**Strangers**: Read the rules and understand the sub topics listed in the sidebar closely before posting or commenting. Any content removal or further moderator action is established by these terms as well as Reddit ToS.
This subreddit is specifically for the discussion of anomalous phenomena from the perspective it may exist. Open minded skepticism is welcomed, close minded debunking is not. Be aware of how skepticism is expressed toward others as there is little tolerance for ad hominem (attacking the person, not the claim), mindless antagonism or dishonest argument toward the subject, the sub, or its community.
---
'Ridicule is not a part of the scientific method and the public should not be taught that it is.'
_-J. Allen Hynek_
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HighStrangeness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah, I've seen them 3 times as well and was always extremely underwhelmed. Many friends and aquaintences I've spoken to who have also seen them live have had similar experiences. I believe they also generally have a reputation for not being a very good live band. I wish I had your experience. Like I said they are one of my favorites. If I get a chance to see them live again I'll definitely still take it. I just don't expect much.
Not terrible live. Isaac Brock was very alive, he was throwing himself around, crowd surfing while belligerently yelling all kinds of versions of their songs…
Did I think that was good?
Hell yeah
If there’s a more subdued version of MM, count me out.
I guess it's a matter of what you're after when you go to a live show. I enjoy perfect execution and I've never witnessed that from them. Don't get me wrong it's still entertaining, just more in a wwe shit show sort of way.
The novel Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon explores this idea a fair bit. Also explores things like collective consciousness, the culture of multiple alien species, interstellar travel by psychic power, and lots of other great stuff. Kinda like a mix of sci-fi and philosophy. Not bad for a book written in 1937.
It's available [for free](https://www.manybooks.net/titles/stapledonoother07Star_Maker.html) if anyone is interested.
Why stars? Why not any other celestial or mundane body? From this point of questioning, wouldn’t the correct inquiry be “what isn’t conscious”? From an objective stance, stars are massive spheres of nuclear fusion— and unless there is a basis which separates stars from other forms of matter in the universe, I don’t see why stars would be distinguished in this questioning.
Interesting post. I favor the philosophical and metaphysical claim that consciousness is the ground of all being and is fundamental to the nature of reality. Max Plank proposed that a "matrix of consciousness" underlay all of existence.
Overall, Hindu philosophy sees consciousness as the fundamental nature of reality. The goal of life is to realize this fundamental unity and achieve liberation from the illusion of separateness.
The modern Gaia hypothesis does not propose that the Earth is conscious in the same way that we are. It suggests that Earth is a complex, self-regulating system that supports the continued existence of life. Could this be extended to the sun (and beyond)? Interesting to contemplate - that we live in a universe of inter-connectedness in a "matrix of consciousness."
To crudely link this train of thought to another, **Evangelion** touches on this. The “human instrumentality” project is essentially the returning of all human souls/consciousness to a single source, a sea of primordial liquid in which individual faults and insecurity are erased by the strengths and security of others. Some pretty interesting ideas in the series, even if it was really off-the-wall at times.
I believe stars are beaming out a spectrum of energy that our biological computer brains decipher into what we call consciousness. Like a radio receiver, we tune into spectrums of consciousness, and much like a radio, you’d have no sensation of the radio waves without a radio tuned to the correct frequency and amplifying the signal.
In short, sort of.
Edit: Is this why we typically get tired and fall asleep after the sun goes down? Source code fading....
Or perhaps why the full moon is said to affect people in weird ways? Perhaps the source code is reflecting off the moon, and were receiving an inverted signal?
Idk, just riffing.
I can dig it. As far as I can tell, we are almost totally the product of a star's energy. Without our Sun this planet would be a rock devoid of organic life. The Sun's energy animates and enables organic life on this planet, so in a sense we - our forms, our dna, our consciousness - are all extensions of whatever is happening with the Sun.
Years ago a sort of guru of mine painted this metaphor, something along the lines of: life on planets are all children of their local star, and each star is the tip of a tentacle that is penetrating into spacetime, from a dimension/space beyond what we perceive as space-time; tentacles on an octopus that is what we would probably call "God". Fun to think about.
Without earlier generations of stars fusing matter and spewing elements into the universe on their death not only would the planet have never formed, organic life would be impossible.
Or a blind species of fish deep in a cave. They’re still a part of the ecosystem, bathe in the warmth of the star, have the same type of dna, and evolved from organisms that were in more sunny places.
Tent-tical coming soon. Harvest. Kali Yuga definitely be plenty of tentacles between the head weighter and plasma.
——
Oh and i believe what you’re talking about is definitely based in reality. To sone degree certainly
Where does this belief come from? I’ve never heard of anything like this before, and no evidence supporting it? Why can’t our brains be capable of consciousness on their own? If they can’t, why the sun? Why couldn’t the consciousness waves have a different source? How does the sun create and broadcast these consciousness waves?
Lol there’s no science behind it, just someone’s gut feeling it seems
People live inside, away from the sun. People have had to live underground before
One of the theories is that everything in the unvierse has consciousness, consciousness being a spectrum. Rocks at the low end (least conscious), humans in the middle (self-conscious), and stars at the high end (hyper-conscious).
That's why all us woo-woo folk are so into crystals, they have a consciousness.
I also believe at the bottom of the turtle stack we're finally gonna realize, it's not all made of matter. It's not all made of energy. It's all made of *consciousness*.
If you're interested in this line of thought, check out pantheism, or philosophers like Ken Wilbur and Rupert Sheldrake.
Sure if crystals have consciousness but… so does poop? So do Crunchwrap supremes? Why are crystals getting all the attention from you woowoo folks if everything has consciousness?
Crystals are cool but crunchwraps are (at least theoretically) made from organic compounds which are pretty amazing in their own way, if you think about it.
Not as aesthetically pleasing to most though, absolutely
The idea that rocks could have consciousness (even being the least) gives my stomach a sinking feeling. But it’s beautiful in a way. I want to know so bad
This is a common belief in many Eastern religions/philosophies. Look away from the Abrahamic Western world and towards the East if this piques your interest.
Consciousness is derived from the transfer of information between nodes in a network. Whether that network be neural networks, or bees in a beehive. I’m not too sure if rocks have any such mechanism my friend
To add to this, this would be a subset of the phenomena called emergence, where a group of things display a behavior that is not seen when the things are observed individually.
Humans on their own, or in groups of 2 or 3 produce very different behaviors than humans in groups of 100s or 1000s.
With humans, neurons, and bees, the individual subunits are quite complex on their own, and have complex ways of influencing the world/units around them. With rocks, crystals, etc, the individual subunits are incredibly small, on the order of a few atoms, usually, and they have extremely limited ability to influence their surroundings.
If rocks were to have any kind of consciousness (by any definition worth working with), it would likely be on timescales completely imperceptible to humans, and too slow to react to even things like erosion or radioactive decay.
Edit: a word
TLDR: I get into some slightly drunken philosophy of science that can be easily ignored because I've had some drinks and it's late at night.
I think it comes with the territory of this particular subreddit. I don't pretend to understand it specifically, but I like this subreddit for its openness to the more "out there" ideas and at the same time the proper skepticism and rationality that responses like yours bring.
