Could stars be sentient beings?!?

Subject: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:13 AM

After what happened last night, I think they very well might be!

It's been so rainy and overcast here in Ontario for the last few weeks, I haven't been able to indulge myself with my usual few minutes or so of star-gazing before sleep. Last night however, the skies had cleared momentarily, so I got to spend some time watching lovely Venus rise in the west, Mars in the east, and wondering if that bright little sparkle beside 'him' might be Uranus ...

The cat wanted out about 3 am, so I got up, went outside and sat there just spellbound by the luminous wonders of the heavens over my head. The Big Dipper changed positions since the last time I saw it - it's now right above my house, tilted as if to "spill" it's mysterious waters all over me...

I was so thrilled with all that beauty, so pleased to be able to spend a bit of 'quality time' with my celestial friends again, that I found myself saying aloud "Oh Stars, thank you so VERY much for being here, you are SO BEAUTIFUL ... I LOVE YOU!!!!" (It's easy to do these things at 3 am when there's no one around to think you're crazy...)

Well, as soon as I said that, suddenly this HUGE shooting star streaked by right over my head - in fact, right where my eyes were focussed at that moment!    :-D   What a delight!   And what a coincidence!?! It was like "he" (or "she") wanted to show me I'd been been heard and appreciated!!

What think ye? Could stars be sentient Beings after all?    :-)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:13 AM

Oops forgot the BS tag .... sorry ....

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:15 AM

Of course, you mean Folk Stars!!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:16 AM

LOL

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:21 AM

Don't talk so bloody daft.

eric

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:28 AM

I also love the name Eric. Named my son Eric, in fact!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Ned Ludd
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:32 AM

Are we talking Carthy, or Presley?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Alice
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:32 AM

"Could stars be sentient Beings after all?"

No, but your experience shows that humans have vivid imaginations.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:43 AM

There's no reason a sentient being couldn't take up residence in a cloud of endlessly exploding gases in the middle of light-years of blackness for a while, for fun.

But the basic answer is, IMHO, not bloody likely.


A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:54 AM

Definitely Eric Carthy. That Eric Presley was never really sentient.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 11:32 AM

A few years back I was walking up a quiet country road in Greece with a friend. The sky was blackest black and the stars really put on a show that night. I said out loud, " I wish I could see a shooting star," and crash, bang, wallop what a picture, one exploded across the sky in front of our eyes.

Coincidence or starry ears?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 11:40 AM

k here's an idea ... how about getting a representative sample of Catters together - say, 4 logical, feet-on-the-ground scientific souls like Wolfgang, 4 philosophical-quasi-spiritual types like Amos, 4 blustery nay-sayers like eric, and 4 star-struck, open-minded wonderers like myself.

We all agree to spend a few minutes outside each night for 4 nights, gazing at the stars until we feel totally mesmerized by the mysterious beauty over our heads. Then, when those feelings are at a peak, we call out to the skies "Oh Stars, thank you for your beauty ... I LOVE YOU!!"   (or something to that effect, although I suspect the "I love you" part might be essential).   And keep accurate records of any observed "results".

Then we tally up how many, if any, shooting stars or other celestial phenomena "answered" us back. The results just may indicate whether the ancient wise ones all over the globe have been correct in their beliefs about the stars once and for all!

Any takers? Just sign up here. And rest assured that I, for one, promise not to ridicule anybody!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:05 PM

GUEST thank you for sharing that! The thrill is enough to last a lifetime, isn't it!

Funny, as I read your post I just remembered an incident last summer with my son. My son Eric, in fact!

We were outside one night having a smoke (tobacco, just to clarify that!). I asked "WHY do you always turn that outside light on when you have a smoke at night!" It annoys me, and as I went to shut it off he said "Well why do YOU like standing out here in the dark all the time?"

I said "Because I love to look at the stars! See how beautiful they are! Look up ... that's Mars. There's Venus. That's Orion. And I see shooting stars too, sometimes a dozen or so a night."   

He snorted in ridicule, and as he turned his eyes skyward he said "So what? What's the big deal? They're always there, they're always the same, they ..." and at that very moment, a big sparkling shooting star whizzed by right over our heads, cutting off his words.

Well, his jaw dropped open. So did mine! And after a minute or 2, when he could finally wrench his eyes away from that sparkling firmament, he told me "Y'know, I've never seen a shooting star before".

:-)    Hee hee!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:15 PM

I see a star, can that star see me?
I shall remember, will it remember me?
And if perchance, you see my star
shall you also see me?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:22 PM

Both stars and politicians are big balls of gas. Stars are bright and beautiful. Politicians are generally neither of these things. I know this fails to answer the question about stars being sentient, but so far, sentient politicians have been found to be extremely rare.

Ruminations on a quiet morning.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:39 PM

Snuffy - I beg to differ.
Eric Pressley, fool for Wath-Upon-Dearne Morris is definitely sentient.
I well recall the night he presented me with "Goosey the duck" a small blue plastic tankard duck. He had only just found out that afternoon that I was lacking a duck, and had found it in his garden. His lad had spent about an hour scrubbing the mud off and cleaning it up so that it was fit to wrap and present to me.
No Eric is DEFINITELY a Star...
Quack!!
Geoff.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:52 PM

The Leonid meteor shower will be peaking on the 17th, so if you have another clear night in the next few days and are paying attention after midnight, there is a pretty good chance the same thing might happen again.

The operative word is paying attention. We have a myriad of things such as that happening all the time, but we're generally occupied with other stuff. Attaching any significance to it on a personal level has been ongoing since humankind first looked up.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 01:43 PM

Well...I think the whole Universe is, in a sense, a single sentient being, and that's it's all interrelating with itself in billions of ways all the time...like the cells in your body do.

So your theory holds a certain amount of water, Daylia.

People generally get what they expect, according to their beliefs. Accordingly, you all get...or at least perceive...pretty much what you have decided to.

That means that everyone gets to enjoy being "right" almost constantly, which should be a great comfort to those of you who WANT to be right, shouldn't it? ;-)

Modern physicists are now suggesting that the conscious expectations of a person conducting an experiment will affect the results of experiment, right down to the subatomic level. That's another way of saying what I am saying. Then there are the subconscious expectations of the person, which may sometimes conflict radically with their conscious ones. For instance, they may consciously want to win the jackpot when they go to the casino, but they may subconsciously believe that "I can never win, because the world's just not fair to me." Accordingly, they lose. Again and again and again...but they keep coming back, because their conscious mind is not in sync with their unconscious beliefs about themselves and life. That's what I call a sad situation, and it's a very common one.

Yes, Daylia, I think you were generously gifted with an intelligent response from an intelligent Universe...just because your own consciousness was in sync at that time with the rest of the System. In other words, that shooting star was on its way already, regardless, and your spontaneous expression of love was perfectly meshed into the overall pattern of ongoing reality. That's how it works. Nothing exists in isolation...EXCEPT the human ego, which has brought about its own isolation from life because it isn't real. It just thinks it's real. It's an artificial mind construct. Your body is real, your soul is real, your ego is not. It's a part in a play that you made up.

I also think that Wolfgang secretly wears frilly underwear with little pink flowers on it (that's a joke), and that he will totally disagree with me and vehemently deny my assertions. He's right in his world of thought, and I'm right in mine, and there's nothing either one of us can do about it.

Didn't Dylan say that once?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 01:51 PM

He's rubbish at picking up sticks though, Geoff

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 01:53 PM

True...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 01:56 PM

from my 'career' in Philosophy:

"contiguity in time & space are not sufficient conditions to demonstrate causality"

(that means, don't get carried away by coincidences)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:02 PM

Causality can only be seen in the context of separation.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:19 PM

Well, daylia, I believe that when we die we become stars.

...and yes, not only do we speak to the stars, sometimes they speak to us, too. Its just a matter of having the ears to listen. Some people just can't hear them.

I think that is what Christians mean when they speak of heaven.

So there you go. Everyone has their own beliefs.

At least my beliefs don't hurt anyone and I don't expect anyone to believe as I do.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:24 PM

One is curious about how such a belief is acquired, whether it hurts anyone or not. Did it just come to you one day?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:47 PM

It is not the case, however, that there is nothing can be done 'bout it.

Thought responds to communication. Given the right communication, even the most entrenched calculations about rightness can be viewed and will change.

The problem is the design of communication that could bring such a change in viewpoint about.

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:12 PM

The problem is the design of communication that could bring such a change in viewpoint about.

True. And the willingness, desire to change one's viewpoint precedes even the wisest attempts at effective communication.

"contiguity in time & space are not sufficient conditions to demonstrate causality"

Agreed. My rule of thumb is that if something happens once or twice, it's still in the realm of coincidence. If it happens 3 times, there just may be something else at work worth investigating!

Hence the experiment idea above. Bill, I think you're an ideal subject! Would you rather be placed in the "Wolgang" or "Amos" sample groups?   Or would you prefer to use your philosophical expertise by providing a wonderfully objective and logical analysis of the results?
;-)

Yes, Daylia, I think you were generously gifted with an intelligent response from an intelligent Universe...just because your own consciousness was in sync at that time with the rest of the System. In other words, that shooting star was on its way already, regardless, and your spontaneous expression of love was perfectly meshed into the overall pattern of ongoing reality. That's how it works. Nothing exists in isolation

LH, thank you very much for this most scintillent of perspectives!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:29 PM

Oh, and in light of what Metchosin said, let's choose 4 nights when there are no "peak" meteor showers. And the 17th is only 4 nights away - so better sing up quick. It's now or later, folks!

"The operative word is paying attention. We have a myriad of things such as that happening all the time, but we're generally occupied with other stuff. Attaching any significance to it on a personal level has been ongoing since humankind first looked up."

Wise words, Metchosin. The question is, what benefits are gained by attaching personal significance to external events like these? Must be a few, it's such an enduringly popular pastime .... hmmmm ...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:34 PM

oh, I guess I'd better be in with Wolfgang, *daylia*..(I'd be commenting on the results anyway *grin*)

" My rule of thumb is that if something happens once or twice, it's still in the realm of coincidence. If it happens 3 times, there just may be something else at work worth investigating!"

3 times in what time frame? With what parameters? How do you determine that each time it is the same 'something'? Can the event be recorded in any way so as to provide study independant of pure 'experience'?

SO many things to be considered......especially in the jump from "...may be something else at work worth investigating!" to "I accept and believe".

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:38 PM

I think scientists do what they do because they want to know and those with an artisitc bent do what they do because they really, really want to know. I also supect that our ability to comprehend what actually is going on only touches on 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of what is out there and what is around us. We might from time to time have flashes of a small bit of it, but I suspect our comprehension of the whole ball of wax is fairly insignificant.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Kaleea
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:40 PM

Whether we believe or do not believe, such things are, to quote Mr. Spock, "Fascinating."
   Years back, in a University religion or philosophy class, I read a couple of books from the "Masters of the Far East" set in which the author (sorry, I can no longer recall the author's name) explained that some beings (of the non physical &/or earthly type) often appear as bright lights akin to stars as they move about from one place or planet to another.
   I also recall watching a TV interview with an astronaut a few years back, who had written a book about things/beings he had seen while in space. Sorry, I can no longer recall which astronaut. He talked about how other astronauts & cosmonauts had observed such things, and some-including himself-even took photos from the space capsules or shuttles, some of which were included in the book. I never got around to finding the book, but it sure would be an interesting read.
   If any of you know of the book title or author, I'd appreciate knowing.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:53 PM

I'm also not so certain that we we came about in order to understand, but rather to appreciate and be amazed.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Joybell
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:57 PM

Some years ago we were at a folk festival way out in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those clear black moonless nights. A friend looked up and said,

"Why don't they all blow out when the wind blows?"

We hear him from time to time saying serious things on ABC radio and it takes me back. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:02 PM

LH is probably right "whole Universe is, in a sense, a single sentient being, and that's it's all interrelating with itself in billions of ways all the time...like the cells in your body do."


However, the nearest star ( other than the sun and any proto-stars in the Kuiper belt) is more than 4 LY away. so I doubt very much if THAT "shooting star" is a direct reply.

There have been a few SF stories based on stars being intelligent beings. Not a point we can prove or disprove at the present time.

