The Big Wow is a theorized event believed by some to have occurred at a point early on in
cosmic evolution, perhaps shortly after the
Big Bang, wherein the developing
Universe experienced a moment of
consciousness by becoming a
quantum computer -- a state of
matter in which the theorized force of
quantum gravity forces
energy to organize itself in a way that would permit information to be stored.
Italian astrophysicist Paola Zizzi calculated in 2002 that such an event would be possible, and has proposed that the moment of cosmic consciousness marked the end of cosmic hyperinflation and the beginning of the development of the Universe that we now observe as normal -- almost as though the Universe made up its mind to go from chaotic growth to focusing on growth in a particular direction, to which it then proceeded.
The development of this theory has heartened the views of believers in
panpsychism (the idea that the Universe itself is a conscious entity), and of the religious ideas of
pantheism and
pandeism (respectively, the ideas that the Universe has always existed as, or is a transformed expression of, the
Deus -- the pantheistic/pandeistic equivalent of
God).
Sources:
Hameroff, Stuart R., and Powell, Jonathan, The conscious connection: A psycho-physical bridge between brain and
pan-experiential quantum geometry, in David Skrbina, Mind That Abides (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009), pp 124-126.
Zizzi, Paola, Consciousness and Logic in a Quantum Computing Universe, in Tuszynski, J. A., The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (Springer, 2006), pp 459-461.