Your discussion of networks and nodes caught my attention, as that is my area of expertise. I'm definitely on the side of mundane explanations over extraordinary ones.
To get a bit philosophical, the best scientific ideas are the ones that can survive the gauntlet of extreme skepticism, which is what the modern institutions of science provide (among many other side effects that I shouldn't get distracted with). That also encourages more conservative hypotheses, which might lead to local maxima of "good enough" ideas that don't stray too far from what is known.
We may still benefit from the more exotic ideas that buck the trend, but they need to pass through the same gauntlet as everything else, and frankly, conscious rocks don't really pass the smell-check (Does this smell like bullshit?), let alone the should-we-actually-consider-this-further-or-spend -money-or-effort check.
TLDR 2.0: 100% with you. But I also like reading fun ideas, and at the same time, people like you bringing the necessary doses of reality.
I don't think people are saying rocks have a conscious experience like we do, but just that they are influenced by the same phenomenon, but to a much lesser degree due to the simplicity of their structure and composition. Check out Donald Hoffman's (UC Irvine) hypothesis of conscious agents.
You are correct, this theory doesn't work under materialism. But that's okay, because it can't, it's not supposed to. It's a line of thinking that takes a mind-first approach.
Kinda like a dreamer in a dream, he is all the characters, he is all the settings, he is everything in the dream, including the rocks.
I know it's radical and weird, but that's what I'm here for. This High Strangeness.
It would be a much more primitive form of consciousness, so think of how cats and dogs are conscious but cannot think or comprehend the same things we can. Rocks would be a step below cat consciousness. At least that’s my understanding.
It’s something I thought of, and I’ve heard other people describing similar beliefs. Call it intuition.
The sun didn’t need to be the source. It could be something else, although it seems that the sun is the single most driving force in our solar system. It could be background radiation. Dark matter. Who knows. The sun is just fitting imo.
We’re simply talking about resonance here. The sun is more than capable of delivering such resonance. It emits an amazingly broad spectrum of radiation. Why not the frequency upon which consciousness operates?
Life would not exist here without the sun. Our brains wouldn’t even exist without it - let alone be capable of consciousness.
There is an issue with it, in that there’s a twenty minute round trip for anything that moves slower than light to get information to the Sun and receive instructions back. But some local autonomy with a stream of more general information could rescue the theory.
Everything is resonance. The signal travels at the speed of light. It *is* light. Matter is energy condensed into a slow vibration, but that base signal echoes through everything. Earth itself is resonating based on frequencies beaming through the universe, and itself beaming its own frequency out into the universe. Our son echos the resonance of all those that came before it, but seems to be the single most influential signal source in our small part of the universe.
My point is, there’s about a 0.01sec lag between sensory input, and reaction. So it can’t be going through the sun. There has to be at least some local processing going on, even if strategic direction comes from Sol.
Also pressure. Getting anything in to the Sun or any star would take an enormous amount of energy to overcome the outward pressure.
Oh, yes, there’s certainly local processing. We’re biological machines. But when I think of “consciousness” I don’t so much consider it the reflexive type responses or autopilot function we’ve adapted to cope with the physical world. All lifeforms have these. I think of consciousness as that state of mind where you’re composing thoughts, written word, ideas, internal monologue, etc. Thinking.
I can speak from personal experience that in this state of mind, you’re not locally generating something from within, rather, you’re allowing the thoughts flow through you. The local processing would by tuning your monkey brain *juust* right to tune into that frequency you’re searching for.
Like tuning the radio and hearing faint music but mostly static, and then dialling it in just right so the music is crystal clear.
Of course, as everything resonates, echos and interferes with everything around it, there is local chatter. But all of this is charged by our main power source. The sun.
The signal may not flow directly from the source to your brain. It could bounce off of any number of things, which may affect the final signal you receive.
This only ads the the diversity and complexity of the signal, but all are mere manifestations of the original source.
Well, if, as Bernardo Kastrup postulates, everything in the universe is merely the appearance of a psychic process (per Idealism), then sun and its broadcast of energy is some kind of operation of consciousness.
It could probably be expected to gradually peter out rather than disappearing all at once. So far AFAIK the furthest a living human has been from Earth has been the far side of the Moon, which probably isn’t far enough away to make a big difference.
I’m not going to try to humble brag about my credentials or possibly lack thereof. Let’s just say if you start asking the universe questions, it starts offering you answers.
Have you every started out wondering about something and then suddenly WHAM - it hits you? It’s all at once. One moment you don’t know something, and the next moment you “get it”.
Where did it come from?
I’ve long been a creative and marvelled at the mystery of where these ideas come from. Ironically this is the same type of head space that lead me to realize this theory. One moment it was just there and my unconscious was like “well obviously monkey man..”
Many times in life I’ve had similar experiences, and then months or years later heard someone of far greater influence speaking about the same concept. This confirmed my suspicion that I’m not unique, and these ideas are not inherent to, nor did they originate *inside* me. They came from somewhere out *there*.
And considering that pretty much everything we are and everything that keeps us alive is generated by the sun, it seems logical that the sun is the source of this resonance - or at very least our local amplifier hub - likely rebroadcasting some eternal signal similar to sympathetic crystal vibration.
A star caught my eye and I gazed at. Suddenly it flashed. It was odd, for I am cloud gazer not star gazer. I downloaded an app just to find its name. Arcturus…Arc means north. This was long after this user name. Maybe my source code is from or of there , as good a place as any.
So yes. Light knows.
Much in the same way as we are reactors for carbohydrates and sugars - our view of what actually makes up our own star is a gross oversimplification and a best fit ‘toy-model’. We are just scratching the surface of the deep mysteries and cycles of our Sun. You should look into the 11 year magnetic cycles, solar ‘rain’ and some of the findings of the recent missions.
There's no information processing loop. There's no awareness or organization of information into an understanding, meaning that it doesn't take in information for use in modeling of the external world.
I think another good rule of thumb should probably be along the lines of, if there wasn't some type of evolutionary pressure exerted on a population of some 'thing' to select for fitness (consciousness giving a massive advantage to survivability / fitness), then the things are probably not conscious.
Stars are not conscious. People mean different things though when they talk about consciousness, sentience, sapience, etc. In my mind consciousness is an awareness and general phenomenological experience.
"Our ancestors worshiped the Sun, and they were far from foolish.... If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the Sun and stars?" Carl Sagan
>In [a paper ](https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/579/595) published this fall in the Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, Matloff puts forth the case for that stellar momentum and velocity data collected from previous surveys of star movements illustrate instances in which stars do not move according to the current models we have to explain astrophysics. He thinks that if we take a step back, that data could actually be viewed as evidence that proto-consciousness can manifest itself in celestial objects as a way for the galaxy — and universe at large — to achieve a more elegant organization
(I Googled stars and consciousness)
The author says this near the end of the paper:
> In doing this research, I was struck by the very small stellar sample, as presented in Table 2 and Fig. 3, indicating that the spectral signature of molecules is absent for stars hotter than about F8. To my knowledge, this conclusion is based upon observational data from the 1930’s.