The question is, if there are, would they consider US to be intelligent life?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:22 PM

Hard to say...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:32 PM

Kaleea, I believe Buzz Aldrin was the astronaut who had some 'strange' experiences in space, and had some subsequent problems in dealing with them...I no longer remember the details.

as to "...explained that some beings (of the non physical &/or earthly type) often appear as bright lights akin to stars as they move about from one place or planet to another."

the real problem here is the weight of the word "explained", as if it were a fact to BE explained, rather than a personal opinion or theory. That is a pretty fanciful notion that depends on accepting a LOT of other ideas a priori.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 05:22 PM

Bill D. - Yes, it did 'just come to me one day'.

I once knew a couple who had apent their lives building wooden sailboats and living aboard. She died and he died a couple of years later. One night I was out under the stars, above a bay where they were often anchored, when I heard a 'hello'. I looked around then up. One star was twinkling brightly above the bay. I realized it was Alan's voice.

Ever the skeptic I said, if it really is you, answer this question:

Is Sherry there, too?

He said, yes.

Still skeptical, I asked if they could talk to each other.

He said they didn't have to. All they had to do was shine down on us.

It was an energizing experience, to say the least. I wasn't looking for that communication, it just happened. Sure, it was probably just an overactive imagination, but it was too real for me to dismiss. Since then, I have found that many ancient cultures held similar beliefs.

I do not, however, run up and down streets, write books or knock on doors. Unless someone had actually experienced what I did, I wouldn't expect anyone else to believe it.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 05:34 PM

SO many things to be considered......especially in the jump from "...may be something else at work worth investigating!" to "I accept and believe".

Well, I prefer to settle for no less than "I know" these days.

LH says above that the event last night happened "... just because your own consciousness was in sync at that time with the rest of the System."   

From this viewpoint, any discussion of 'causality' is irrelevant.

This idea works better, for me, than think somehow my words, thoughts and feelings "caused" a meteor to streak by!

(if it was a meteor ... hmmm ... don't think I'm not paying attention dianavan, Kaleea et al)

And here's another 'benefit' .... if I was "in synch" with the true 'Nature of the Universe' during that moment of spontaneous joy and love and appreciation, well .... what a comforting, uplifting thought that is! Enough to have me smiling more, at everyone in my life. Maybe even treating myself and everyone/thing around me better too.

(For at least a little while anyway      :-)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 05:38 PM

Cool. ;-)

I think we're all in sync all the time, but mostly we don't get to consciously experience it or enjoy it, because we're too busy thinking, talking, or distracting ourselves with something. (like this forum...ha!)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 05:53 PM

In the process of looking up Buzz Aldrin's experiences I came across a really strange site. It purports to be transcripts from various Astronaut to Mission Control conversations.

I just got off the phone with a ham radio operator friend asking him if ham operators are discussing what is claimed on that web site. He says No, none that he's aware of and the only ham radio operator he knows who would believe it is Art Bell. (My friend and Bell have been acquaintances for a long time; were even housemates for several years.)

Art Bell?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 06:21 PM

I read..(scanned quickly) that page, and I saw NOTHING in those highly edited and out-of-context transcripts that directly state that astronauts saw or photographed that could be shown to be more than natural phenomena. All the 'suggestions' about 'code' are just that...speculation that they were trying to hide something.


The "will to believe" works overtime sometimes!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 06:41 PM

For far too many years I spent my working time with my face propped up against a microscope looking at worms. From time to time my mind drifted, as it sometimes does, because it can be a bit boring staring at worms.

On those occasions, I sometimes thought that, here I am staring down at a mass of life that has realatively little, in the way of senses, of which I'm aware, to even notice I'm observing them. They're like that, worms are.

But, one careless flick of a needle or a little excessive heat or the flush of some tapwater and their tiny world was forever altered or ended.

I figured I shared something with these wiggly threads of life, including a few bits of DNA and there could be a lesson in humility for me here. The thing I shared with them was the precious gift of life and the incapacity to truly comprehend anything beyond the limitations of my own senses......all 6 or more, if I included my imagination. LOL

I figured I could be on someone's or something's petrie dish, but maybe not, because that was within my capacity to imagine.

And then after that, I went and ate my lunch because I figured I'd been staring at worms too long.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 08:46 PM

Could stars be sentient beings?!?

OK! Your request is approved.

~God's Administrative Assistant (Ask Karen)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Kaleea
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 09:21 PM

Thanks, Bill. Re the Masters of the Far East, there were many other things which were "explained" that were out there--waaaaayyy out there! I'm sure that the author accepted all the things he "explained" as fact. I never read the entire set of books, just the first 3, I think. I've also heard ministers of many religious beliefs "explain" things during their services. Various religions are endlessly fascinating to me, but that does not mean that I accept the beliefs as my own.
When I first saw the thread title, I thought the term "star" might be referring to a "star" of the movie or tv type.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 09:30 PM

However, because I don't know what constitutes 'intelligence'--that is, I don't know 'how ' intelligence is made, comes about, develops, starts, etc--I think the question is very beautiful.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:24 PM

Count me in the *daylia* group.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:30 PM

gotcha! *smile*

Azizi - √
*daylia* - √
dianavan - √
Little Hawk - √

ok? any others?
Amos? hard to tell...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:35 PM

Me too.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:38 PM

hmmm...
ok,
Peace - √

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:41 PM

Here's why:

"The divine beauty
Of heaven and earth!
All creation,
Members of
One family."

That thought is from Morihei Ueshiba.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 11:38 PM

It's a pretty reckless suggestion that everything in the universe must conform to the rules of human logic. Especially when the vast majority of what there is
is still unknown.

Or should that be Western European human logic?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: dianavan
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 02:34 AM

Daylia - In my cosmology, what you say you witnessed (in the original post) was a soul falling from heaven to earth, and somewhere, a child was born.

Sounds like a pretty old story to me.

I'm a believer.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 03:55 AM

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
I don't wonder what you are
For by the spectroscopic ken
I know that you are hydrogen

The rush from rational thought gathers pace. Back to the believing Middle Ages.

It's easier to make it up as you go along, at least in the short term.

J o'L, you swim like a buttercup with a hyena and a motorbike for parents. I don't have to prove it; that would merely be using western human logic.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 04:05 AM

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say Paul, but people as certain as you are frighten the crap out of me.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 04:16 AM

Logic says that there is just one reality, yet dreamers have a different reality. Logic says there is nothing in the blank space

















yet my eyes see that contained therein a beautiful flower. And if I was an artist, I could show you.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 04:21 AM

I'm not at all certain. What I'm saying is that you don't deal with uncertainty by claiming that if we don't know everything, we don't know anything, and so any description is as good as any other. There are means of determining the "truth" (however you define that) of different versions, and so ranking one explanation as better (for that definition) than others.

Daylia's poetic vision of stars is just that: poetry. Which is better than science (at the moment) for talking about most things that involve the mental process that we call the soul. But are stars sentient in any useful sense of that word? Probably not, though my main reasons for saying so are the bad argument that it's difficult to imagine a mechanism by which a ball of fusing hydrogen could be sentient, and the perhaps better argument that there's not much point in being sentient when you are entirely at the mercy of gravitational fields, and have no choice in what you do.

Is Daylia sentient? Of course, beautifully. Could a fusion reaction many light years away have anything to do with a bit of dust burning up in the atmosphere just where Daylia happened to be looking? No.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 06:20 AM

Whichever definition you choose is always going to be an educated guess, informed by your culture, education, etc.
I think it's foolhardy to cut yourself off from the possibility that something apparently unlikely might actually happen, like Mum being a motorbike for example, or other relationships not quite so obvious.
How'd you know about that anyway?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 07:29 AM

I read it in the stars, of course.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Grab
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 08:34 AM

If the stars are umpty-tum zillion miles away, what have they to do with "shooting stars", which are some object hitting the Earth's atmosphere?

Are stars sentient? Possibly - who knows. Are shooting stars sentient? Again, possibly. Re-entry for a capsule or shuttle apparently makes a pretty good show. I couldn't discount the possibility that some shooting stars are alien spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere. How likely are both of those? Well, pretty damn unlikely really, but I couldn't refute the possibility.

But were the shooting stars inspired to dive into the upper atmosphere due to the stars umpty-tum zillion miles away having some gratitude to Daylia? Sorry, that's a step too far for me. :-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:06 AM

daylia,

Back in the 60s the great Science Fiction writers, Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson, wrote a trilogy of novels: "The Reefs of Space", "Rogue Star" and "Starchild". In these novels 'stars' (ie. 'suns' - as opposed to planets or meteors - the difference is pretty fundamental) turn out to be sentient beings.
If you want to explore your notion further you might like to start with these books (not sure if they're still in print, though). I'm pretty certain that other SF writers have also used the same idea.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:41 AM

I read those and was enchanted with the notion of living stars.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:43 AM

"It's a pretty reckless suggestion that everything in the universe must conform to the rules of human logic"

well, I don't know that anyone actually suggested that. But if you worry that they did, you should also worry that anyone believes that there is anything 'in the universe that does not conform to the rules of human logic'. Either concept is unprovable as it stands. However, what we HAVE is human logic, and to suggest that there are things outside it, just because we can conceive of the idea, is also a bit reckless.

People are often fond of saying things like "nothing is impossible"....and I understand their point, as new stuff is discovered everyday that we didn't know before, but taking the phrase literally is more than reckless; it is a distortion of both linguistics and physics/mathematics. We gradually expand our horizions of what IS possible, but I doubt that we will likely to ever be able to sharpen an axe on a peeled banana. (plain, peeled, not artifically hardened..etc..)

The imagination expressed in poetry, art, literature...etc. is important, as it is a major defining aspect of BEING human, but being able to weave our imagination into complex forms that we can't actually create or experience often lures us into unfounded beliefs about their possibility. Yes, it 'can' help us explore, discover and test what IS possible, but it's best to beware mistaking the linguistic expression for the reality.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:52 AM

(oh...and I read ALL those old Sci-fi books also, from Blish to Pohl to Herbert to Vance to Niven...etc...and I was enchanted, amazed and energized. I WANTED those concepts to be real and accessible....mind reading, faster-than-light travel, alternate universes, alien technology. I just never assumed that anything they could dream up was sort of automatically possible..)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 10:02 AM

Reality at the quantum level or multiple dimensional model is NOT human logic freindly at all. There is little that could be deemed intuitive on those scales. Surprise is the only norm.

Still there is the finding that intent creates more than we expect.
The wish come true (the what the bleep do we know scenario) is alluring.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 10:15 AM

We can all agree that portions of the Earth are sentient.

The other night a large gold light glowed brightly on one side of the sky with the half moon overhead while the other side of the sky had a bigger brighter intense blue white light shining brilliantly.

I recognized them as Mars, our moon and Venus. My "knowing and seeing" can be viewed as sentience.

"knowing, feeling and seeing" may be far more variable than our idea of knowing...

or not

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 10:59 AM

"portions of the Earth are sentient."

Fallacy of Equivocation

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 02:50 PM

WOw, so many great insights here! Thank you all so much, pressed for time but for now ...

Reality at the quantum level or multiple dimensional model is NOT human logic freindly at all. There is little that could be deemed intuitive on those scales. Surprise is the only norm.

Still there is the finding that intent creates more than we expect.
The wish come true (the what the bleep do we know scenario) is alluring.

Yes it is, and it seems human minds are conditioned to think this way from infancy up. I wonder if there are "equivalents" of this nursery rhyme in other languages ...

"Star light star bright
First star I see tonight
I wish I may I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight"

Could be seen as harmless fun, stimulating the creative imagination ... or as a nugget of wisdom ... or even as a form of mental abuse, I suppose.

I wonder ... are philosopher's kids less likely to be exposed to such fallacies?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 04:21 PM

The real miracle would be if the results of the observations cause any member of each of the four groups to change groups.

Will you be calling to all stars or just the ones that still exist? How will you tell the difference? ;o)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Cluin
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 04:56 PM

Shooting stars aren't stars at all. They're meteors. Chunks of rock burning up in our high atmosphere as they hurtle towards our planet, drawn in by its immense gravitional pull. Up till then, floating peacefully in the freezing vaccuum of interplanetary space.

If they're sentient beings, then you are witnessing the quick immolation death of them. All just for your amusement.

Sure.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 05:21 PM

I think the real question to be answered here is not whether or not lumps of rock or clouds of gas have brains, but whether or not there is a real interactive relationship between all things made of matter.

