That’s a cool idea (and it implies that we live in one of those works of art), but I prefer Dyson’s hypothesis. He guessed that a cosmic mind would be not an artist but a scientist, a knowledge-seeker. When I interviewed Dyson in 1993, he expressed confidence that the quest for knowledge would never end, because knowledge is infinite.

His optimism derived in part from Godel’s theorem, which demonstrates that every system of axioms poses questions that cannot be answered with those axioms. The theorem implies that mathematics is open-ended and hence can continue forever.

“Since we know the laws of physics are mathematical,” Dyson told me, “and we know that mathematics is an inconsistent system, it’s sort of plausible that physics will also be inconsistent” and therefore open-ended.

I have a hard time imagining the cosmic computer at the end of time—a.k.a. “God”—fussing over math or physics puzzles. My idea (admittedly drug-inspired) is that It will ponder the riddle of Its own origin. Here’s the meta-question: Will It solve that mystery of mysteries, or will It be forever stumped?