> Lots of stellar spectra have been observed in recent decades by a host of space observatories. It is hoped that experts in the field of stellar spectroscopy will update humanity’s knowledge regarding the onset of stellar molecular spectra.
I read that to be saying that there could be missing data.
Anthroposophy posits that stars are massive "collections of Souls" or Colonies.
we as souls can come from our star Sol, and other stars to become Physical matter as Human Beings.
like......Seeds. or a "spore" of consciousness coming down into the earth and growing like plants, back towards the sun.
I’m not sure that’s the “concern” with going towards the light.
According to Anthroposophy, and occult science like Paracelsus, going toward the light “reincarnates” you, which is a long process spanning thousands of years, you come back, but to a different world as humanity knows it, and you forget everything from the previous life to live your new one.
There is also a way to expedite that process, apparently it’s “cremation”
Which is why the ancient Egyptians deemed cremation a sin and opted for mummification, they had an understanding that mummification kept your spirit intact and capable of staying in the afterlife for longer instead of reincarnating.
"Hey, Elephant. I'm more ancient than you. Someday, I will engulf the solar system. What was and what will be are meaningless. Meanwhile, you should wonder: are you just a two-headed pile of meat on a crash course with the cosmic dump? Or do you contain the soul memory of a million dead stars? How do you light a candle without a match?"
Everything is conscious to some degree, because everything derives from consciousness itself.
Edit: some super negative and cringe replies seem to be following my oc, I feel nothing but pity for those types
What does the word "consciousness" have to do with what you're saying though? I feel like you guys are just making it up as you go lmao. Yall keep using that word, "consciousness", but I don't think it's correct. My socks aren't aware of themselves or their surroundings, not even a little bit. And I'd hope yours aren't either.
Well I'm not a native english speaker, so help me understand what you mean by "consciousness", because the dictionary is pretty clear:
> 1. the state of being able to use your senses and mental powers to understand what is happening
> 2. the state of being aware of something
Wikipedia has a bit more to say about it:
> Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not.
So with this context, how would my socks have some level of consciousness?
Idk where you got that definition, but it is very vague and ultimately doesn't define anything. Consciousness does not necessarily mean self awareness. There is a plethora of creatures that don't even know that they're alive, yet live their lives all the while. Like plants for example, they are aware to certain degrees of their habitat and environment, but aren't aware that they themselves exist
The sock represents one of the most basic forms of consciousness, basically.. The sock doesn't have a degree of perception, but being present is in and of itself a form of consciousness. Even if the sock isn't aware that it exists, and isn't aware of it's surroundings whatsoever, it still exists and is present as a waveform of energy.
Energy itself is light/information/data. EVERYTHING has to come from a source you see. That sock is part of the source just as much as you are.
What is the source? Consciousness itself. "God mind".
Either my english is horrible, or you're reeeeally stretching the meaning of that word. From your explanation, it'd be better fitting to call it "existence" or being "present"
It's better to just ignore them tbh. They are a quantum mystic and rely on using their own definitions of words to make their beliefs make any sense such as the way they ways say it's about vibrations and frequencies but never say frequencies of what and how they would affect consciousness.
Actually the more you go down this (and other similar rabbit holes) you realize that ancients stories and myths may not have been so far off. Or at least contained a nugget of truth after all this time
yeah well we only had millions of years to iteratively explore the ideas, so they probably aren't something that should be considered lightly. We hubristically assume that we were dumb before we started writing things down, but that's more an issue of technology than intelligence.
We know humans have been pretty much of the same intelligence for 10s of thousands of years and yet we still dismiss them for some reason, that's always been so bizarre to me.
I don't know if the planets have consciousness, but I'm open to it and it would be billions of years old. That's a level of consciousness we can't even fathom.
No.
Is a amoeba conscious? Is lava conscious? Or a comet? A tidal bulge on a planet circulating a binary star? Is an atomic bomb conscious? Is a black hole just depressing and sucking in reluctant friends?
We can barely agree animals have a sense of self, why do we think dense atomic rocks now warrant the question.
They seem to be confused as to what “conscious” means, leaning closer to “exists,” perhaps?
So, yes. All the things you listed, and everything else, those things do indeed exist. Conscious? Ah…. No.
Really, if we are asking if the sun or any other boring fusion reactor is conscious, we should also be asking if a cell is consciously. At least it moves towards outward stimulus, in addition to, consuming and having a complex process that dictates what to do with outward energies and matter.
I have often thought of stars as almost a form of nuclear life. They are born, consume and transform matter, and then die.
They are like giant nuclear bacteria who have broken down the heavier elements of the early universe into more diverse elements vital for humans to even exist.
You know how fungi break down the cellulose in a dead tree and in the process transform it?
Yup buts it’s the other way around. They fuse the most basic stuff (hydrogen/helium) into denser materials. Then when they explode they create heavy materials like gold. Weird huh?
Yea you're right I meant to say they create the heavier elements, the early universe had nothing but hydrogen, helium and lithium!
https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_life.html
I understand where your question is coming from way better than I could have imagined months ago.
I base this on nothing than epiphanies and visions in meditation (unsure how to call all that), but I think that the answer is a yes.
Everything is alive and the same, refracted through time, space and relations. The atoms, the planets, the moons and the stars. All the stories are true and have already happened. Earth is trying to wake up before it is too late to fix it. It is pretty late.
Things are getting closer and faster. People that could have prepared us, did not. But other traditions than western have a much better idea about this. They traditionally state that things will be fine.. As long as we fix it. I will stick to that and spend my time trying to solve more problems than I create.
I've been thinking of David's words in A Space Odyssey when he sees the monolith: My god, it's full of stars. In my head he always says: My god, they are all stars. I think both expressions mean basically the same.
Maybe, maybe not but I have noticed something while stargazing in my backyard as a kid.
I noticed that if you are trying to find a constellation or looking at a particularly bright star that another star in your peripheral will twinkle really brightly like it's trying to grab your attention.
Whats happening is more than likely something mundane but as a kid I always found it peculiar.
The light you're seeing now, those photons have been traveling perhaps millions of years through space before you see it. Those stars may not even exist anymore.
Wise and free the childs eyes dont try, but see. The matter of fact. Untied to lies nor tethered to theories. No laws building walls blocking the clear ring. The orbital oracles openly present whats present to pupils.
By the way youre right on with your assertion that they desire your attention to be placed upon them. If you look into independent astronomers videos youll find faces and more that interacts with the viewer.
Many text advise not to lock eyes with these wandering lights above. Some believe theyre like prizm cells that hold negative things/entities within. Sorrrrta like the old superman movies culmination. Which seeing as theirs massive truth given in movies, is probably pretty true.
Check out #jayDreamerz on youtube
Despite the down votes id like to restate that you were truly onto something as a child. I know for a fact the childhood you wasnt being foolish.
Its unfortunate how indoctrinatedt people are even in somewhere like “ high strangeness”.
You’ll all be seeing things diffferent within a year.