There is always at least one thread on the go here at the 'Cat which comes down to this essential question, and the four groups identified earlier all march out like little soldiers and fire off their salvoes.
I'd like to see some kind of experiment happen, and like BigPinkLad, I'd love to see someone change groups. I nearly did just recently. It caused me a great deal of angst, but I'm back now where I belong, so that's OK.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 05:22 PM

Could stars be sentient beings?!?

I always thought Jaclyn Smith was very sensuous, until she sold out to K-Mart.

I guess the same thing happened with Martha Stewart....and she went to prison for it.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 06:25 PM

Britney, on the other hand, never was close....

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 06:37 PM

As a sentient portion of the Earth for a little while longer I found your link to the fallacy of equivication could imply that we as people have a right to life and are all as important as an appendix.

that may be giving us too much credit.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 06:43 PM

well, Donuel...we all derive different things from these links..*grin*

but you may be right.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:00 PM

Hmmm...so perhaps Captain Beefheart could be right.....

We are matter
The stars are matter
It doesn't really matter

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:17 PM

'Shooting "Stars"' - are of course not "stars", but meteorites...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Cluin
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:18 PM

We are made of starstuff   ~~~Carl Sagan

We are stardust; We are golden...   ~~~Joni Mitchell

Don't you know that you are a shooting star?   ~~~Bad Company

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:24 PM

Stardust is what gets expelled when a star gets indigestion.

Bulldust is what gets expelled when a bull artist ...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:55 PM

'All of it matters or none of it does.' - Steinbeck

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 10:43 PM

Just found the full text:

"We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is."

- The Log From The Sea Of Cortez

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 10:51 PM

"Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you..." - Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 07:06 AM

Such star-studded poems and prose here, just gotta add this one:

"It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could 'a' laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course, it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest."

- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:15 AM

There is always at least one thread on the go here at the 'Cat which comes down to this essential question, and the four groups identified earlier all march out like little soldiers and fire off their salvoes.
I'd like to see some kind of experiment happen, and like BigPinkLad, I'd love to see someone change groups.

The more I think about it, the more I want to see the experiment happen too. It would be fun! And it might shed some light on human nature and the power of intentions/expectations, and maybe on the nature of the stars themselves too.

So far, we've got a number of willing "star-struck wonderers" - Azizi, LH, dianavan, Peace, and myself. And we've got one philosophical scientific type - that's you, Bill! (And thanks for offering to objectively - or at least I HOPE objectively   ;-) - critique the results based on the principles of logic. A most valuable contribution!)

But we need more blustery nay-sayers and die-hard skeptics. WHere are you, Wolfgang? WE NEED YOUR SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE!!!

And you, eric? HOw bout you, Amos? And I'd LOVE to have you as a subject, Joe! I want to see SRS here, and John In Kansas. Clinton Hammond and gargoyle, too (as blusterers, probably). ANd freda, and JennyO, and maybe katlaughing if she's up to it ...

At any rate, we need a balanced number of "nay-sayers" and "wonderers". PLEASE NOTE THAT BEING A 'BELIEVER' is NOT A PREREQUISITE FOR JOINING THE "WONDERERS" GROUP(S). Then we can finalize dates and method.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:27 AM

OK what kind of experiment? What are you going to test, how are you going to measure it, what kind of controls will be in place?

I'll take part in a properly designed experiment!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: JennyO
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:00 AM

I'm in if you want me! However, I come down on the side of the "star-struck wonderers", and you already have more of those than anybody else. Having said that, I also have a good dose of "philosophical scientific type" in me, and I would be especially interested in it from a scientific point of view.

I have a feeling it will be hard for you to get a balance of the different types. The "blustery nay-sayers and die-hard skeptics" might not be so inclined to bother.

I'll keep following this thread to see how it's going.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:05 AM

Paul, this is so weird - I was just going to add this PS to my last post (as follows). I clicked back on the thread, here you already are!   :-D

...Is Daylia sentient? Of course, beautifully. Could a fusion reaction many light years away have anything to do with a bit of dust burning up in the atmosphere just where Daylia happened to be looking? No

I wanted to thank you for your kind words (and you too, Peace *sniff sniff*) and tell you that, for me anyway, yours is the most convincing "argument against" I've read here yet.

Just want to clarify that I DO (and did) know that shooting stars are not stars but meteors. I was still more than a bit blown away by what just happened when I started this thread, not thinking in specifics but generalities.

BTW this kind of thing HAS happened to me before, too - for one example, see the incident re my son Eric posted above (13 Nov 12:05 pm) But this is the first time I've ever told anyone about it ....

Re the experiment, my initial idea was posted Nov 13 too as follows ...

here's an idea ... how about getting a representative sample of Catters together - say, 4 logical, feet-on-the-ground scientific souls like Wolfgang, 4 philosophical-quasi-spiritual types like Amos, 4 blustery nay-sayers like eric, and 4 star-struck, open-minded wonderers like myself.

We all agree to spend a few minutes outside each night for 4 nights, gazing at the stars until we feel totally mesmerized by the mysterious beauty over our heads. Then, when those feelings are at a peak, we call out to the skies "Oh Stars, thank you for your beauty ... I LOVE YOU!!"   (or something to that effect, although I suspect the "I love you" part might be essential).   And keep accurate records of any observed "results".

Then we tally up how many, if any, shooting stars or other celestial phenomena "answered" us back. The results just may indicate whether the ancient wise ones all over the globe have been correct in their beliefs about the stars once and for all!

Any takers? Just sign up here. And rest assured that I, for one, promise not to ridicule anybody!

So far, the only "controls" I've come up with are to be sure we have equal representation from each group, that we DON'T pick nights when there's a "peak" meteor shower expected (don't want stars falling out of the sky everytime we say BOO), and that we all follow the same "method".

I have an undergraduate degree in psych, but the key word here is UNDERgraduate. I'm a music teacher, NOT a scientist, don't know all the logistics of setting up an experiment properly.

And that's why we need Wolfgang ... or someone like Wolfgang. How bout you, Metchosin? MUst have put together lots of successfull experiments during all that worm-gazing! (I LOVE Your story, btw ... thank you so much for sharing it!)

daylia

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: MMario
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:11 AM

I'm so confused by this thread - postulated is intelligent stars, with possible evidence being "shootign stars" which are an atmospheric phenomenen caused by the friction heating of meteoric material as it falls to earth -

since stars are a minimum of 4 light years away - to have a near earth response at this distance presumes not only sentience, butthe breaking of sevedral other currenlty accepted physical "laws" including light-speed.

On the other hand - see 'A Wrinkle In Time'

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:17 AM

Thanks, Jenny - and you're right too. I DO hope there's a few "nay-sayers" and "skeptics" here with enough imagination and flexibility to give it a whirl!

Sorry bout the confusion re meteor/stars, MMario ... I just tried to explain it above. Would you please consider taking part in the experiment?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:44 AM

we philosophical/scientific types wish to point out that right about now is tilted in favor OF seeing 'replies'....and August is even worse. I once camped outside Denver in August at about 8000 ft, and there were meteors every few seconds!

http://www.amsmeteors.org/showers.html#2005

How do we pick a time that is fair?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 12:07 PM

A comment here: Someone once said that if the stars came out only once every twenty years, that night NO ONE would go to bed.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 12:21 PM

and one of the best sc-fi stories ever written was "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov, about a planet with several suns, where the stars were only seen every few THOUSAND years, when all the suns set at the same time....the 'awe' resulted in the downfall of civilization.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 12:23 PM

Then there's Triffids ...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Spock
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 01:56 PM

Your illogical approach to astronomy does have its advantages on occasion, Daylia. To assist with your experiment, I shall exercise far greater caution in where I throw my rocks in the future than was the case last Sat night.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 02:19 PM

I think the key is wonder. When we cease to do that we may as well cease, period. I love people who still have that sense. Of course, what we wonder about is different for all of us. A story I use for younger readers is "All Summer in a Day". It's by Ray Bradbury.

"The story deals with a group of schoolchildren residing on an inhabited, tropical Venus at an unspecified future time. The thick atmosphere of Venus still exists at this time, and it is constantly raining, so seeing the sun is a very rare event which occurs only every seven years. The events of the story describe the children's actions on the day that the sun was to appear for the first time in their lives that they can remember. They were only two years old the last time the sun appeared." [from Wikipedia]

Wonder.

Deja Thoris will always have a place in my heart because I know I coulda done a better job saving her than Carter. OK, so maybe she would not have been impressed by a nine-year-old, but age was no never mind in those days. Carson of Venus? Pshaw. I have been to Barsoom, Venus, outer space, the edge of the galaxy and even into the future. I have also been into the past. I fought with Blackbeard (for and against on alternate days as fancy dictated) and met Tom when he had the boys painting the fence. Sense of wonder. It has led me down paths that span the spaces between hearts, stars, even realities. I'm fifty-eight, and regardless how long I live I will always remember the civilizations I saved on planets since forgotten and the pirates I defeated in those battles on seas long ago.

Thanks for reminding me of this stuff, Daylia.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: frogprince
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 04:48 PM

I once saw proof positive that "shooting stars" may respond to humankind. It was in the fall of 1968, in Clarksville, Arkansas. A group of us were in the town cemetary, somewhere around midnight. Bill laid down on a stone slab. Richard, An Italian atheist from Brooklyn looked up to the sky, and began a bizzare, poetic, rather pornographic "eulogy" for Bill: Something about "As he swings out into eternity on the clitoris of the infinite" Just then two shooting stars crossed overhead. Richard paused, then said "Just kidding".
   Disprove the significance of that, ye cynics!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 04:49 PM

Well I probably fall into the category of "ignorant" wonderer, but I also have a scientific bent too, with a lot of holes in that as well.

The trouble is when I see stuff like this, my mind wanders into quantum physics, big bang or Arpian redshift doubts and stable universe coupled and a few pages of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a smattering of eastern religion and a few Outer Limits shows tossed in for good measure and then overlayed with, is all this the face of God?.

It's really a pain to have such a cluttered brain, that is no farther ahead in understanding these things now, than when I first started thinking about it in grade 8 science.

Then, I felt pretty enlightened when I'd doodled on my text book cover what I thought was an astute link between the macrocosm and the microcosm, until a friend pointed out that all my doodles were based on a model of the Bore atom and if I had half a brain I would know that the Schrodinger atom was now CAT.

Which is probably why, when pressed, I usually just go with the emotional gut reaction of, "Wow! isn't it wonderful!" because Argh! my brain hurts!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Joybell
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 05:02 PM

Hi,

I'm David a friend visiting Joy and was musing about this discussion and thought I'd make a contribution. Stars may or may not be sentient beings but sentient beings are made of stars!!!!

The only naturally occurring element in the universe is hydrogen all other elements are made as the result of nuclear fusion in, use guessed it STARS!!!

Have a look at your own chemical make up, you are made of stars and are presumambly sentient to a greater or lesser degree.

One day I'll get round to righting that song, "I think we came from the stars"

Happy star gazing one and all remember where you cam from

David

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 05:12 PM

Anyone read "Whipping Star" by, I think, Frank Herbert?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 05:17 PM

yes...I have read that. I had almost forgotten about it. It is an interesting story....but HIGHLY imaginative.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 05:57 PM

The pop/rock song "We are stardust" is about 30 years old...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 06:03 PM

And not to forget , we are covered with and probably breath "star dust" as tons of debris from space enter our atmosphere every day. Wow! We're Tinkerbelles!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 09:59 PM

Possibly, but given stars like Brittany Speares I'm not at all sure of it.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:40 PM

oh, NO, Rapaire! She is quite the scholar!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: dianavan
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:01 AM

daylia - Only one problem with your experiment. Many Mudcatters live in places where they can't see the stars. This may account for the absence of enlightened thought. ;>)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:11 AM

aha, speaking of unenlightened thought, I probably should have spent less time doodling in English too, because upon review that is a Bohr atom.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:20 AM

To get a true result all the variables should be ignored altogether. Pick a time and do it regardless. While waiting for the perfect moment you will miss it. There is no perfect moment. The perfect moment is whenever it comes together. How sciencical is that?

I can do science, me.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 03:56 AM

So it seems that a majority of Catters belongs to the don't bother us with hard facts, we'll do it the easy way and make it up school.

If people won't accept "I feel it strongly, so it must be true", just invoke quantum mechanics and uncertainty, and you can get away with anything, after all, everything's relative isn't it?

