Is the Sun Conscious?

Sheldrake proposes that panpsychism and field theories permit consideration of a conscious Sun extending its activity through the solar system.

When applied to the sun, such field theories suggest a possible physical basis for the solar mind, both within the body of the sun itself and also throughout the solar system. If the sun is

Sheldrake describes panpsychism as attributing experience to fundamental constituents without requiring every arbitrary collection of matter to be a conscious subject.

Strawson and Goff both make it clear that they are not proposing that all physical objects are conscious or aware. Their arguments apply to self-organizing systems like atoms, cells, and

The paper describes integrated information theory as requiring integration, differentiated possible states, and a maximum relative to subsystems and larger systems.

IIT has a further requirement for consciousness called the ‘exclusion postulate’. A conscious system is a maximum of integrated informa- tion. It must have more integrated information than its own parts, and also than any

Sheldrake emphasizes that calculating integrated information for complex brains is computationally intractable with the methods he discusses.

However, the mathematics of IIT involves so many possible combi- nations of elements and subsystems that computing Φ for brains is impossible in practice, even with a new streamlined mathematical version of the theory

Sheldrake uses Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and nested wholes to frame consciousness at multiple scales.

In the light of the philosophy of organism, everywhere we look in nature, at every level and scale, we find wholes that are made up of parts, which are themselves wholes at a lower level:

The paper presents McFadden’s conscious electromagnetic information field hypothesis as one possible account of how brain activity and subjective experience relate.

Some go further and propose that brains’ electromagnetic fields actually are conscious. In his ‘conscious electromagnetic information field’ (Cemi) hypothesis, JohnJoe McFadden points out that brains both generate electromagnetic fields and are influenced

Sheldrake surveys Pockett’s electromagnetic and Murphy’s magnetic approaches as field-based alternatives for understanding consciousness.

Likewise, Susan Pockett, a neurophysiologist, argues that some three-dimensional electromagnetic field patterns in brains are con- scious: ‘conscious experiences may actually be transient spatial patterns of large field potentials: in

Sheldrake describes Matloff’s proposal that directional stellar jets could steer stars and gives predictions about jet frequency and orientation.

In his volitional star hypothesis, Matloff suggests that stars adjust their positions within galaxies by firing off electromagnetically powered jets more in one direction than another, steering themselves into their

The paper describes Vidal’s stellivore hypothesis as interpreting mass-accreting binary systems as potentially energy-seeking agents.

The philosopher Clément Vidal has proposed a very different view of volitional stars in his stellivore hypothesis. Vidal suggests that some stars may be predators that seek out victims, from which they suck out matter

Sheldrake identifies electrically charged plasma and mutually interacting magnetic fields as the physical basis for his solar analogy.

Thus magnetic fields control the movements of the plasma and the movements of the plasma control the fields (Green, 2016). In the layers

The paper discusses solar cycles, magnetic reversals, flares, and mass ejections as organized activity a solar-consciousness hypothesis would have to address.

The sun undergoes approximately 11-year cycles of activity. When its activity is greatest, there are many sunspots, from which extra- ordinarily strong magnetic fields emerge from the sun’s interior, loop around above

Sheldrake argues the Sun may qualitatively satisfy integrated-information criteria while acknowledging that its integrated-information value cannot presently be calculated.

However, actually to calculate the Φ value of the sun is not feasible at present. If current methods would take billions of years to compute Φ for

Sheldrake objects that integrated information theory’s exclusion rule would prevent simultaneous consciousness at nested solar and galactic scales.

The exclusion postulate is a winner-takes-all principle, whereby the highest level of integration is conscious while subsystems within it are not. The solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy, and therefore if the galaxy became

Sheldrake speculates that a conscious Sun might select among patterns of sunspots, flares, mass ejections, and plasma flows.

Its choices may include an influence on the numbers, locations, and activities of sunspots, the timing and directions of solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and the coordination of granules and super- granules within the

The paper estimates slow light-speed limits for hypothetical solar perception and suggests possible regulation of the heliosphere and communication among stars.

Thus, by our standards, solar thoughts and perceptions would be slow. If the sun is conscious, if it has experiences, feelings, desires, memories, imaginings, and intentions, then what might it be con-

Sheldrake concludes that solar consciousness expands panpsychist inquiry beyond explanations limited to human brains.

The possibility that the sun is conscious expands the scope of our thinking. We can move beyond familiar debates about the ‘hard problem’, whose primary concern is to explain