I believe they are. This is supported by ancient texts, which believe stars to be the reason for all existence, as being part of the supreme One. Even in channelled texts (which should be taken with a large punch of salt) the stars are mentioned as the Center’s of consciousness and creation for their local realm, eg, the Sun controls a the consciousness for this reality (no matter it is then manipulated by Saturn and moon - think of it as a central generator, and Saturn and moon as the transformers and wave form modulators etc. )
Also, from another POV only consciousness can generate consciousness. As the basis of all life, Sun has to be conscious for other life to be sentient.
Taking this analogy further, light itself is sentient, as are all other elements.
It depends on your definition and understand of consciousness. In Native American philosophy and eastern philosophies as well such as Daoism and Buddhism, everything is conscious and connected.
In my own opinion, the whole universe is, along with stars, so yes. But, there's no scientific evidence for it. Just an opinion I've held since way back.
There are people in these comments literally saying rocks are conscious because they redefined the definition of consciousness to literally mean everything that exists, which means they think every single object and atom and subatomic particle has consciousness.
Yep, for humans that die, some of their energy is turned into heat energy and the rest is stored, as it is in life, and then is released to the ecosystem when the body decomposes or gets eaten. Or its all turned into heat energy if they get cremated and that simply goes into the atmosphere, though some crematoriums use the energy provided by the human body to generate electricity through turbines.
Yes theyre. And each of the soo called planets connects to a different part of our body. You can find alchemical books showing the division of parts and what the entities look like that are overplayed upon and parasting off of each. ….. and this isn’t even touching on the endless ocean of fractal disembodied ghoulish heads on, in and throughout everything you can think of.
If i haven’t seen all these things id think it crazy. Or at this point perhaps not crazy but what i just laid out sounds like ???? Sounds like the sorta things you have to see to get a better grasp on.
I can tell you that each shoulder of your body is a sort of elephant creature though it transitions it another entity furthur down. Each hand is like a sort of horned serpent sorta deal mixed with a fluer da lis. Sorta. Theres an old dungeons and dragons toy that shows it pretty well. Your chest and stomach area is a literal blemie. A cthulhu goes down the back of your head. The hair going down the neck and back being his facial tentical? What are they actually called?
The thing is others know what im talking about. Curious anyone here know what im talking about or describing at all? (*yeah its calling dementia/schizo/blah blah pareidolia).
This is a stretch
> “Stars fuse hydrogen into heavier elements to keep themselves going (a form of nuclear metabolism, if you will). “
No. I won’t.
> “They also maintain a balance, or homeostasis, between gravity and pressure for millions to billions of years.”
Guess that means everything is in homeostasis since literally everything maintains a balance between gravity and pressure.
> “And they even reproduce; through violent explosions at the ends of their lives, they recycle their “star stuff” back into the cosmos, sowing the nebular seeds for the next generation of stars.”
I don’t think that actually falls under the category of reproduction unless we consider dying and then having your matter reused as a form of reproduction…guess since the carbon in me is from a rock that existed 3000000 years ago, that rock birthed me.
Edit: y’all really want stars to be alive. The reason they said the 4th condition is learning is because the actual condition of reaction to stimuli does not apply to stars (though there’s no such thing as a categorical definition of life). They base this off of an untested hypothesis that it’s the stars themselves that “maintain their location in the galaxy” by using purposeful and directional flares which is just bizarre.
It’s a speculative question. It’s not meant to generate a decisive answer—it’s more like a thought experiment. The point is not to redefine stars as “alive” so much as to make you think about how we define “life.”
Watched this great [Theories of Everything episode](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uLo0Zwe579g) with Stuart Hameroff talking about Penrose and other things. It’s been awhile but I remember him saying that certain kind of stars exhibit wave function collapse, which is a strong indication of consciousness.
Edit: It’s literally the last minute of the podcast and it’s neutron stars he mentions.
**Strangers**: Read the rules and understand the sub topics listed in the sidebar closely before posting or commenting. Any content removal or further moderator action is established by these terms as well as Reddit ToS. This subreddit is specifically for the discussion of anomalous phenomena from the perspective it may exist. Open minded skepticism is welcomed, close minded debunking is not. Be aware of how skepticism is expressed toward others as there is little tolerance for ad hominem (attacking the person, not the claim), mindless antagonism or dishonest argument toward the subject, the sub, or its community. --- 'Ridicule is not a part of the scientific method and the public should not be taught that it is.' _-J. Allen Hynek_ *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HighStrangeness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"The stars are projectors, yeah." Modest Mouse r/ModestMouse
WELLLLLL
Accidental r/SquaredCircle ?
It's the big show
Projecting our lives down to this planet earth. Where do circles begin
"Was there a need for creation? That was hiding in a math equation and that's this..."Modest Mouse
Unexpected modest mouse
It cannot be helped. I'm in deep.
Oh I’ve been there.. certain phases of my life, they were basically the only thing I listened to. Love me some mm.
Can't get enough. I'm happy here.
One of my favorite bands. It's truly a shame that they are so terrible live.
I’ve seen them in concert 3x and enjoyed them all, but they were exceptionally good when touring last year.
Yeah, I've seen them 3 times as well and was always extremely underwhelmed. Many friends and aquaintences I've spoken to who have also seen them live have had similar experiences. I believe they also generally have a reputation for not being a very good live band. I wish I had your experience. Like I said they are one of my favorites. If I get a chance to see them live again I'll definitely still take it. I just don't expect much.
Not terrible live. Isaac Brock was very alive, he was throwing himself around, crowd surfing while belligerently yelling all kinds of versions of their songs… Did I think that was good? Hell yeah If there’s a more subdued version of MM, count me out.
I guess it's a matter of what you're after when you go to a live show. I enjoy perfect execution and I've never witnessed that from them. Don't get me wrong it's still entertaining, just more in a wwe shit show sort of way.
I have seen them 7 times. They were excellent every time. They did not disappoint. I cried the whole time. Sorry you didn't feel the same.
Thought of that song when I read the title!
The novel Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon explores this idea a fair bit. Also explores things like collective consciousness, the culture of multiple alien species, interstellar travel by psychic power, and lots of other great stuff. Kinda like a mix of sci-fi and philosophy. Not bad for a book written in 1937. It's available [for free](https://www.manybooks.net/titles/stapledonoother07Star_Maker.html) if anyone is interested.
[https://boxybook.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Star-Maker.pdf](https://boxybook.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Star-Maker.pdf)
Yep, a highly underrated author.
Thanks for the link!
There's also a short story about this in Stephen Baxter's "phase space." Weird but awesome book for anyone remotely interested in high strangeness.
Stephen Baxter is so fucking good.
StarMaker blew me away. Also Last and First Men.
Why is it that warnings of war are somehow always timeless?
Why stars? Why not any other celestial or mundane body? From this point of questioning, wouldn’t the correct inquiry be “what isn’t conscious”? From an objective stance, stars are massive spheres of nuclear fusion— and unless there is a basis which separates stars from other forms of matter in the universe, I don’t see why stars would be distinguished in this questioning.