I think it's the shortcutters who are missing out on the REAL mystery of the universe, the wonders of inanimate balls of gas of uncomprehendable size, that develop gravitational rhythms that interlock with each other, the dance of gravity that gathers the scattered atoms into dust, rocks, asteroids, planets, stars, the awesome power of fusion, the great epiphany of the supernova that scattered the carbon from which you are made, the mysterious collapse to a black hole so heavy that light can't escape, the weirdnesses of stretching and bending of time. And that's before we get to the universe of living creatures.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 08:58 AM

Actually, Paul, eveything you listed and more continues to amaze and delight me just as it did when I first learned of it about a half-century ago now, and the more I learn the more amazed and delighted I become. I only wish I had the math background to REALLY understand the little we know.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 09:56 AM

I agree, Rapaire - and Paul, that last paragraph is quite the scientific inspiritation inspiration   :-) .. in fact, this whole thread is a joy to read and reflect upon! Again, thank you all so much!

Can't decide if Einstien's ideas below are more like Paul's, or Metchosin's, or (surprise of all surprises) Little Hawk's. Hey, maybe we are ALL "geniuses" in our own unique way!

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

(doesn't the bolded part sound like LH?   :-)

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism"

- Albert Einstein, sources and more quotes here

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:12 AM

The confusion inherent in this dialogue comes from not being clear about which universe is which. Physical universe mechanisms -- the kind that can be subjected to controlled and repeatable experimentation -- do not, as a rule, respond on the macro scale to individual reflections and thoughts in the way Daylia describes.

But the universe of thought, which is a very different kettle of fish, does engage in all kinds of strange phenomena, acting non-local and instantaneous, responding to intensely felt decisions, and crisscrossing distance without intermediate points.

The problem is that (a) life as we know it is a badly mashed up combination of physical mechanisms and thought, and it is easy to identify all material objects as thought-stuff, and just as easy to identify all thought as mere material patterns of electron-jumps or some such equally absurd notion. And (b) at some level thought gets larger than the material universe, subjectively -- seems to embrace it somehow -- and therefore in a perverse way it kinid of makes sense to believe that what the tides and stars do is a product of thought.

The Big Question, IMHO, is whether the origins of matter are actually found in thought. I am pretty sure it is not the other way 'round, regardless of assertions about brain stems and such.

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:19 AM

Well the sentience has to come from somewhere- it seems safest as a starting point to assume it's "just" a property of matter, but perhaps better expressed as a process that can happen when matter is organised in certain ways (like life perhaps is). We have some inkling of one way, but must assume that there are Vastly (the V is Daniel Dennett's) more ways of being conscious than our own.

Or, to put it another way, the UFO lands, They walk out in a beam of light; how do you know if They are sentient beings, or just a cleverly programmed robot? Is a cleverly programmed robot sentient in some sense? Does that make Thomas the Tank engine sentient? It's all wrapped in the Turing shroud.

Would you prefer to take me to your leader, or take me to your trailer?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:22 AM

"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism" (Einstein)

Hmm, on second thought, I beg to differ with the "genuinely religious" bit. Religions are social institutions, which may or may not have much to do with the "spiritual" at any given moment.   To say that humility is "...a genuinely spiritual feeling", or even "... a genuinely LOGICAL feeling" (!!) works much better in this context, imo.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:27 AM

Daylia, religiosity as Einstein refers to it has ntohing to do with organizations.

"Religion—sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices and institutions associated with such belief. In its broadest sense some have defined it as the sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken a huge number of forms in various cultures and individuals. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious"

Actually, I think, organized religion is a bit of an oxymoron, or at least a severe compromise.

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:57 AM

"Would you prefer to take me to your leader, or take me to your trailer?" oh, wow...a folk music link! We can move this above the line now!

but as to " the sentience has to come from somewhere-"...yes, Paul, I suspect that it is just a product of 'critical mass' of certain types of matter, organized in particular ways. That is a MUCH easier and simpler and Occam-friendly way to approach the issue. Positing 'thought' as a basic building block gets you into metaphysical labyrinths that Escher on LSD couldn't illustrate!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: MMario
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 11:10 AM

the REAL mystery of the universe, the wonders of inanimate balls of gas of uncomprehendable size, that develop gravitational rhythms that interlock with each other, the dance of gravity that gathers the scattered atoms into dust, rocks, asteroids, planets, stars, the awesome power of fusion, the great epiphany of the supernova that scattered the carbon from which you are made, the mysterious collapse to a black hole so heavy that light can't escape, the weirdnesses of stretching and bending of time

Enough to keep ones mind boggled for a few centuries - even without considering life...

Zenna Henderson in one of her "people" stories had a phrase about science - something along the lines of a primitive person looks at a tree and sees a tree. A scientific person looks at a tree and see xylem, phloem, photosynthesis, materials transport, energy cycles, stress ratios, tissue compression etc.

the advanced person looks at a tree and see a tree - realizing it is the sum of everything the scientific person sees - but uniquely a tree.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:19 PM

I think everyone here has an appreciation of the majesty and awe of it all - I think that's why we have a problem with it. We have to decide if it was planned or unplanned - two equally unlikely scenarios, only one of which can be correct. I don't know.
It seems that no-one knows. I consciously choose the alternative that gives hope of purpose over the one that says it's all for nothing.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:47 PM

Actually, I think that starts are really, really scary!!! A star is a truly vast, very, very hot ball of plasma. It is one enormous thermonuclear explosion - often spanning billions of years and only held together by its own gravitational field.
Unprotected by the atmosphere the Sun would fry a person in seconds and just to look at it with the naked eye would certainly blind such a person.
One of the problems with space travel, within the Solar system, is the prodigious amount of radiation that the Sun, our local star, pours out. Without suitable protection astronauts would be severely irradiated and probably killed by a big solar flare.
And the Sun is just a small to medium size star; there are some really awesome monsters out these - many, many times more massive and many millions of degrees hotter. I sort of hope that they're not sentient as well!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:51 PM

"I consciously choose the alternative that gives hope of purpose over the one that says it's all for nothing."

Therein is a great truth, IMO. Even if it WAS all for nothing, it is no longer for nothing, because from chaos we have the ability to see order in both the greatest and least of realities.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 03:51 PM

"God does not play dice with the universe," Einstein said, because he couldn't accept the statistical analyses of quantum mechanics.

Personally, I don't see any problem with it, or with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, or Dirac's ideas, or Feyneman's, or Bohr's, or Fermi's, or Hawking's, or Schroedinger's, or anyone else's.

I realized long ago that it all touches. If we don't see it now, we will eventually.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 05:09 PM

"I consciously choose the alternative that gives hope of purpose over the one that says it's all for nothing."

but it is not 'for nothing' once we look at it! We give meaning and value to the things in our universe. There are no objective values of 'beauty' or 'useful'; they are values WE give things. We climb a mountain "because it is there"...we appreciate Autumn leaves and watrefalls because they affect us. There is no reason to have 'meaning' to a universe without us to concoct meaning! The universe just **IS**.....and will **BE** long after we are scattered to the atoms we came from.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 05:27 PM

I think I see what you're saying Bill, but I find it hard to accept that once each individual life has passed the wheels will just continue turning until all the individual lives have been used up and still go on turning eternally without any more life. That's what I mean by 'for nothing'.

I shudder to say it, but I guess I'm in the camp that says life and all of its ramifications are too complex to be accidental. (I don't think it should be taught in schools. Does that get me any credibility?)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 05:43 PM

Having just apparently allied myself with what I regard as the most shameful form of fundamentalist I need to publish a few disclaimers:

I do not believe in an all powerful creator who looks like me.
I think I adhere more to the Gaia notion, applied not just to the earth but to the entire universe. That is, that it is a living self-regulating entity.

I have no opinions on how it started, where it came from or why. I don't fully grasp the notion of eternity. It's too far out.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 03:53 AM

John, that's just the self- centred argument that "I must be really important, I just feel it!" There was a time when you weren't, before you were conscious (i.e. sometime between conception and now). So why should there not be a time when you aren't again?

That's not to belittle intelligence- as Bill D said, we (life on earth) are the only known meaning in the universe.

But doesn't it comfort you rather more to think that the materials of which you are constructed were once at the heart of a star, at a temperature of millions of degrees; were blown out by an unimaginable explosion into the darkness of space; travelled billions of miles in startlit darkness at temperatures approaching absolute zero; were gas, part of a tree, part of a worm, part of a rock, burnt in a furnace, floated in the air, and just now part of you. And that you can look out into the sky, and although you couldn't know it, perhaps that red dwarf in your telescope was once the white-hot forge in which those materials were made?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:14 AM

but it is not 'for nothing' once we look at it! We give meaning and value to the things in our universe. There are no objective values of 'beauty' or 'useful'; they are values WE give things. We climb a mountain "because it is there"...we appreciate Autumn leaves and watrefalls because they affect us. There is no reason to have 'meaning' to a universe without us to concoct meaning! The universe just **IS**.....and will **BE** long after we are scattered to the atoms we came from.

Bill, this is awesome. You're absolutely right - I doubt any other creature on Earth needs to attribute "meanings" of any kind to life or any of it's trappings. Animals can see the stars too - but do they wonder about what they're looking at? Does it give them a sense of humility? Do they make wishes upon them, or imagine them as "gods" and "goddesses" and weave enduring and alluring legends and stories around them, or devote their lives to discovering the truth about them from a scientific perspective?

Now, I can't read the mind of an animal any better than the mind of a human, but I sincerely doubt it!

I daresay Bill's point is the crux of the matter too, especially if taken in equal doses with I think the key is wonder. When we cease to do that we may as well cease, period. I love people who still have that sense. (thanks, Peace!)

Y'know I think this is the first time since joining the Cat that I've ever wholeheartedly agreed with you, Bill. ANd this is a miracle of no small proportions in and of itself. HALLELUIAH!!!   

;-)

Amos, thanks for posting the definition of "religion". Unlike Einstein, I must have an "issue" (or several) around that word.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:14 AM

"I can do science, me."

Yes, the damn idiotic program has turned up on Aus TV now too..

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:58 AM

Look at the pictures stored here. Peek at ones like November 17, November 11. Realize that these places are real, they exist. And they exist whether or not we look at them, , for there are billions of other people who will never see them and who will never care.

Did the surface of Mars exist before we landed there? Or did our landings define the surface? If the latter, why would it, since so very, very few humans were involved in the first place and very, very few humans actually care?

Beauty, awe, shock, even fear -- I'm glad that these places exist and that our intelligence has made it possible for use to see them.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:11 AM

John...

" but I guess I'm in the camp that says life and all of its ramifications are too complex to be accidental"

Isn't is just as rational and easy to say:
"The universe and life are FAR too complex and convoluted and chaotic to attribute to an 'intelligent cause'? Anything this immense and confusing MUST be random happenings following some natural, but confusing, set of rules for unimaginable amounts of time?"

To me, it's like looking at the aftermath of a hurricane or tornado, with cars sitting on rooftops and stuff strewn everywhere, and saying "wow, LOOK at all that mess! I'll bet some power we don't understand decided to put Cousin Betsy in that tree."

It's just physics, following natural laws! If you read all the explanations of how life probably came about, it becomes obvious that certain molecules in certain places under certain temperature conditions WILL undergo changes and become more complex molecules...etc...etc...

If you wish to REALLY understand this viewpoint, find a copy of "Wonderful Life- The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History" by Stephen Jay Gould, and plow your way thru it...or just read introductions and a few selections that show just how amazing things can BE when we examine them very carefully. Particularly, read pages 129-136, where Gould shows (or at least CLAIMS) how Harry Whittington's examination of Opabinia regalis, "a little 2 inch Cambrian oddball invertabrate" has "Taught us more about the nature of evolution" than any of the dinosaurs and "will stand as one of the great docuuments in the history of human knowlege"

Kind of a heavy claim, huh? Well, it's hard to see why he says that without reading a bunch of the preceeding explanations, but it gives you an idea of the possibilities of expanding one's comprehension, even if you end up disagreeing with him!

The more you read, the more "Intelligent Design" begins to seems like a pretty impossible task, and unless you have already decided that you simply LIKE the idea of some unimaginable intelligence planning all this, you can at least appreciate the efforts of those who are trying to unravel HOW it all happened...the long, hard way!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:31 AM

Ooo thanks so much for the NASA link, Rapaire. It was posted on a Mudcat thread a couple years ago, but I lost the bookmark and I've missed it.

