A new spin on an old theory holds that the entire universe is conscious. It's called "panpsychism" and while it's been around for a few decades, a few scientists are upgrading it with new hypotheses and even experimental tests.
Physicist Gregory Matloff goes so far as to write about volitional stars, or stars that are willfully controlling their movements in the galaxy. He will actually be analyzing new star mapping data to try and prove that Paranego’s Discontinuity - a cosmic anomaly - is the result of stars controlling their jet streams to travel in a certain direction.
Meanwhile, Sir Roger Penrose developed a supporting hypothesis called Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR), which holds that consciousness develops from quantum vibrations in microtubules. In other words, he believes in a "proto-consciousness field" from which consciousness will arise given any significantly complex system.
All of this is in aid of trying to explain what seems to be a "participatory universe." On a quantum level, the cosmos and physical reality only seem to manifest when the human mind is present. Certain anomalies in quantum theory could be resolved in a universe fundamentally grounded in consciousness - but that would dramatically change our conception of reality.
Have you guys heard of any of these theories?
Sources:
http://theantimedia.org/universe-conscious/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-consciousness-universal/
https://futurism.com/could-universe-conscious/
Image credit: NASA archives
Well, these speculations are certainly thought provoking, at the least. However, I suppose our present inadequate understanding of what consciousness even is might be holding us back.
I once took a stab at a short story about how various cascades and confluences of energy concatenated to create a consciousness that had a thought, then vanished forever, as the energies disjointed.
I actually believe this must happen.
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That's interesting. Have you ever read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem? In that, an entire planet is conscious.
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I actually have. I like Lem. I devoured Science Fiction until I completely consumed every work in the little library on the island where I grew up. From Asimov to Stephenson, I really enjoyed the best of such speculations.
Edit: Ok, I'm gonna have to go build a library right now, to install in a laundry room nearby. BBS!
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That's awesome man. I like Charles Stross a lot. Need to read more Stephenson - his books are enormous and he went in some strange alt-history directions after Snow Crash but everyone says they're brilliant.
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Great that Matloff is working to confirm some large field evidence of panpsychism. But Paranego’s Discontinuity I don't believe is required. Just the Galactic velocity curve alone is evidence of some unknown force. Dark matter has been invoked previously, but so far, no evidence for this exists whatsoever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve
I have long subscribed to the panpsychism viewpoint. Here is a great little essay by Christian de Quincey, contrasting worldviews,
https://trans4mind.com/counterpoint/index-new-age/quincey.shtml
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Matloff's original paper:
http://www.gregmatloff.com/GregoryMatloff_V7N7.pdf
And a less technically dense piece he wrote for EdgeScience, "Stellar Consciousness: Can Panpsychism Emerge as an Observational Science?"
http://www.gregmatloff.com/Edge%20Science%20Matloff-ES29.pdf
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