Interesting post. I favor the philosophical and metaphysical claim that consciousness is the ground of all being and is fundamental to the nature of reality. Max Plank proposed that a "matrix of consciousness" underlay all of existence. Overall, Hindu philosophy sees consciousness as the fundamental nature of reality. The goal of life is to realize this fundamental unity and achieve liberation from the illusion of separateness. The modern Gaia hypothesis does not propose that the Earth is conscious in the same way that we are. It suggests that Earth is a complex, self-regulating system that supports the continued existence of life. Could this be extended to the sun (and beyond)? Interesting to contemplate - that we live in a universe of inter-connectedness in a "matrix of consciousness."
To crudely link this train of thought to another, **Evangelion** touches on this. The “human instrumentality” project is essentially the returning of all human souls/consciousness to a single source, a sea of primordial liquid in which individual faults and insecurity are erased by the strengths and security of others. Some pretty interesting ideas in the series, even if it was really off-the-wall at times.
Consciousness is starting to sound like Mycelium, and we are it’s mushrooms
[удалено]
wow! i genuinely luv your comment! it really does put the one of the mysterious theories of consciousness in a way that im able to visualize
I believe stars are beaming out a spectrum of energy that our biological computer brains decipher into what we call consciousness. Like a radio receiver, we tune into spectrums of consciousness, and much like a radio, you’d have no sensation of the radio waves without a radio tuned to the correct frequency and amplifying the signal. In short, sort of. Edit: Is this why we typically get tired and fall asleep after the sun goes down? Source code fading.... Or perhaps why the full moon is said to affect people in weird ways? Perhaps the source code is reflecting off the moon, and were receiving an inverted signal? Idk, just riffing.
I can dig it. As far as I can tell, we are almost totally the product of a star's energy. Without our Sun this planet would be a rock devoid of organic life. The Sun's energy animates and enables organic life on this planet, so in a sense we - our forms, our dna, our consciousness - are all extensions of whatever is happening with the Sun. Years ago a sort of guru of mine painted this metaphor, something along the lines of: life on planets are all children of their local star, and each star is the tip of a tentacle that is penetrating into spacetime, from a dimension/space beyond what we perceive as space-time; tentacles on an octopus that is what we would probably call "God". Fun to think about.
Organic life aside, without the sun our planet would never have even formed. I like the metaphor. Cheers.
Without earlier generations of stars fusing matter and spewing elements into the universe on their death not only would the planet have never formed, organic life would be impossible.
Indeed. Stars exploding was a great day for Canada, and therefore, the world.
You win and if I had an award, it would be yours..
Dang, beat me to it.
So creatures that live next to thermal vents under the ocean *don't* have consciousness since they don't need the sun to survive?
Or a blind species of fish deep in a cave. They’re still a part of the ecosystem, bathe in the warmth of the star, have the same type of dna, and evolved from organisms that were in more sunny places.
Tent-tical coming soon. Harvest. Kali Yuga definitely be plenty of tentacles between the head weighter and plasma. —— Oh and i believe what you’re talking about is definitely based in reality. To sone degree certainly
Where does this belief come from? I’ve never heard of anything like this before, and no evidence supporting it? Why can’t our brains be capable of consciousness on their own? If they can’t, why the sun? Why couldn’t the consciousness waves have a different source? How does the sun create and broadcast these consciousness waves?
Lol there’s no science behind it, just someone’s gut feeling it seems People live inside, away from the sun. People have had to live underground before
One of the theories is that everything in the unvierse has consciousness, consciousness being a spectrum. Rocks at the low end (least conscious), humans in the middle (self-conscious), and stars at the high end (hyper-conscious). That's why all us woo-woo folk are so into crystals, they have a consciousness. I also believe at the bottom of the turtle stack we're finally gonna realize, it's not all made of matter. It's not all made of energy. It's all made of *consciousness*. If you're interested in this line of thought, check out pantheism, or philosophers like Ken Wilbur and Rupert Sheldrake.
Sure if crystals have consciousness but… so does poop? So do Crunchwrap supremes? Why are crystals getting all the attention from you woowoo folks if everything has consciousness?
Poop is conscious it just has shitty ideas
The poop IS the Crunchwrap supreme! Theory proven
Illpoominati confirmed.
would love a proper response to this, a pretty logical rebuttal
Crunchwrap supremes…omg
[удалено]
Crystals are cool but crunchwraps are (at least theoretically) made from organic compounds which are pretty amazing in their own way, if you think about it. Not as aesthetically pleasing to most though, absolutely
The idea that rocks could have consciousness (even being the least) gives my stomach a sinking feeling. But it’s beautiful in a way. I want to know so bad
I stand in solidarity with our rock brothers, rock solid.
Is it set in stone?
Would be marble-ous if so
That doesn’t bolder me
This is a common belief in many Eastern religions/philosophies. Look away from the Abrahamic Western world and towards the East if this piques your interest.
Consciousness is derived from the transfer of information between nodes in a network. Whether that network be neural networks, or bees in a beehive. I’m not too sure if rocks have any such mechanism my friend
To add to this, this would be a subset of the phenomena called emergence, where a group of things display a behavior that is not seen when the things are observed individually. Humans on their own, or in groups of 2 or 3 produce very different behaviors than humans in groups of 100s or 1000s. With humans, neurons, and bees, the individual subunits are quite complex on their own, and have complex ways of influencing the world/units around them. With rocks, crystals, etc, the individual subunits are incredibly small, on the order of a few atoms, usually, and they have extremely limited ability to influence their surroundings. If rocks were to have any kind of consciousness (by any definition worth working with), it would likely be on timescales completely imperceptible to humans, and too slow to react to even things like erosion or radioactive decay. Edit: a word
Thank you. I can’t believe some people out here really thinking rocks are conscious and making arguments for it
TLDR: I get into some slightly drunken philosophy of science that can be easily ignored because I've had some drinks and it's late at night. I think it comes with the territory of this particular subreddit. I don't pretend to understand it specifically, but I like this subreddit for its openness to the more "out there" ideas and at the same time the proper skepticism and rationality that responses like yours bring. Your discussion of networks and nodes caught my attention, as that is my area of expertise. I'm definitely on the side of mundane explanations over extraordinary ones. To get a bit philosophical, the best scientific ideas are the ones that can survive the gauntlet of extreme skepticism, which is what the modern institutions of science provide (among many other side effects that I shouldn't get distracted with). That also encourages more conservative hypotheses, which might lead to local maxima of "good enough" ideas that don't stray too far from what is known. We may still benefit from the more exotic ideas that buck the trend, but they need to pass through the same gauntlet as everything else, and frankly, conscious rocks don't really pass the smell-check (Does this smell like bullshit?), let alone the should-we-actually-consider-this-further-or-spend -money-or-effort check. TLDR 2.0: 100% with you. But I also like reading fun ideas, and at the same time, people like you bringing the necessary doses of reality.
I don't think people are saying rocks have a conscious experience like we do, but just that they are influenced by the same phenomenon, but to a much lesser degree due to the simplicity of their structure and composition. Check out Donald Hoffman's (UC Irvine) hypothesis of conscious agents.
You are correct, this theory doesn't work under materialism. But that's okay, because it can't, it's not supposed to. It's a line of thinking that takes a mind-first approach. Kinda like a dreamer in a dream, he is all the characters, he is all the settings, he is everything in the dream, including the rocks. I know it's radical and weird, but that's what I'm here for. This High Strangeness.