Emboldened by the friendly, inspiring discourse on this thread, I'd like to share this bit of "background info", which may or may not have anything to do with that shooting star "answering" my declaration of love and appreciation the other night.

I've been pondering dianavan's suggestion re stars being "souls" for the last few days. Didn't mention this before, because it means so much to me I didn't want to risk having it disrespected or ridiculed, but oh well here goes anyway ....

Something very special happened to me last Sat, the afternoon before I had the experience which inspired this thread. My son had stopped by on his way home from the airport - he'd been in France last week. The highlight of his trip was a visit to the poor, tiny farming village of Domremy - Jeanne d'Arc's birthplace and hometown. He'd retraced her footsteps from there to Rouen, where she was burned alive in 1431.

He had a few little gifts and mementos of her for me - a couple pebbles from the yard in front of her house (still standing), and another stone from the very spot the stake stood in Rouen; a roll of digital pictures; a little wood-and-metal statue of her in her armour carrying her banner; a bowl with a picture of her house and my name on it; some brochures and reading material about her ...

St Joan has been my hero for a long, long time ... she is so very special to me (and a lot of other people too I imagine). I was just blown away, moved to tears by the gifts. Spent the rest of that day reading about her, reflecting, setting up a special place in my house for her statue, holding those stones and yes, even doing a quite a bit of thanking and praising (suppose it might be called 'praying') too.

I'd gone outside to gaze at the stars before bed, so grateful for my day and all it's unexpected blessings. And then the cat woke me up at 3am, which brought me outside again ... and IT HAPPENED!

Now I'd love to know if Jeanne had something to do with it ... because that's what I'm feeling, especially in light of dianavan's words.

And I almost want to take back I said above about animals not being as "aware" as humans ... why IS it that my cat woke me up a minute before that shooting star streaked across the sky? Is that coincidence too? Or did she "know" something important (for me) was about to happen, compelling her to want out at that moment, and in so doing get my butt out that door too?

As LH said, that shooting star was on it's way already, regardless - but was it carrying a very special energy, a Message of love and wisdom for me? Hmmmm ...

There's a very, very old mossy and worn statue of Joan in Domremy. She's genuflecting (bowing on one knee), eyes gazing skyward, right hand outstretched as if in blessing. I zoomed in on that picture yesterday, wanting to see what that odd-looking lump on the hem at the bottom of her dress might be ... and lo and behold, it's a cat! A kitten, snuggled up to her leg.

:-O I wish I could post that pic here!

More coincidences. Or is it? Cats, after all, have been associated with "The Goddess" in many, many cultures, including ancient Europe ... and Joan has always been referred to as "La Pucelle" ("The Maiden").

I've had one other experience with a "star" that fell at a perfectly timed moment, as if to give me a "message". That was about 10 years ago. I'd been studying with a new-age type American religion called "Eckankar" for a couple years, attracted by their awesome teachings about dreams.

They'd invited me to take an "initiation" and join as a full member, but I was very reluctant to do that. I REALLY don't like "religions", and I'm no "joiner" - so I decided to visit their one and only "Temple" in Chanhaussen, Minnesota to get a better "feel" of the organization before I made my final decision.

It's quite the lovely temple ... take a look if you like. I walked up to it the first time at high noon on a beautiful sunny summer day. The temple wasn't open yet, so I stood there in the parking lot for a minute gazing up at that beautiful golden ziggarnaut roof .... and as I did, no word of a lie here, suddenly this HUGE bright "star" (or "star-like object") literally fell out of the clear blue sky and streaked downwards, "landing" and disappearing on the highest point of that Temple roof.

Well, talk about blow me away again! What WAS that?!? Unfortunately I was alone, on a pilgrimage sort of, with no other witnesses. So I don't know if anyone else would have seen it or not. ANd no one, even the most airy-fairy of new-age spiritual types, has ever been able to concoct an explanation that I find satisfactory! But I do know this - it was a major factor in my decision to put aside my doubts and fears and join Eckankar.

Didn't last long, though. Ecknakar is a religion, just like any other religion - and, well, I think Bing Crosby does a much better job of explaining the root of my difficulties with "organized religions" than I ever could ...

DON'T FENCE ME IN

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in....

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
Can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in."

Sorry this is so long, and thanks for listening

daylia

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:32 AM

More directly, read "The Blind Watchmaker" which details out EXACTLY how complex systems arrive from small random inputs.

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:43 AM

and folks...do realize how close we have come, on 3 or 4 occasions, to NOT existing at all! The Earth has been subjected to monumental mass extinctions several times in the past, and only chance kept the progression going in such a way as to bring about 'us'. There would no doubt have been other life...possibly more stuff like Opabinia regalis, or more dinosaurs...or even favoring Neanderthals, and not Homo Sapiens......the UNIVERSE doesn't care. WE care, because we are complex enough to care about our tiny place in the universe...as well we should! We have the ability to control 'some' of the factors that affect our continued being, but too many of us just shrug and abdicate that responsibility to some abstract power we can't even agree on!

I love the old joke about how "Science has discovered the 'missing link' between apes and civilized man.......it is us!"

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:50 AM

Without you, there is nothing. (xT)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:57 AM

*daylia*...it is the middle of November! The Leonid meteors are in full swing. You OUGHT to see a 'shooting star' if you look up for awhile!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 02:31 PM

Look for one that glows red then green.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 02:31 PM

I know, Bill.   

*sigh*

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 04:22 PM

Bill -
I am aware of how life can or could be brought about by chance, and I am also aware that statistically it is regarded as a virtual impossibility in the short time it took. I also understand that such statistics mean nothing if it just happens once.

Nothing you say above has any bearing on the possibility or likelihood of the existance of a spiritual side to nature. I don't disagree with any of it. (Cousin Betsy's story aside.)

Paul -
Yes I am impressed with all those things. I am impressed that something of such magnitude can be of such precision. I am impressed that light centuries away there is a point in space & time from which our galaxy is racing away, and that same distance again further there is another galaxy racing away from us at the same speed. That there is a sphere of such galaxies, or clusters of galaxies, and that everything within all of them is made of sub-atomic particles which are nevertheless infinitely larger than the singularity from which it all issued.

Yes I am impressed, but no it's not enough. To say life gives it purpose is glib and a cop-out. It puts the horse behind the cart. The purpose is there. Life is a part of the purpose. Sure there is no definitive proof that the spiritual world exists, but there never will be. It's the SPIRITUAL world for chrisssake. What kind of proof do you want? A signpost? It's a journey of discovery. (Glib perhaps, but true.) Be receptive.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 04:27 PM

*smile*...good thing there is always stuff to be amazed at and in awe over, even when we can't connect it directly to certain fascinating ideas. We can always have poetry, imagination, fantasy, methphor and a melding of these into beauty and creativity....whether we ever prove anything concrete about them or not. THAT is part of what makes being human special.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Joybell
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 04:43 PM

We've got more stars down here (well up there, down here)than you have in the Northern hemisphere. I ask you is that fair? Couldn't they have been shared out more evenly. A little sad for my friends. Joy

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 05:21 PM

"...THAT is part of what makes being human special." - You said a mouthful there my friend.

Joybell -
But they've got more big black patches than us...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 05:30 PM

Stars are all around us. Space exploration, by telescope or by however, has given us back far more than it's cost. That return might be physical or a boost to the spirits, but return it has.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 05:52 PM

statistically it is regarded as a virtual impossibility in the short time it took.

Not so. It is statistically impossible if you disregard the carefully bounded mechanisms of retained successful micro-changes, but it is not statistically impossible if you include that single piece of the Darwinian formulation. See Richard Dawkins' explanation of the math in The Blind Carpenter.

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 07:11 PM

I don't have any expectation or even real notion of the sensibilities of stars or fragments thereof. However, enough odd things have happened in my life that I'm cautious of adamancy (word?).

I bought a 64 Mustang from my brother in law after their daughter had gone off to school. Unbeknownst to me, my niece was mightily upset at the loss of her car. And in the first month that I had the car I,
1) put the car in a ditch
2) backed over a stump
3) scraped a fence

I had never come close to doing any of those things with any other car I'd had (or since). Made me feel that the car just plain didn't like me. Which made no sense to me whatever, until it occurred to me that the molecules of which all things are made share a great many characteristics. So there!

BTW we eventually became great friends. OK?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 07:50 PM

OK Amos, perhaps I was relying on old or unreliable information, but even so, none of the above disallows the existance of a spiritual reality beyond the mere physical, and I think there is ample circumstantial evidence to at least give it a begrudging 'well, maybe I s'pose...'

As I said earlier, and I believe I have always maintained, I don't have issue with anything that has been presented here, except the refusal to allow for that possibility.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:54 PM

Science...means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an aim which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but which the intellect can never fully grasp.

                   --Max Planck, quoted in Gary Zukav, The Dancing                                                                     
                   Wu Li Masters: An overview of the new physics
                   (New York: Bantam Books, 1986).

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:59 PM

Albert Einstein: Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 09:05 PM

Galileo Galilei: The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.

Howard Nemerov: Religion and science both profess peace (and the sincerity of the professors is not being doubted), but each always turns out to have a dominant part in any war that is going or contemplated.

Jacob Bronowski: No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.

Ralph Sockman: Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: John O'L
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 09:43 PM

Amos -
You are obviously talking about The Blind Watchmaker.

I googled The Blind Carpenter and got this.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:53 AM

the existance of a spiritual reality beyond the mere physical, and I think there is ample circumstantial evidence to at least give it a begrudging 'well, maybe I s'pose...'

I think you'll find that you are using that slippery weasel word "spirit" in two different senses here. There IS a spititual reality, if by spiritual you mean art, morality, love, hate, and all other human emotions and aspirations.

It is a reality no less real than a brick, but has the reality of a process rather than that of a thing. So, for example, a flow exists, and is not the same as the water, it's a description of a state of the water. But you can't tell us that a tsunami, a flow of water, isn't as real as a brick.

However, "spirituality" in that sense does not mean that there has to be a "spirit", separate from the body and its mind processes, any more than there has to be a demon in the tsunami.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:34 AM

It was a clear, frosty day in Manchester yesterday. I walked down a wide road straight towards the rising morning sun. The light from this 'local star' was dazzling and I had to screw up my eyes. I had this sudden realisation that I really was in the presence of a star and this realisation was more than a bit scary! Here was this huge ball of incandescent gas just 8 light minutes away. The photons that were causing me discomfort had left that star 8 minutes ago and had crossed the void at 186,000 miles per second.
Nevertheless, this scary thing had sustained me for all of my life and all of my ancestors (human and no-human), for countless generations, over billions of years. And on top of that some instability in this star, this controlled, self-sustaining nuclear explosion could wipe out me and/or everything that comes after me. I'm not sure if stars are sentient or not but, I repeat, they sure are scary!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: freda underhill
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 07:32 AM

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:59 AM

The Incas were more interested in the dark patches in the sky (where the starlight is obscured by dust clouds) than the stars. They had names for them, and their astronomy/astrology was more interested in them than just the stars.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 10:04 AM

That's really interesting, Foolestroupe! THis site sheds more light on those "dark places" that intrigued the Incas:

Mathematics, Astronomy and Sacred Landscape in the Inkan Heartland

The animals in the sky were not patterns formed connecting stars, but black regions of the Milky Way (dark clouds of interstellar matter, from the astronomer's viewpoint) whose contours were identified with contours of animals [Bauer and Dearborn 1995]. Urton was able to identify unambiguously the following dark cloud constellations (Fig. 5):

   1. Serpent, between the star Adhara, in Canis Major, and the Southern Cross
   2. Toad, near Southern Cross
   3. Tinamou (partridge-like bird), "coal sack" below Southern Cross
   4. Llama, between Southern Cross and epsilon-Scorpio
   5. Baby Llama, "below" mother Llama
   6. Fox, between tail of Scorpio and Sagittarius
   7. a second Tinamou, in Scutum

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 12:35 PM

And on top of that some instability in this star, this controlled, self-sustaining nuclear explosion could wipe out me and/or everything that comes after me. I'm not sure if stars are sentient or not but, I repeat, they sure are scary!

Here you go DB - take two readings, breathe deep and call me in the evening.   :-)

White Dwarf

Welcome, welcome little star!
I'm delighted that you are
Up in heaven's vast extent
No bigger than a continent.

