Sentient Stars?

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

Originally posted by HowardRoark
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...

Originally posted by Genya

Originally posted by HowardRoark
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.

Perhaps old but a very interesting topic considering the sheer mass of stars (99.85% of our solars system's mass in in the sun), star structural complexity, the fact that they are super-magnetic and super-conductive ... and look a at some rich video of solar just surface activity of plasma and complex magnetic filiment behavior:

sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov...

sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov...

antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...

It's not hard to imgaine somthing that grosses a complexity and mass several billion orders of magnitude beyond the human brain might be sentient...

=O)

I've had the big (or one of the big?) I AM experience. I've talked about this on the radio/wrote about it in UFO Magazine, so if you're familiar it's just a retread. For everyone else, the abridged version for this thread's purposes is this:

I saw/was nothingness, which becomes self-aware and in that moment (which is this very moment--it's the NOW state) a spark of light bangs big and the universe spreads out from that spark.

(Note: I hadn't though of this before but the moment prior to the Big Bang looks a lot like, if not exactly like, cell division!)

So I'm seeing/being all of these things--rock, wind, debris, oceans, trees, blah-blah. My point-of-view is that of Spirit playing in all of its creations which are also it.

The only different quality of consciousness was that of a sun giving life to the nearest rock(s) that could take it.

Suns--stars--have an immense consciousness that makes them almost gods unto themselves. I suppose if we define gods as givers of life or forces of organic creation then they truly are that. But this particular one that I was seeing through the "eyes" of gave two scoops of raisins--no no! It had a deep, impenetrable Aloneness. It was aware of the other stars, of everything around it but it was a light unto itself literally.

Absolutely amazing.

Now if that's not drugless-acid-flashback enough for you, here's the really messed up part: I had the sense that stars are either something some of us become when we die (as per the Egyptians???) or that this sun was something I am right now. There is some aspect of me alive as that, which I don't understand.

Or maybe because it's the Now state, no time, just ISness, the discrepancy is that both look true at the same time and so I do become a star/sun in the future or have been one in the past. (I have no belief in reincarnation but it's worth throwing out there as an option.)

Anyway, there it is and because this is the case I think it's only a matter of time before science proves this out.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
It's not hard to imgaine somthing that grosses a complexity and mass several billion orders of magnitude beyond the human brain might be sentient...

I think it's too hard to imagine. Patterns of acidophilus bacteria in the cup of yogurt that sits on my table are quite complex, and so is the biochemistry of that's going on there, and yet it's silly to the extreme to suggest that I'm staring at a sentient being. Medieval thinking.

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

Could be mate.

I first heard this on a guardian angel documentary, but well said for bringing this up dude.

One of the guys ( A scientist no less!) did seriously speculate this on the documentary.
He went on to suggest that if a star was able to identify and ascertain organic lie it could deliberatly send out healing energy and assistance to those that need it / ask for its help. Afterall, the sun (which is a star) already gives off heat to keep us all warm.
I know it sounds crazy.
But it made some crazy kind of sense.
Look at the galaxy we live in.
At the center there is an unbelievable amount of stars. Maybe one Super star at the center.
Could this be a heaven like realm possibly??
It does seem to have a connection somehow...

[edit on 29-9-2008 by WatchRider]

I think it's too hard to imagine. Patterns of acidophilus bacteria in the cup of yogurt that sits on my table are quite complex, and so is the biochemistry of that's going on there, and yet it's silly to the extreme to suggest that I'm staring at a sentient being. Medieval thinking.

That would be a very weak and unscientific analogy; the complexity of bacteria in a cup of yogurt (all strains inclusive) doesn't offer even a humanly conceivable fraction of the complexity of a star like our sun -- even if the comparison were scaled to quantum deravitaves; add to this the fact that the mass of the earth to the sun is over 332,000:1 which adds enormous volume to solar complexity as well -- many billions of orders of magnitude over your cup of yogurt (all properties inclusive).

To suggest that it's possible that organized colonies of bacteria might be sentient, no less stars -- is the farthest thing from 'Medieval thinking'; suggesting it's impossible on an existential whim offers a much better example of Medieval ignorance. To suggest or hypothesize about the possible is the spark of scientific inquiry, and leaves room for doubt -- limited context thinking, over generalizing, totalizing and sophomoric insults like 'silly' presented as arguments are the stuff Dark Ages ignorance and the Flat Earth Society...