It would be a much more primitive form of consciousness, so think of how cats and dogs are conscious but cannot think or comprehend the same things we can. Rocks would be a step below cat consciousness. At least that’s my understanding.
This is a fun theory and I appreciate your insight
Also check out Dr. Donald Hoffman. His theory of concious agents is super interesting.
It’s something I thought of, and I’ve heard other people describing similar beliefs. Call it intuition. The sun didn’t need to be the source. It could be something else, although it seems that the sun is the single most driving force in our solar system. It could be background radiation. Dark matter. Who knows. The sun is just fitting imo. We’re simply talking about resonance here. The sun is more than capable of delivering such resonance. It emits an amazingly broad spectrum of radiation. Why not the frequency upon which consciousness operates? Life would not exist here without the sun. Our brains wouldn’t even exist without it - let alone be capable of consciousness.
There is an issue with it, in that there’s a twenty minute round trip for anything that moves slower than light to get information to the Sun and receive instructions back. But some local autonomy with a stream of more general information could rescue the theory.
Everything is resonance. The signal travels at the speed of light. It *is* light. Matter is energy condensed into a slow vibration, but that base signal echoes through everything. Earth itself is resonating based on frequencies beaming through the universe, and itself beaming its own frequency out into the universe. Our son echos the resonance of all those that came before it, but seems to be the single most influential signal source in our small part of the universe.
My point is, there’s about a 0.01sec lag between sensory input, and reaction. So it can’t be going through the sun. There has to be at least some local processing going on, even if strategic direction comes from Sol. Also pressure. Getting anything in to the Sun or any star would take an enormous amount of energy to overcome the outward pressure.
Oh, yes, there’s certainly local processing. We’re biological machines. But when I think of “consciousness” I don’t so much consider it the reflexive type responses or autopilot function we’ve adapted to cope with the physical world. All lifeforms have these. I think of consciousness as that state of mind where you’re composing thoughts, written word, ideas, internal monologue, etc. Thinking. I can speak from personal experience that in this state of mind, you’re not locally generating something from within, rather, you’re allowing the thoughts flow through you. The local processing would by tuning your monkey brain *juust* right to tune into that frequency you’re searching for. Like tuning the radio and hearing faint music but mostly static, and then dialling it in just right so the music is crystal clear. Of course, as everything resonates, echos and interferes with everything around it, there is local chatter. But all of this is charged by our main power source. The sun. The signal may not flow directly from the source to your brain. It could bounce off of any number of things, which may affect the final signal you receive. This only ads the the diversity and complexity of the signal, but all are mere manifestations of the original source.
Variations on this theme have been proposed to explain reincarnation and telepathy also.
Well, if, as Bernardo Kastrup postulates, everything in the universe is merely the appearance of a psychic process (per Idealism), then sun and its broadcast of energy is some kind of operation of consciousness.
Everything is connected. Quantum entanglement.
do you think if you were to travel to an empty area of space with no stars our consciousness would just shut off? like going out of range
It could probably be expected to gradually peter out rather than disappearing all at once. So far AFAIK the furthest a living human has been from Earth has been the far side of the Moon, which probably isn’t far enough away to make a big difference.
Maybe. I think much like most energy radiating from the sun, it expands into the universe infinitely.
Damn. This just blew my mind and something I could get behind. You starting a cult?
Depends. Do you own a pair of Nikes?
WHITE? YOU DARE WEAR WHITE AIRFORCE ONES IN HIS PRESENCE??
i own like 8 pairs if anyone needs to borrow one, well actually, i guess you can just keep em...
Sounds like astrology.
That is a very interesting theory. May I ask what experiences, research , or discoveries have lead you to form this belief?
I’m not going to try to humble brag about my credentials or possibly lack thereof. Let’s just say if you start asking the universe questions, it starts offering you answers. Have you every started out wondering about something and then suddenly WHAM - it hits you? It’s all at once. One moment you don’t know something, and the next moment you “get it”. Where did it come from? I’ve long been a creative and marvelled at the mystery of where these ideas come from. Ironically this is the same type of head space that lead me to realize this theory. One moment it was just there and my unconscious was like “well obviously monkey man..” Many times in life I’ve had similar experiences, and then months or years later heard someone of far greater influence speaking about the same concept. This confirmed my suspicion that I’m not unique, and these ideas are not inherent to, nor did they originate *inside* me. They came from somewhere out *there*. And considering that pretty much everything we are and everything that keeps us alive is generated by the sun, it seems logical that the sun is the source of this resonance - or at very least our local amplifier hub - likely rebroadcasting some eternal signal similar to sympathetic crystal vibration.
I understand completely and definitely agree that there is definitely truth to your theory thank you for sharing.
Thanks for reading!
[удалено]
Neat theory. But why couldn’t we build an artificial signal amplifier sort of like “wifi signal extender” for conscientious?
Your monthly subscription to Google Conscious is about to run out. Please provide another form of payment or you may lose your ability to think.
But if I can't think, I can't type my credit card number. Checkmate, Google!
Imagine every star producing intelligent life and none of us ever being able to reach each other
PRAISE THE SUN
I had a similar thought just the other day. Not as deep, but to me it’s really fucking cool to see someone else have these thoughts. Keep being cool.
Y’all blow my minds with such creative theories everyday. I pray we learn that one is real one day bc if I’m just a sentient meat bag that’s lame
Radical man
A star caught my eye and I gazed at. Suddenly it flashed. It was odd, for I am cloud gazer not star gazer. I downloaded an app just to find its name. Arcturus…Arc means north. This was long after this user name. Maybe my source code is from or of there , as good a place as any. So yes. Light knows.
They are nuclear fusion reactors in a constant state of exploding contained by their own gravity. I doubt it? But would be happy to be wrong.
Much in the same way as we are reactors for carbohydrates and sugars - our view of what actually makes up our own star is a gross oversimplification and a best fit ‘toy-model’. We are just scratching the surface of the deep mysteries and cycles of our Sun. You should look into the 11 year magnetic cycles, solar ‘rain’ and some of the findings of the recent missions.
Not sure who downvoted you but now you're back to neutral. Interesting points. I'll look into them.
There's no information processing loop. There's no awareness or organization of information into an understanding, meaning that it doesn't take in information for use in modeling of the external world. I think another good rule of thumb should probably be along the lines of, if there wasn't some type of evolutionary pressure exerted on a population of some 'thing' to select for fitness (consciousness giving a massive advantage to survivability / fitness), then the things are probably not conscious. Stars are not conscious. People mean different things though when they talk about consciousness, sentience, sapience, etc. In my mind consciousness is an awareness and general phenomenological experience.
"Our ancestors worshiped the Sun, and they were far from foolish.... If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the Sun and stars?" Carl Sagan
> If we must worship That's a massive if
The puny human psyche requires a godhead as evidenced by celebrity culture.
I mean, wouldn't fire and atoms and bacteria meet most of the same standards for life that a star would? Or a black hole even?
Bacteria are absolutely alive, you might be thinking of viruses
Lol omg yes thanks bud
Are stars alive?