Relatively minuscule
Spinning like a penny spoon
Glinting like a polished spoon
A kind of kindled demi-moon,

You offer cheer to tiny Man
'Mid galaxies Gargantuan --
A little pill in endless night
An antidote to cosmic fright.

- John Updike

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:21 PM

I'm off the thread. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:41 PM

aw gee! couldn't stop that post in time to make corrections again. Oh well.

OK?. A Mudpiskie

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 04:19 AM

Metchosin, that's lovely - "corrected" or not. Thanks! & u 2, Peace.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Metchosin
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 06:23 PM

Thank you mudpieski!

And thank you daylia, because as I mentioned on the deleted post, one thing this thread got me to do was to rework a poem I wasn't satisfied with........I'll probably continue reworking it again ad infinitum, because thats what I do.

Dragonfly

Trapped upon a deceptive pane of glass,
No longer do you swoop and soar in sunshine.
Too soon, within my hand
Two luminescent emerald orbs
Slowly dim.
The soft green glow recedes
Until your watchful eyes no longer shine
On life's string of lights
And I am left to wonder,
Have you come
And gone
To star light?

S.Grieve

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,T
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 01:48 PM

I like your story. I think there is more to stars than what science says. I had similar experience as you. I went to the lake for some peace and it was night-time. No one was around and I spoke out loud. Haha like you I there was no one there either to think I'm crazy! I said something like, "can some action in heaven happen so I know I'm alive?" Soons that happened, a "shooting star" "or meteorite" fell. And whats curious is that I felt it! Like there some communication between the lights in the sky and myself. Thanks for sharing your story!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 02:43 PM

"... more to stars than what science says..."

So, what does science say and when did he or she say it?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 05:58 PM

Oh my... I don't think 'T' read a lot of the discussion about contiguity & how we process ideas. So many notions are tossed about with no more defense than "I think that.."

Interesting to re-read all this.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 06:55 PM

This thread predates my presence on this board, just about. Recently, in the maelstrom below the dreaded line, a fellow who I won't name in the interests of etiquette, a very confused man in many respects unfortunately, rather inchoately raised the matter of consciousness. I'm a rabid atheist meself, I hasten to add, but I found the notion that the universe is becoming a conscious entity, by dint of our own consciousness here on earth, to be a very intriguing idea. Suppose human life on earth is is the only intelligent life in the universe (that seems very unlikely to me, though it isn't impossible...) Until the first humans, the universe was unconscious. Then we came along, and, as we are not just PART of the universe, but are INTEGRAL to the universe, the universe attained consciousness. As we increase in numbers and in intelligence and as our consciousness sharpens, the universe itself becomes more and more conscious. I like that. We are not just of the universe, we are the universe, as much as any other entity within it. Wow. I'll try to not get too big-headed.

Well bugger me if I haven't garbled all that, but why should I care. It's a lovely notion, much better than God, and, come those horrid wet winter nights, I might just look into it a bit more. And, if by so doing I can make myself just a tad more conscious, I might just be helping the universe!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 07:19 PM

Actually the assumption that some kind of consciousness is restricted to human beings, or indeed to living matter, is just that, an assumption. It's hard to conceive of any way of proving or disproving that assumption so far as non-living matter is concerned. But I think it's as well to recognise that it is an assumption.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 08:18 PM

Hmm. I did say notion and I did say suppose. As you're an avowed Christian, Kevin, I'm slightly amazed that you should be picking ME up on a fantasy that is million times less fanciful than yours. Or twenty, or eight...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 09:27 PM

Was I picking you up on that notion? After all, it's not far off the speculations of Teilhard de Chardin SJ.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 10:14 PM

"Could stars be sentient beings?!?"

Gentlemen, watch 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' and then answer that question.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:04 AM

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned Olaf Stapledon's 'Starmaker'.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:11 AM

Trees communicate danger to each other. Dogs sniff cancerous tissue.

The term sentient has latitude.

If the earth is the only planet with sentient organic structures, then that would be the most amazing fact to verify. If there were sentient beings on other planets that would be the most amazing fact to verify.

Kicks medieval superstition into a cocked hat either way.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:52 AM

David Bowie seems to know a thing or two on the subject.

Mind you, he was ripped to the tits on marching powder when he wrote star man. Coined the phrase "space cadet " somewhat inadvertently.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:00 AM

Fred Hoyle wrote a novel about a sentient interstellar cloud.
Title, The Black Cloud.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:20 AM

Was it set in his steady state universe?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 10:56 AM

STars?

No.

You're projecting.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 11:23 AM

Spooky Action at a Distance may have at least partially provided the answer to the question posed by the OP: "Could stars be sentient beings?!?".

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:16 PM

The somewhat heretical (in orthodox scientific circles ) scientist Rupert Sheldrake has some interesting stuff about this in a piece here - "Is the sun conscious?" Here

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:31 PM

Neat article, McG of H. From it, "The Sun, Gaia and indeed the entire universe cannot be conscious because they do not have brains."

I thought, but what if the universe IS the brain?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:34 PM

The answer to the question posed by GUEST at 08:20 is yes.

Fred Hoyle wrote not only the Black Cloud, but a couple of other novels, and also A for Andromeda for TV. This portrayed scientists as real people, Fred of course being both. It also put forward the idea that scientists could have lab assistants who looked like Julie Christie. Both the Black Cloud and A for Andromeda portray alien life forms which are very different from ourselves, so not unrelated to the original post.

Sadly, most of A for Andromeda is lost. There was a remake in 2006, but it was a pale shadow.

Fred Hoyle was really rather a fine writer. He was also a great scientist. Although his two headline ideas, steady state cosmology and the origin of life in comets have not stood the test of time, his work on stellar nucleosynthesis with the Burbidges and Fowler has, and is one of the cornerstones of modern astrophysics.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:41 PM

Being as what my tag is, seems appropriate to post here ! Added to that Steve is bringing his anti theism here. So I wonder how being a scientist and a " rabid atheist " is conducive to logical reasoning......

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:03 PM

I liked Fred Hoyle. Of course, he is remembered for the two huge mistakes but with regard to the steady state universe, his refusal to even consider the mounting evidence that precluded his thesis sadly puts him at the ignorance level of religion.

He had an excellent way of articulating though and did a lot to ignite my fascination with Astro physics.

Stars sentient? Other than human imagination, what evidence is there with which to consider such a concept?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:21 PM

Since Pete is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRNybGDSbM

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:37 PM

"Stars sentient? Other than human imagination, what evidence is there with which to consider such a concept?"

Good question. To be sure I understand, what are we using as a working-definitions of 'sentient' and of course 'beings'? I may be making some assumptions that are off the wall. (Wouldn't be the first time and I doubt it will be my last.)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:08 PM

Any attempt to define those concepts runs up against the rocks of anthropomorphism. I think both Fred Hoyle and Sydney Carter were trying to say that.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:09 PM

♫ "But that lucky old sun got nothin' to do
But roll around heaven all day."♫

seems pretty smart to me! ;>

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:01 PM

Nice tune , nicely done, Dave. A little unorthodox theology, but a well crafted Sydney carter song, I thought.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:10 PM

The universe certainly has got brains. Ours.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:23 PM

Rabid atheist? I was bring self-deprecating, pete. I'm also a militant atheist, an attack atheist, a new atheist and whatever-else-you-like atheist. However, I do articulate my notions clearly and I provide explanations for what I say that are actually related to what I say. You are most decidedly not the man to be criticising anyone else's use of logic.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 07:57 PM

"Rabid atheist" is out of line, Pete, with your general practice of avoiding inflammatory language (even if your views, expressed however mildly, may tend to inflame some of those of us who disagree with them). Steve isn't going to bite anyone - and I assure you, if he did bite you, there's no likelihood that it would turn you into an atheist overnight.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:12 PM

Actually, Kevin, he was just repeating what I'd already called meself...   :-)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:23 PM

That isn't what I meant, my apologies. I'll rephrase it: What does sentient mean in this context and then what defines beings?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:36 PM

Unless you're a Buddhist, "sentient" isn't an especially useful word. "Sensitivity" is a quality possessed by all living things that enables them to detect aspects of their surroundings (stimuli) and respond accordingly. That ranges from primitive detection of and responses to light, chemicals or heat in single-called organisms, to more sophisticated abilities to respond to things like gravity and daylength in vascular plants, right up to us and our five senses. Dunno where you'd care to draw the "sentient above this point" line on that scale. We could talk about consciousness instead, though even that might not get us much further...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 09:11 PM

Thanks, Steve. That I comprehend (but it's a whole helluva lot to think about).

The hold-up is going to be time. If we suppose that our sun is sentient and somehow we could communicate with its sentience, we won't know for over eight minutes because time is tied to the speed of light. Our sun could get back and forth with us in eight minutes, but the next nearest sun will need 4.2 years (at the speed of light), so we're stuck with that time between responses in conversation. If we're ever going to test the hypothesis we'll need to compress the time involved or deal with our conception of time in a different way. Yes? No?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 05:07 AM

"Up to us and our five senses" - that's a bit species-chauvinist, Steve. Anyway we've got more than five senses ( proprioception, for a start), and there are other creatures with senses we haven't got.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 06:15 AM

If the sun IS sentient, how could we tell? We can't tell if another mammal, or even another human being, is sentient, we can't see inside its mind, or soul, or whatever you like to call the "sentient core" (deliberate scare quotes- you have to fill in your own bit there). But we can tell that they react as though they are sensing events, and mofifying their behaviour according to those events. So let's look at the sun in the same way. Are there any events we can observe that the sun reacts to in a way that are not at least as well explained by the simple mechanical action of physical laws?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 09:06 AM

"More than 5 senses"

Hmm... well, the very word 'senses' gets a bit ambiguous when we move beyond the standard 5. Proprioception might be considered to be a combination of a couple of others by some.

We have to be careful not to arbitrarily move some 'abilities' into the category of basic senses.

Obviously, there is much disagreement as to whether some claimed senses are real... as in telepathy, precognition...etc.

No matter how we define our own list, attributing any of our own senses to non-human entities is problematic. (DO plants fee pain?)

As a long-time reader of science fiction, I have enjoyed imagining & speculating about concepts that I have NO notion of how to test for or evaluate. Frank Herbert gave us interesting ideas in "Whipping Star" and other stories, but my interaction with the Sun is limited to night & day and sunscreen lotion.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 02:34 PM

Well, I don't know about what senses above five we might have. I need more evidence. I suppose I could have given a far more comprehensive, and far more tedious, list of organisms in an ascending order of complexity, but I was trying to make a simple point that response to the environment is universal among living things and that there is a wide range of sophistication.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 04:50 AM

When you touch your index finggers together behind your back or shut your eyes and touch your nose with your little finger, that's proprioception, and you'd be crawling around on the floor, and not too well, without it.

But my point was your use of the phrase ""up to us", which rather implies that we are the crown of an evolutionary progress...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 05:45 AM

I could have meant "up to us vertebrates" or "up to us mammals" for all you know. And for all I know, come to think of it. Anyhoo...

I'll take a lot of convincing that proprioception isn't just a highly-developed manifestation of coordination. It's an explanation of how nervous systems effect coordination rather than a sense for receiving external stimuli, which is how we normally regard senses, but I'm up for anything, given evidence. Perhaps you'd care to redefine "senses."
I'm definitely not up for telepathy and stuff like that. Where's the real evidence? Show me that and I might get interested. And what are these other senses that animals have that we don't?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 08:23 AM

The sense governing your bullshit antennae is honed and tuned reading Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Stu
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 10:32 AM

"DO plants fee pain?"

Plants react to external stimuli, are capable of communication during predator attacks. Recent research also demonstrates plants can learn and remember (paper here, paywalled unfortunately: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-013-2873-7 ). They are also able to think, as demonstrated here: http://www.mudcat.org/blickifier2.cfm

If these traits were observed in an animal we would regard them as evidence of sentience; there's no reason to not believe that plants also display sentience, possibly of a different nature to animal sentience and they might also experience consciousness, although of a sort very different to ours.

I love the idea that in space there might be sentient gas clouds light-years in width and breadth that think thoughts so slowly we can't even recognise them as intelligent beings, and to them we'd have little more disruptive effect passing through them in a spaceship than neutrinos passing through us do.

