Intelligence cannot be present without understanding. No computer has any awareness of what it does.

Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense.

our present picture of physical reality, particularly in relation to the nature of time, is due for a grand shake up

And these little things may not seem like much but after a while they take you off on a direction where you may be a long way off from what other people have been thinking about.

I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance.

There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance. Some people take the view that the universe is simply there and it runs along-it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it, about its existence, which we have very little inkling of at the moment.

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.