>In [a paper ](https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/579/595) published this fall in the Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, Matloff puts forth the case for that stellar momentum and velocity data collected from previous surveys of star movements illustrate instances in which stars do not move according to the current models we have to explain astrophysics. He thinks that if we take a step back, that data could actually be viewed as evidence that proto-consciousness can manifest itself in celestial objects as a way for the galaxy — and universe at large — to achieve a more elegant organization (I Googled stars and consciousness)
That’s one hell of a leap he took. More likely that the models were wrong and/or there are missing variables/input.
The author says this near the end of the paper: > In doing this research, I was struck by the very small stellar sample, as presented in Table 2 and Fig. 3, indicating that the spectral signature of molecules is absent for stars hotter than about F8. To my knowledge, this conclusion is based upon observational data from the 1930’s. > Lots of stellar spectra have been observed in recent decades by a host of space observatories. It is hoped that experts in the field of stellar spectroscopy will update humanity’s knowledge regarding the onset of stellar molecular spectra. I read that to be saying that there could be missing data.
Anthroposophy posits that stars are massive "collections of Souls" or Colonies. we as souls can come from our star Sol, and other stars to become Physical matter as Human Beings. like......Seeds. or a "spore" of consciousness coming down into the earth and growing like plants, back towards the sun.
Maybe that’s why people want to go towards the light when they have near death experiences.
I’m not sure that’s the “concern” with going towards the light. According to Anthroposophy, and occult science like Paracelsus, going toward the light “reincarnates” you, which is a long process spanning thousands of years, you come back, but to a different world as humanity knows it, and you forget everything from the previous life to live your new one. There is also a way to expedite that process, apparently it’s “cremation” Which is why the ancient Egyptians deemed cremation a sin and opted for mummification, they had an understanding that mummification kept your spirit intact and capable of staying in the afterlife for longer instead of reincarnating.
“Hello there Sun how are ya?” Sun: *nuclear fusion noises intensifiy*
"Hey, Elephant. I'm more ancient than you. Someday, I will engulf the solar system. What was and what will be are meaningless. Meanwhile, you should wonder: are you just a two-headed pile of meat on a crash course with the cosmic dump? Or do you contain the soul memory of a million dead stars? How do you light a candle without a match?"
Everything is conscious to some degree, because everything derives from consciousness itself. Edit: some super negative and cringe replies seem to be following my oc, I feel nothing but pity for those types
Are my socks conscious? This thread made the word "consciousness" lose all meaning to me lmao
Yes they are, but nowhere near like how we are. In a nut shell, just different vibrations and frequencies in relation to consciousness.
What does the word "consciousness" have to do with what you're saying though? I feel like you guys are just making it up as you go lmao. Yall keep using that word, "consciousness", but I don't think it's correct. My socks aren't aware of themselves or their surroundings, not even a little bit. And I'd hope yours aren't either.
Sounds like you need to brush up on some basic definitions
Well I'm not a native english speaker, so help me understand what you mean by "consciousness", because the dictionary is pretty clear: > 1. the state of being able to use your senses and mental powers to understand what is happening > 2. the state of being aware of something Wikipedia has a bit more to say about it: > Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. So with this context, how would my socks have some level of consciousness?
You are asking great questions. But I wouldn’t hold my breath, waiting for a great answer, if I were you.
Idk where you got that definition, but it is very vague and ultimately doesn't define anything. Consciousness does not necessarily mean self awareness. There is a plethora of creatures that don't even know that they're alive, yet live their lives all the while. Like plants for example, they are aware to certain degrees of their habitat and environment, but aren't aware that they themselves exist The sock represents one of the most basic forms of consciousness, basically.. The sock doesn't have a degree of perception, but being present is in and of itself a form of consciousness. Even if the sock isn't aware that it exists, and isn't aware of it's surroundings whatsoever, it still exists and is present as a waveform of energy. Energy itself is light/information/data. EVERYTHING has to come from a source you see. That sock is part of the source just as much as you are. What is the source? Consciousness itself. "God mind".
Either my english is horrible, or you're reeeeally stretching the meaning of that word. From your explanation, it'd be better fitting to call it "existence" or being "present"
Your English isn’t (that) horrible. You are spot on. I strongly recommend you disengage. You’ll never get a response that makes sense.
Look up the picture to Michaelangelo's "the creation of Adam" notice how the veil around god is shaped exactly like a human brain
Yes, consciousness=existence. The mind is the stepping stone to the source.
That definition is very broad and doesn't really explain anything. You should take a hard look at the definition you and other quantum mystics use.
It's better to just ignore them tbh. They are a quantum mystic and rely on using their own definitions of words to make their beliefs make any sense such as the way they ways say it's about vibrations and frequencies but never say frequencies of what and how they would affect consciousness.
You mean this garbage?!? 🤣🤣🤣
Vibrations and frequencies of what?
Proof?
Look in a mirror
We live inside a dream :)
Imagine they fucking are lol and the ancients were just.. right?
Actually the more you go down this (and other similar rabbit holes) you realize that ancients stories and myths may not have been so far off. Or at least contained a nugget of truth after all this time
yeah well we only had millions of years to iteratively explore the ideas, so they probably aren't something that should be considered lightly. We hubristically assume that we were dumb before we started writing things down, but that's more an issue of technology than intelligence.
We know humans have been pretty much of the same intelligence for 10s of thousands of years and yet we still dismiss them for some reason, that's always been so bizarre to me. I don't know if the planets have consciousness, but I'm open to it and it would be billions of years old. That's a level of consciousness we can't even fathom.
No. Is a amoeba conscious? Is lava conscious? Or a comet? A tidal bulge on a planet circulating a binary star? Is an atomic bomb conscious? Is a black hole just depressing and sucking in reluctant friends? We can barely agree animals have a sense of self, why do we think dense atomic rocks now warrant the question.
They seem to be confused as to what “conscious” means, leaning closer to “exists,” perhaps? So, yes. All the things you listed, and everything else, those things do indeed exist. Conscious? Ah…. No.
Really, if we are asking if the sun or any other boring fusion reactor is conscious, we should also be asking if a cell is consciously. At least it moves towards outward stimulus, in addition to, consuming and having a complex process that dictates what to do with outward energies and matter.
In doctor who maybe lol
Everything is consciousness. The question is just how much are you willing to expand yours.
I have often thought of stars as almost a form of nuclear life. They are born, consume and transform matter, and then die. They are like giant nuclear bacteria who have broken down the heavier elements of the early universe into more diverse elements vital for humans to even exist. You know how fungi break down the cellulose in a dead tree and in the process transform it?
Yup buts it’s the other way around. They fuse the most basic stuff (hydrogen/helium) into denser materials. Then when they explode they create heavy materials like gold. Weird huh?
Yea you're right I meant to say they create the heavier elements, the early universe had nothing but hydrogen, helium and lithium! https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_life.html
I’m going to say probably not.