Heck, we don't even know if would recognise life if were confronted with it. We might be standing in front of a silicon-based life form and not know it, it could be so utterly different to us.

The main stumbling block to accepting ideas like these often stem from human arrogance rather than lack of empirical evidence, but I suppose it's ever been thus.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 12:19 PM

Imagination is a wonderful thing and the very concept of something we could recognise as intelligence by any of the ways of describing it is a fascinating concept.

I suppose that's why I get all dismissive about the dismal constraints of religious teaching. It suppresses the imagination and tries to explain with turgid stupidity the infinite beauty of the universe.

Although there is no observable or measurable phenomenon to date that could or would lead to investigating sentient stars other than in our imagination. There is no danger in dreaming though. (Unless and until some bugger reckons the stars are speaking to him. It has to be a him. Women haven't been allowed to start religions for at least three thousand years.)

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 12:27 PM

It really does come down to defining our terms. Let's start with "sentient."



Anybody...?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 01:33 PM

I had a go at starting that hare a few posts ago. It's the old solipsist thing. You know YOU feel, otherwise you rule yourself out of the discussion. But you don't know if anything else feels, and there's no way you can find out. The Turing test.So "sentienht" means simply "feels things like I do". You can dress that as fancy as you like, but for a' that an' a' that...

On the other hand, you can do comparisons- a dog "begs" for treats, so we treat the dog as something with communicable wants and therefore feelings in some way comparable to ours. And go on "down the scale", mice, chickens, lizards, worms, centipedes, spiders..... eventually you (might) conclude that they are more similar to a machine executing an algorithm than to a person with feelings, hopes, desires, fears, intentions and the rest of the paraphernalia of sentience.

Sentience ends with a full stop, or a question mark...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 01:54 PM

So you're not a hyman chauvinist, but you are a mammalian chavsnist, Steve...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 03:07 PM

I am neither a hymen nor a chav. Why, I've never even been to Maidenhead.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 04:47 PM

What I'd say from my very mundane viewpoint is that "sentient," like "truth," may as well be a useful word. So this wine glass, much as I revere it and its contents, is made of inanimate materials, some once-lived, some never-lived. I'm going to stick my neck out and assert that the wine glass is not sentient in any sense of the word that renders the word useful. Likewise with the sun and intergalactic clouds, etc. Until I know that these phenomena contain anything other than inanimate material, I'm going to cling to the notion that they are probably not sentient in any sense of the word that renders the word a useful one. Sorry to be so boring and unspiritual. I just want some evidence, that's all. Not magical flights of wild imagination.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 05:18 PM

"Plants react to external stimuli, are capable of communication during predator attacks. Recent research also demonstrates plants can learn and remember"

But so can robots, and can be in ways that aren't simply programmed by the designer. There's the phenomenon of "emergent behaviour", which has been observed in automata from the days of simple relay- operated obstacle- avoiders - behaviour that shows adaptation, learning, and reactions that were not put in by the circuit designer. No one would call them sentient, and in that their behaviour wasn't intended or foreseen, they can't be dismissed as a simple extension of the sentience of the designer. They appear, in fact, to have some sort of free will. It's worth looking up the work of Stafford Beer, who tried to use the phenomenon as a way of organising industrial production. With some success, even though shareholders don't like tghe idea of unpredictability.

Some greedy reductionists would have it that "intelligent" behaviour is "no more than" an extension of this emergent behaviour in multiple interactions of massively complicated networks. No one has ever suggested how I feel it though. Perehaps I don't.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 07:04 PM

"research also demonstrates plants can learn and remember "

♫"I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch,
And all I do is cry all day"♫

Needless to say, I object to the word "demonstrates".

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 07:21 PM

Agreed, Bill. I used to mark "A" level biology essay papers for the University of London. Any candidate who ever referred to "an experiment to demonstrate..." automatically felt the harsh slash of the red pen!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 08:13 PM

We may well feel that only living matter can possess any kind of consciousness, but it is hard to conceive of any way of testing that assumption. But who knows, maybe the ingenuity of scientists may devise such a way.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 08:19 PM

Well, I guess that if your petunias turn toward you and shed little tears as sad 'words' come into your head from that 'direction', it may be one bit of evidence... *shrug*

I would firmly bet that there are other sentient 'entities' in the universe, but whether we will ever meet or contact them is another shrug.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 08:25 PM

Well it's hard to conceive of any way of testing the assumption that a race of blue seven-legged aliens inhabit the outer rings of Saturn, or, indeed, that there is a God, to be honest, Kevin. Scientists can't really be arsed with that kind of thing. Generally speaking, a hypothesis must be based on at least some kind of honest-to-goodness observation, not a flight of fancy or a whim. There is no evidence that non-living things possess consciousness. Like belief in God, that's no more than wild imaginings. Unless you can provide some evidence, your notion is belly-up.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 08:38 PM

There is no evidence that non-living things possess any consciousness, but equally there is no evidence that they don't. It's not "my notion" that they do, I was just pointing out that it is an assumption to say that they don't.

While it may indeed be reasonable to cast doubt on the suggestion that there are blue seven legged aliens inhabiting the outer rings of Saturn, it is less reasonable to cast doubts on the suggestion that there might be living creatures elsewhere in the universe, merely because of an assumption that there weren't any. The assumption that "non-living matter cannot possess any kind of consciousness is perhaps closer to the second rather than the first.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 09:00 PM

"There is no evidence that non-living things possess any consciousness, but equally there is no evidence that they don't. "

Er, sorry about this, but the ball is in your court. "Equally" doesn't cut it. By any definition of consciousness currently in vogue, no non-living thing has ever shown any sign of it. Believe it or not, Kevin, that is evidence.

"While it may indeed be reasonable to cast doubt on the suggestion that there are blue seven legged aliens inhabiting the outer rings of Saturn"

It Is only reasonable to "cast doubt" by asking for evidence and getting either insufficient or none at all. I tend to not cast doubt unless I can substantiate that viewpoint, either by finding that there isn't sufficient evidence to propose a hypothesis, or that all the evidence available points to counteracting the notion. If you think about it, this approach is the reason I'm an atheist.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 10:51 PM

The core issue is what the requisites are for consciousness. Some believe it requires a brain. Others --more conversant with the boundless immaterial aspects of consciousness--assert that only a being is needed for consciousness to occur. This assumes a state of being that is not the product of material structures. There is some evidence for this interpretation, but some find this extremely uncomfortable as it interferes with both classical materialism and a variety of standard religious model.

The argument from such an interpretation might be that since a star is a material phenomenon it cannot in itself be conscious, not being a being. On the other hand there is no reason a being couldn't spend an indeterminate amount of time just being a star.

So the answer would be "sometimes", I guess. Or perhaps "it depends".

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 03:51 AM

.
By any definition of consciousness currently in vogue, no non-living thing has ever shown any sign of it. Believe it or not, Kevin, that is evidence.

No, it is not evidence. It is another way of saying that it is an accepted assumption. Which is what I was pointing out.

There is at present no evidence that there is life elsewhere in the universe either. That is in no way evidence against it.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 03:57 AM

A Boltzmann brain is a hypothesized self aware entity which arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Stu
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 04:41 AM

"Needless to say, I object to the word "demonstrates"."

Fair point.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 05:15 AM

"The core issue is what the requisites are for consciousness"

I don't think so, the first requisite is an idea of what we mean by "consciousness", otherwise like Hume's ladies of Edinburgh, we're arguing from different premises.As an example, one interlocutor might work from the assumption that consciousness is a "thing", a discrete attribute of an object that can be examined solely by referring to that object. Another might see it as a process in which it only exists as a result of interactions. Without an agreed description, the one party could be insisiting that we look for the source code for a wheel, while the other could be taking a computer apart to find a subroutine.

"A Boltzmann brain is a hypothesized self aware entity which arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos."

If that's other than word soup, it's in a language I've not come across. "Quantum physics is the foundation of self-righteous self-knowledge" (Deepak Chopra).

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 02:51 PM

The word consciousness has a referent--the state of awareness; some would adds, the state of being aware of awareness, since you could argue a thermostat is "aware" of temperature even though it doesn't notice itself being so.

A unit that is aware of awareness is a conscious unit.

A

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 05:57 PM

Sorry Amos, tautology. Or perhaps infinite regression. What does "aware" mean without consciousness? Think a bit more. Also Keith's reference to Boltzmann brains- it seemed clever in 19-oh-whatever, but misses the point totally. It is in fact the aposciencis of solipsism.

I'd get away from that sort of stuff- it drives you mad like it did Cantor. Better to limit the scope, operate on that level, and state the limitations at the start. Dennett did a good job in "Consciousness Explained" (trades descriptions act warning) by describing some of the limitations of consciousness- like it's demonstrable that however conscious you may be, it's not there all the time.

Where a lot of chatter falls down is that you can't talk about time being produced by a temporary fluctuation of a universe, because "temporary" implies....

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 06:26 PM

No non-living thing has ever shown signs of consciousness according to any current definition of the term. You say that is not evidence. It is not evidence if it has never been put under observation. But it has been observed, billions of times. You and I observe it every day. If you wish to contradict this, tell me your evidence for any non- living entity displaying anything remotely resembling consciousness. This is the religion thing again, isn't it, Kevin. An outrageous assertion is made: there is a supernatural, all-knowing, all-seeing being. You tell me that the absence of any corroborated evidence for him is, er, not evidence. Well, yes it is, if we've looked for it and found that it isn't there, as I've done. I think the trouble here is that you're confusing evidence and conclusion. Now the issue of life on other planets is entirely different. Life on other planets has never been observed. But there are hundreds of billions of stars in the universe. We have got more and more evidence that many stars have planets. The likelihood that there is a planet, or indeed millions of planets, somewhere with conditions similar to those on earth is very high. Therefore the probability of the existence of life elsewhere in the universe is high. The existence of life somewhere else in the universe makes a good hypothesis, as it's testable and is predicated on evidence and reason. The existence of consciousness in non-living things does not even get to the starting block, rather like God. Of course, you may want to put the assertion beyond science. But until then the ball is in your court. If you think that non-living things can be conscious, let's see your evidence and hear your reasoning. Until then, your hypothesis is not only potentially null, it can't be a hypothesis at all.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 06:56 PM

I'm not making any kind of assertion about whether consciousness is a characteristic of all matter or not. I am merely saying that the assumption that it is not is precisely that, an assumption. The expression "any current definition of the term" is another way of saying "assumption".

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 07:26 PM

Absolutely not. Your assigning of the word assumption to anything at all that I say is a straw man. You're a fine fellow who I respect greatly, but you're no scientist.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Nov 15 - 09:42 PM

"A unit that is aware of awareness is a conscious unit."

Before I saw Paul Burke's reply, something close to 'tautology' was MY first thought.... but Amos is already....ummm... aware... of my opinions on where consciousness might reside.

My other thoughts on the matter are about the amazing way language/nomenclature can be processed to imply, assert or confoozilate (yeah, I made that one up) ideas about the discussion. I suspect it is possible to go on for 40-50 posts without anyone being really sure what they are against... or maybe even what they are for!

I spent 6 years in Philosophy just trying to understand what the categories OF 'existence' were, and how to construct a dialogue about them.... and after a few years at Mudcat, I wonder if I learned anything useful... :>)

...anyway.. " awareness of awareness", no matter where it resides, is an important concept, as it refers to that aspect of being Human that seems to be unique to humans.. if THAT is not also tautological.

My brain hurts.... g'night

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 01:15 AM

The only science relevant here is linguistic science. "Assumption" means "something that is taken for granted". "Any current definition of consciousness" is a way of saying that what is being defined is taken for granted.

Once again, I am not saying I believe that consciousness is not confined to living matter but is a characteristic of all matter. I am merely saying that it is an assumption that it is.

Saying that it is an assumption is not saying it is false.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 01:51 AM

Also Keith's reference to Boltzmann brains- it seemed clever in 19-oh-whatever,

New Scientist May 2013
"Physicists have dreamed up some bizarre ideas over the years, but a decade or so ago they outdid themselves with the concept of Boltzmann brains – fully formed, conscious entities that form spontaneously in outer space.

It may seem impossible for a brain to blink into existence, but the laws of physics don't rule it out entirely. All it requires is a vast amount of time. Eventually, a random chunk of matter and energy will happen to come together in the form of a working mind. It's the same logic that says a million monkeys working on a million typewriters will replicate the complete works of Shakespeare, if you leave them long enough.

