Sentient Stars?

Consider this, maybe stars are sentient beings. Humans are merely a fungus on the eggshell.

I *think* Frank Herbert (Dune) had some thoghts about this, in "Whipping Star", but haven't read this in 30-odd years, so might be wrong (and not for the first time, let me add!! )

Will have to have a look and see...

Thanks. I couldn’t remember where I read that before. I remembered Herbert’s “Songs of a Sentient Flute,” But I couldn’t remember the name of the sentient star story.

None the less it is an interesting concept.

Or how about this

People are just the means by which Viral civilizations flourish.

what is the information which lead you to the question, are stars sentient? I think there was a Star Trek: TNG episode which touched on that, but never explained where the idea originated or why, either.

I was just reading some of the other threads about stars and I kind of remembered the Herbert story, so I just thought that I would throw the concept out there.

There are several keys to this. One is: how do we define intelligence, or sentience?

“I think, therefore I am?”

A virus is alive, but does a virus think?

A computer can be programmed to “think,” but is it alive?

We input data, process it and output it back again.

A star is a massive system of atomic matter. Are there patterns, flows or processes within that system that are functionally equivalent to processes of intelligence as we define them?

For that matter, are there processes in the solar system that can be defined as intelligent? Keep in mind that we are talking about billions of years and “billions and billions” of miles. This may just be the equivalent of a mayfly trying to read Kant.