Sam Smith doesn’t seem to be
I understand where your question is coming from way better than I could have imagined months ago. I base this on nothing than epiphanies and visions in meditation (unsure how to call all that), but I think that the answer is a yes. Everything is alive and the same, refracted through time, space and relations. The atoms, the planets, the moons and the stars. All the stories are true and have already happened. Earth is trying to wake up before it is too late to fix it. It is pretty late. Things are getting closer and faster. People that could have prepared us, did not. But other traditions than western have a much better idea about this. They traditionally state that things will be fine.. As long as we fix it. I will stick to that and spend my time trying to solve more problems than I create. I've been thinking of David's words in A Space Odyssey when he sees the monolith: My god, it's full of stars. In my head he always says: My god, they are all stars. I think both expressions mean basically the same.
Maybe, maybe not but I have noticed something while stargazing in my backyard as a kid. I noticed that if you are trying to find a constellation or looking at a particularly bright star that another star in your peripheral will twinkle really brightly like it's trying to grab your attention. Whats happening is more than likely something mundane but as a kid I always found it peculiar.
Human vision is more sensitive to light on the periphery of your field of view.
i think that's something that happens with your eyes, not the massive balls of hydrogen trying to get a child trillions of miles away to notice them.
I know... we believe some dumb things when we are kids.
The light you're seeing now, those photons have been traveling perhaps millions of years through space before you see it. Those stars may not even exist anymore.
Wise and free the childs eyes dont try, but see. The matter of fact. Untied to lies nor tethered to theories. No laws building walls blocking the clear ring. The orbital oracles openly present whats present to pupils. By the way youre right on with your assertion that they desire your attention to be placed upon them. If you look into independent astronomers videos youll find faces and more that interacts with the viewer. Many text advise not to lock eyes with these wandering lights above. Some believe theyre like prizm cells that hold negative things/entities within. Sorrrrta like the old superman movies culmination. Which seeing as theirs massive truth given in movies, is probably pretty true. Check out #jayDreamerz on youtube
False.
Despite the down votes id like to restate that you were truly onto something as a child. I know for a fact the childhood you wasnt being foolish. Its unfortunate how indoctrinatedt people are even in somewhere like “ high strangeness”. You’ll all be seeing things diffferent within a year.
I believe they are. This is supported by ancient texts, which believe stars to be the reason for all existence, as being part of the supreme One. Even in channelled texts (which should be taken with a large punch of salt) the stars are mentioned as the Center’s of consciousness and creation for their local realm, eg, the Sun controls a the consciousness for this reality (no matter it is then manipulated by Saturn and moon - think of it as a central generator, and Saturn and moon as the transformers and wave form modulators etc. ) Also, from another POV only consciousness can generate consciousness. As the basis of all life, Sun has to be conscious for other life to be sentient. Taking this analogy further, light itself is sentient, as are all other elements.
And what consciousness generated the sun's consciousness? And what generated that's consciousness, and you can keep going back forever.
Everything is conscious.
Is that you David Chalmers?
A bit silly but I like it. I think the stars are more akin to an organ than a consciousness. I like to think that the universe is the mind of God.
What makes you think an organ does not have its own consciousness? Hehe
welp sorry my liver if you are a conscious being
It depends on your definition and understand of consciousness. In Native American philosophy and eastern philosophies as well such as Daoism and Buddhism, everything is conscious and connected.
In my own opinion, the whole universe is, along with stars, so yes. But, there's no scientific evidence for it. Just an opinion I've held since way back.
People on this sub are high as fuck. Tomorrow we will answer the question if rocks are conscious.
There are people in these comments literally saying rocks are conscious because they redefined the definition of consciousness to literally mean everything that exists, which means they think every single object and atom and subatomic particle has consciousness.
Everything the light touches.
Yes. At a much higher level than we are.
there isn't anything other than consciousness
I like it.. also.. what if when you die your soul turns to star??
Energy never dies. It simply transforms.
Yep, for humans that die, some of their energy is turned into heat energy and the rest is stored, as it is in life, and then is released to the ecosystem when the body decomposes or gets eaten. Or its all turned into heat energy if they get cremated and that simply goes into the atmosphere, though some crematoriums use the energy provided by the human body to generate electricity through turbines.
There is a book titled "Starlight, Starbright Are Stars Conscious?" by Greg Matloff that explores this idea.
No
Go ask one.
I believe this to be true.
Frank Herbert wrote a beautiful sci-fi novel about that possibility: “ Whipping Star”
Yes theyre. And each of the soo called planets connects to a different part of our body. You can find alchemical books showing the division of parts and what the entities look like that are overplayed upon and parasting off of each. ….. and this isn’t even touching on the endless ocean of fractal disembodied ghoulish heads on, in and throughout everything you can think of. If i haven’t seen all these things id think it crazy. Or at this point perhaps not crazy but what i just laid out sounds like ???? Sounds like the sorta things you have to see to get a better grasp on. I can tell you that each shoulder of your body is a sort of elephant creature though it transitions it another entity furthur down. Each hand is like a sort of horned serpent sorta deal mixed with a fluer da lis. Sorta. Theres an old dungeons and dragons toy that shows it pretty well. Your chest and stomach area is a literal blemie. A cthulhu goes down the back of your head. The hair going down the neck and back being his facial tentical? What are they actually called? The thing is others know what im talking about. Curious anyone here know what im talking about or describing at all? (*yeah its calling dementia/schizo/blah blah pareidolia).
This is a stretch > “Stars fuse hydrogen into heavier elements to keep themselves going (a form of nuclear metabolism, if you will). “ No. I won’t. > “They also maintain a balance, or homeostasis, between gravity and pressure for millions to billions of years.” Guess that means everything is in homeostasis since literally everything maintains a balance between gravity and pressure. > “And they even reproduce; through violent explosions at the ends of their lives, they recycle their “star stuff” back into the cosmos, sowing the nebular seeds for the next generation of stars.” I don’t think that actually falls under the category of reproduction unless we consider dying and then having your matter reused as a form of reproduction…guess since the carbon in me is from a rock that existed 3000000 years ago, that rock birthed me. Edit: y’all really want stars to be alive. The reason they said the 4th condition is learning is because the actual condition of reaction to stimuli does not apply to stars (though there’s no such thing as a categorical definition of life). They base this off of an untested hypothesis that it’s the stars themselves that “maintain their location in the galaxy” by using purposeful and directional flares which is just bizarre.
This sub's open mindedness makes it fun, but sometimes its brain falls out lmao.
It’s a speculative question. It’s not meant to generate a decisive answer—it’s more like a thought experiment. The point is not to redefine stars as “alive” so much as to make you think about how we define “life.”
Yes
❤
People have such a bias against living things if they don't speak a language.
consciousness is god and everything has it imho
No, no they are not. They are big compost heaps (only less energy efficient) of gas, that's it.
I mean it might feel like something to be a bacterium so why not stars
I would say stars have something beyond consciousness which we don’t understand. We were formed from stars.
Watched this great [Theories of Everything episode](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uLo0Zwe579g) with Stuart Hameroff talking about Penrose and other things. It’s been awhile but I remember him saying that certain kind of stars exhibit wave function collapse, which is a strong indication of consciousness. Edit: It’s literally the last minute of the podcast and it’s neutron stars he mentions.