination where bubbles in different settings became unique societies, shaped by the environments in which they formed.
Seafoam bubbles, caught in the endless ebb and flow of ocean tides, might live in a culture of perpetual renewal, their collective dance a hymn to the sea. Perhaps their existence is one of communal resilience, constantly forming and dissolving as part of the great cycles of water and life.
Hot spring bubbles, rising from geothermal vents, might be visionaries of temperature and pressure, their brief ascents marked by wonder. Could their culture celebrate the sharp transition from the depths of the Earth to the open air, embodying the transformative power of heat and release?
Festival bubbles, sent aloft by oversized wands at outdoor gatherings, might embody a communal joy, their enormous, wobbling forms a reminder of shared wonder. These bubbles could see themselves as performers, drawing gasps and cheers as they rise, fold, and dissolve into the crowd.
Rain-soaked earth bubbles, forming in the pores of wet soil after a heavy storm, might live in a world of stillness and grounding, connected to the microbial teeming of the earth. These bubbles could be seen as messengers between the water and the soil, helping nutrients and life cycles move through the ground.
Dishwater bubbles, congregating in playful clusters in the sink, might have a society of companionship and imperfection, their surfaces smudged with traces of meals and laughter. They could celebrate the small acts of care and connection that occur in the everyday rhythms of life.
Deep-sea methane bubbles, rising slowly from the ocean floor, might live in a world of dark mystery, navigating currents in near silence. Their culture might reflect the vastness of the deep, a quiet persistence in a hidden world shaped by ancient chemosynthetic processes.
Playground bubbles, blown from small wands by eager, sticky fingers, carry the squeals of children as they chase after them. Their culture might be one of exuberance and freedom, living fully in the moment as they dart and swirl, bursting with delight and possibility.
And then there are the ancient bubbles held in glaciers. These are elders of the bubble cosmology, carrying the breath of our ancestors on this earth. Their lives, suspended until the moment that that part of the glacier melts, bridge time and earth-memory in ways that we are going to understand more and more in the years to come.
As we played with these questions, I connected more deeply with some of the buddhist cosmology I was studying at the time, and began to explore a kind of bubble cosmology, imagining worlds not just in the surface of each sphere, but in their interconnections and nested systems.
Bubble Cosmology
What if we take a bubble as a symbol of an entire cosmos? Each sphere a self-contained universe, floating within a greater expanse. Some bubbles might drift in isolation, untouched by others, while some press together, their boundaries shifting and merging, creating entirely new worlds. Still others might nest within larger bubbles, like fractals or nested systems, each one both part of and apart from the whole.
This simple image mirrors so much of what we know about the universe, both from Buddhist cosmology and modern multiverse theories. In Buddhist thought, there are countless world-systems (lokadhātus), realms stacked and interwoven, each governed by its own laws yet deeply interconnected. It’s a vision of reality that feels much like clusters of bubbles, their proximity and interactions shaping their form and substance.
Modern physics offers a similar image in the multiverse: the idea that our universe is just one among many, each with its own physical laws. In this framework, the delicate surface of a bubble might represent the boundary of one universe, and the places where bubbles touch might symbolize moments of interaction—portals or exchanges of energy between realms.
The nested systems of bubbles—the way one bubble can form within another—echo not only these cosmologies but also the natural fractal patterns we see throughout life. Ecosystems within ecosystems. Worlds within worlds.
Bubble Consciousness
This thought experiment could simply be a whimsical way to spend a Sunday, but it’s stayed with me for more than a decade now. Why? Because it’s a way to expand our consciousness, to step into the realms of wonder and curiosity that bubbles so effortlessly evoke.
When we hold the fragility of a bubble’s life in our minds, it becomes a meditation on time, relativity, impermanence, spherical consciousness. How do we experience time? How attuned are we to the subtle forces around us? What might we learn by paying closer attention to the worlds within worlds that surround us every day?
I invite you to take this thought experiment into your life. Find a moment to play with bubbles—alone, with children, with friends, or even in quiet contemplation. Blow them into the air or observe them forming on seafoam, in a sink, or rising from a glass of sparkling water. Wonder about their lives, their perceptions, their relationships. What stories do they tell you? What insights do they spark?
If you feel inspired, I’d love for you to share what you discover.