Most models of the future predict that the universe will expand exponentially forever. That will eventually spawn inconceivable numbers of Boltzmann brains, far outnumbering every human who has ever, or will ever, live."

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 02:45 AM

Word soup!

Ha! Ha! I like that.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 03:03 AM

Well, if scientists say that, Keith, how can it not be true...

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 08:05 AM

They are just speculating on what is possible, not saying it is so.
It seems unlikely, but so does the idea that living, replicating cells formed spontaneously on Earth.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 12:32 PM

" so does the idea that living, replicating cells formed spontaneously on Earth"

That living, replicating cells formed spontaneously is so unlikely that nobody would take the idea seriously. That a chemical system developed in which elements replicated is however rather more likely. The big problem is that we don't know what replicators were involved at such a hypothetical stage, or what environment it operated in. Or even if it was on Earth.

Replicators first- cells later. Maybe metabolism before replicators. At which point it gets called "life" is a useless discussion until we know more about the process. It would be nice to develop a non- DNA replicator because we could study that without poreconceptions. Hopefully a worse replicator than DNA so we don't have to worry about it escaping and eating us all.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 02:13 PM

That the formation of life on earth is unlikely is a completely meaningless statement, first because we have only a sample of one planet to work from, and second because if life had not formed we wouldn't be around to say how unlikely it was (the anthropic principle, which has a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to speculating on the fine tuning of physical constants, but when it comes to biological processes clearly does hold).

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 02:58 PM

Just goes to show that you should never bother with New Scientist. New Scientist is to science what Noddy and Big Ears are to literature.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 15 - 11:38 PM

You guys doo get teejus, as the song says.

There are two basic models under all the discussion: (A): Matter forms into structures which bring about consciousness or (B) Consciousness exists separate from matter and operates or animates or even possibly generates it.

While most of you seem to be loyal to model (A), there is ALSO some evidence for model )B). If you are a hardcore "Model A" believer, however that evidence will not be acceptable because (in a circular sort of style) you insist on material evidence for it.

It's a bit of a quandary, really; the two models have reciprocally exclusive bases of acceptable data, and methods of proof. n As a result, the collision of the two views can produce almost infinite discussions. For that, the Mudcat archives alone produce massive evidence, supported by reams of other human history.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 06:51 AM

Well, whatever else they are, those don't look much like models in any scientific sense.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 07:55 AM

"Just goes to show that you should never bother with New Scientist. New Scientist is to science what Noddy and Big Ears are to literature."

A bit harsh, Steve. Science is a rather larger subject so even getting a superficial overview of what is happening is a tremendous task and New Scientist and Scientific American (both of which I subscribe to) make a solid attempt. Of course, when you find something of interest you need to start to get into JSTOR or the Lancet or whatever, and start looking at actual papers written by actual scientists, but you won't get any sort of overview that way. It is a full time job just to keep up with quite a narrow speciality as anyone involved at that level is well aware.


I should declare an interest: New Scientist has published letters I've written in the last few years. But whether that makes Steve's case stronger is open to debate!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 08:42 AM

I've always been extremely suspicious of popular science magazines. The articles are often replete with weasel words, unattributed assertions and fanciful speculations. Great if you're an actual scientist capable of picking the bones out of it, otherwise it's all a bit like telling a beginner to learn Irish music from tune books. A sure-fire way of obstructing your path to the heart of the matter. Good communication in science is an elusive talent but we have to keep at it. Science is full of unavoidable complicated bits. Overviews and colour pictures may fire your imagination but there's a lot more to life.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 09:05 AM

So as a genuine open question Steve. What do you think is the best way of trying to see current activity in science in the broad? You've mentioned a background in the botanical sciences before, so I can see how one might try to keep up with what is new in a more restricted field like that, but it won't tell you what is happening in neuroscience, or vice versa. Similarly, it's not that hard to know more established, historical science (though how Penrose's The Road To Reality ever made the Sunday Times Top Ten Best sellers list is beyond me.)

Part of the reason I ask is that I get quite irritated when I read a paper and it is clear they have never read something I as a much more general reader know about that would really help their research. But because everyone is so specialised they simply don't have the time to read and benefit from other work unless it is directly in their speciality.

So, as I say, I use New Scientist and Scientific American as a way of at least being aware of some of the current thinking across a relatively broad span of scientific subjects. What ways have you found to keep things both broad and current?

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 11:02 AM

The language used in specialty areas, and what ain't these days, will by its nature turn away or discourage many common folk. I say that with no intention of demeaning average people. Many of us use specialized vocabularies in our day-to-day activities, also. I don't see how anyone can talk knowledgeably about quantum physics using a neurosurgeon's terms, and I expect the converse holds true. A cursory understanding of astrophysics will require different analogies than a cursory understanding of nutrition science, and for a deep understanding the sheer number of maths to utilize is so staggering I doubt anyone alive knows and can use them all. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_mathematics_topics .

I think magazines that expose people to understandable explanations of various sciences are a boon. I don't doubt they will simplify things and sometimes too much, but for beginners it's a place to start.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 01:10 PM

Steve, that new Scientist article was written by Adam Becker.
Is he Noddy or Big Ears, and what would that make you?

Adam Becker is a freelance astrophysicist, working to help people understand the universe and other complicated things. He earned a PhD in cosmology from the University of Michigan in 2012, where he wrote his thesis on the distribution of matter and energy in the universe right now, and what it can tell us about the behavior of the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Since then, Adam's career has focused largely on science communication and publication. He worked at New Scientist magazine, where he designed and coded several interactive features, and also wrote about new developments in physics and astronomy. After that, he worked in the Labs division at the Public Library of Science (PLOS), an open-access scientific publisher, where he developed tools to change the way scientific research results are shared.

These days, Adam does contract and consulting work in science communication, open science publishing, and astrophysics research software development. He is also managing editor of the Open Journal of Astrophysics, slated to open its doors in fall 2015. He's written a series of articles for the BBC about big questions in astrophysics, and he's also writing a book about the sordid untold history of quantum physics.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 04:02 PM

Grrr. I posted at least six hours ago, have just checked back now, and found that the damn thing didn't take!

Please stop being so typically tiresome, Keith. First, here you go again appealing to authority. Second, I said "often" and I said was suspicious and I have not damned every article in every popular science magazine.

What I was saying in that lost post was covered nicely by Guest#. It doesn't matterr that I was trained as a biologist (botany was indeed my main subject, but I assure you that I had to endure plenty of zoology, chemistry, plant pathology and timber technology). The education was in the scientific method and that translates very well across disciplines. We all tend to think the same way. If you do think that way, the popular mags are fine. But science can be hard, and anything hard is at risk of degradation by superficiality. As a parallel, I've been playing Irish music for decades. As a short cut, there would be no harm in my learning a tune from a tune book instead of by ear. But you wouldn't be telling a beginner that's it's ok to do that, would you? Well I wouldn't, anyway!

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 07:02 PM

Maybe it was in the post that didn't take but I still don't know what you recommend for trying to keep up to date on a broad range of scientific matter without using the magazines.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Nov 15 - 07:19 PM

It was. I mentioned that I subscribe to a couple of learned journals, dry as an owld bone to the uninterested but great for me with my predilections. On top of that I buy, or get bought for me, lots of up-to-date books on the stuff I'm mostly interested in, mainly geology, meteorology and the living environment. And anything by that genius Nigella Lawson. Like most old scientific duffers, I lose interest in certain aspects and get out of date. Generally, I tend to shut up here about those. Lots of good stuff online too, though I jib at having to pay to read anything. As ever, the essential study skill of being able to discriminate between what's good and what's rubbish is especially important online (as well as in those science mags). Without wishing to sound opportunistic, which I will anyway, that is one of the reasons I hate what goes on in religion classes in schools. I can't bear the thought that children can be told that it's ok to believe in anything that you can't be sceptical about and ask for real evidence for.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 02:18 AM

Thanks for that Steve. It is always interesting to hear how other people approach things like that.

I probably subscribe to less journals than you, maybe read slightly less intelligent-layman books and slightly more university textbooks.

Journals are excellent for depth in a specialism so I find I we need something else for the breadth. Intelligent layman books are good, but only some.fields are.well represented.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 02:57 AM

The same old opportunistic sounding themes DO keep coming from Steve.   But despite his great learning he has not shown evidence even from his own discipline that life evolved from non life. Therefore , that it came from a living being is far more plausible, and accords with our experience far closer.   Some of the previous posts here, seem to admit that you are no closer to a materialistic solution. You just have faith that there must be one !

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 03:09 AM

You will never find evidence that life evolved from non-life. You may well find evidence that it could, and could have, and we are probably quite close to that. But that will never satisfy the fundamentalists.

New Scientist is a curate's egg. It has championed some stupid things in the past, such as Shawyer's em-Drive. But it does have some good, well-written articles by people pretty close the cutting edge research. I do not know Adam Becker, but other people involved with the Open Journal of Astrophysics are very reputable indeed.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 03:52 AM

faith is a word restricted to superstition and bigotry
That is probably the most ludicrous thing anybody has said in these threads. And there is quite a lot of competition.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 04:30 AM

Guest Dave has it right. I never said that those mags don't contain good stuff. We have to remember that glossy magazines survive by selling lots of copies at low prices. The need to be attractive may override the need to be dull, deep and accurate. Telling the difference is the skill.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 05:35 AM

You did say "Just goes to show you should never bother with New Scientist" which could easily make people think you had a different view to "I never said those mags don't contain good stuff"!

Pulling your leg a bit, I know....

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 05:36 AM

Hmm. Religious faith positions (as pete might put it), are certainty based on superstition, as you have to embrace an invisible God who breaks the rules of nature. And if you believe that your faith is the only legitimate one, or the best one, and you go around saying so or carrying out its partisan policies, then you're a bigot too. Dunno about you, Kevin, but when I went to school we were told that only baptised Catholics went to heaven. I'd say that that brief assertion is a perfect combination of superstition and bigotry. I suppose it's possible to sidestep the bigotry if you're a thinking and measured person (quite a big if). But the superstition sticks to you like shit to a blanket.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 05:45 AM

My whole point, DMcG, is that glossy mags that need to sell lots of copies are in danger of trivialising science. The articles from popular science mags occasionally linked here are usually good examples of that. They are not going to include the boring or hard bits. They will be very selective. As long as you have the skills to pick the bones out of that, great. Otherwise, good in parts, but which parts? I'm not being snobby nor exclusive. I'm saying that scientific advance is hard graft and is rarely going to provide instant gratification.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 05:46 AM

Faith is a form of exhibiting superstition. What is wrong with that statement? Nothing as I can see. Faith also bolsters your bigotry. Again, nothing wrong with that. We all have some. Mine extend to people who wear baseball caps the wrong way around, freemasons and old men doing 40 in a 60 zone then carry on doing 40 in a 30 zone. I have faith in the fact that they live up to their stereotype.

As there is no evidence whatsoever other than fertile imaginations to suggest any religious belief system, it is by any definition a superstition. That isn't to express a derogatory view on religion but to state a lexicon based term of reference.

Perhaps the McGraths of this world would like to begin to understand the basics of science before knavish digs at perfectly sensible statements on here. No wonder some of us prefer anonymity.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 06:03 AM

And I understand that is your point, Steve. I believe I may be one of the few non-specialists in the world who got to the end of the aforementioned Road to Reality and it was a hard slog indeed, with maybe a six month break in the middle to recover. Understanding science can be an arduous activity even though it simultaneously has great beauty.

Nevertheless, the quote about never bothering with the New Scientist did have any of qualifications you are making now

Look: I am teasing you. We all say things that don't accurately reflect what we think. I don't think we need to try and claim they did.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 06:06 AM

Did not have. See what I mean about us all not saying what we intended? *looking sheepish*

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Stu
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 07:16 AM

" Therefore , that it came from a living being is far more plausible, and accords with our experience far closer."

Why is more plausible? Are you suggesting that inorganic atoms and molecules are incapable of self-organisation?


"the only article I fully agreed with was written almost 20 years ago. I co wrote it..."

Beyond parody.

Subject: RE: Could stars be sentient beings?!?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 07:41 AM

Well anyway I personally never bother with New Scientist and I recommend the approach. Not bad lavatorium reading I suppose. ;-)