What If the Sun Is Conscious‽

Exploring Panpsychism, Monism, and the Ancient Legacy of Our Nearest Star

May 09, 2025

Solar Flare X1 from AR2994 in ‘Motion’

© Miguel Claro

A renowned astrophotographer—took the main image, above, from Dark Sky Alqueva in the Évora district of Portugal. His photo shows a solar flare—an intense burst of radiation from a sunspot—which is becoming more common as the sun ramps-up its activity. The image is from a 27-minute time lapse on April 30, 2022 of Active Region 2994 that Claro captured using a Sky-Watcher Esprit ED120 telescope.

Could the Sun be more than just a ball of burning gas? Could it—daring as it may sound—think? While this might seem like the stuff of science fiction or New Age mysticism, a fascinating blend of ancient reverence, modern philosophy, and speculative science is pushing this question from the fringe into thoughtful circles. To some, this is absurd. But for others, it’s an invitation to rethink the limits of consciousness itself.

The Ancient Sun: A God in the Sky

Long before we mapped solar flares and calculated fusion rates, humanity saw the Sun as divine. Ancient civilisations bowed before its grandeur, ascribing godlike powers to its rays. Cultures across the world adored, studied, feared, and revered it.

Ra in Egypt rode his solar barque across the sky.
Surya in Hinduism was not only a god but also a being of light and vision.
The Greeks associated the Sun with Helios, and later Apollo.

This wasn’t mere myth-making. The Sun gave life, and in turn, it seemed to watch over us. Its patterns determined seasons, crops, and survival. As such, the idea that the Sun was conscious was intuitive, not metaphorical.

Fast forward a few millennia, and the scientific lens replaced reverence with reduction, stripping the stars of their mythic garb, we began to see the Sun merely as a thermonuclear furnace, 93 million miles away. Yet, a new line of thinking is bringing a trace of that ancient awe back to the conversation.

What if the ancients weren’t entirely wrong? What if the Sun is not only radiant, but aware?

The Re-emergence of a Bold Question

An unconventional idea is stirring once again: What if the Sun is conscious? Not metaphorically, not symbolically, but genuinely conscious in a way we’re only beginning to understand. This is no longer just the stuff of poetic metaphor or mystic speculation. Some modern thinkers are daring to ask this question with philosophical and scientific sincerity.

One such figure is Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist who proposes that the Sun’s electromagnetic activity might function in ways analogous to a nervous system. He dares to imagine that the rhythmic patterns and flares we observe could serve as a kind of “neural interface” — a substrate for awareness.

“To entertain this question is not to claim certainty, but to invite a broader reflection on what consciousness might be.”

Panpsychism: A Mind for Matter?

Panpsychism is the idea that consciousness is not exclusive to complex brains but is instead a fundamental property of matter. Here, consciousness is not confined to humans or animals, but is a fundamental property of all matter. In this view, even particles, fields, and stars could possess some rudimentary form of experience.

This isn’t a new idea. The ancient Stoics, certain strands of Eastern philosophy, and even Giordano Bruno in the 16th century all entertained the notion of a cosmos pervaded by psyche.

This isn't to say your teacup is having deep thoughts—but rather that even the most basic particles might possess some form of proto-consciousness.

Today, panpsychism finds modern articulation through philosophers like Galen Strawson, Philip Goff, and David Chalmers. Goff argues that panpsychism may solve the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness — the challenge of explaining how subjective experience arises from physical processes.

“If consciousness is real and can’t be reduced, maybe it never emerged. Maybe it was always there.” – Philip Goff, Galileo's Error

In this framework, the Sun’s plasma, structure, and magnetic fields may not produce consciousness but may already be expressions of it.

As philosopher Galen Strawson put it:

"Experience is as fundamental as mass, charge, or spin."

Instead of assuming consciousness “emerges” from complexity, panpsychism proposes that it might have been there all along, just as gravity didn’t suddenly appear when planets formed.

Panpsychism doesn’t mean that everything thinks as we do. It allows for a spectrum of awareness, with human consciousness being a highly developed instance rather than a unique miracle.

Understanding Monism: One Substance, Many Views

To understand panpsychism’s foundations, we must touch on monism—the philosophical idea that everything in existence is ultimately composed of one substance or reality. This is contrasted with dualism, where mind and matter are seen as fundamentally separate.

Monism has various forms:

Material Monism: Everything is matter; consciousness is a product of the brain.
Idealist Monism: Everything is fundamentally mind or spirit (e.g., Berkeley’s philosophy).
Neutral Monism: The idea that both mind and matter are two aspects of a more fundamental substance.

It’s this last one that brings us to the most intriguing variation—Dual Aspect Monism.

Dual Aspect Monism: Two Faces of One Reality

From neutral monism arises dual aspect monism, which suggests that mind and matter are not separate things, but different aspects of the same underlying reality, much like two sides of a coin.

This concept was notably championed by Baruch Spinoza, whose philosophy suggests that what we call “thought” and “extension” are just two ways of perceiving a singular substance. This notion, explored and later developed by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, posits that the universe is neither fundamentally mental nor physical, but something deeper that expresses itself as both.

“The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God.” – Spinoza, Ethics

Contemporary philosopher Thomas Nagel and physicist Wolfgang Pauli both gestured toward such a view. Pauli, through his correspondence with Carl Jung, entertained the possibility of a psychoid level — a shared foundation beneath psyche and matter.

Pauli and Jung’s collaboration bridged physics and psychology, suggesting that consciousness and the physical world might be interlinked through this neutral substance—an idea also echoed in quantum speculations and depth psychology.

Modern Science (Its Limits) and the Conscious Cosmos

While there's no empirical evidence for solar consciousness, the idea aligns with growing dissatisfaction among physicists and philosophers with reductionist views of the universe. In recent years, speculative science has flirted with these ancient and philosophical concepts. Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist known for exploring consciousness in unorthodox places, has proposed that the Sun might be conscious:

“The Sun has complex electromagnetic patterns... perhaps enough to serve as a kind of neural interface.”

This draws curiosity, even if it’s considered fringe. The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) proposed by Giulio Tononi suggests that any system that integrates information in a particular way could be said to possess consciousness. This would include, at least in theory, not just brains but potentially artificial intelligences — or even stars.

If we take this model seriously, the Sun’s dense network of electromagnetic feedback and complex energetic flows might qualify as an information-integrated system.

But such speculation invites scepticism. Critics argue it risks anthropomorphising non-biological entities. Others, like Daniel Dennett, reject panpsychism altogether, calling it a “retreat into mystery.”

Still, curiosity remains.

“Science progresses not by ignoring the absurd, but by entertaining the improbable.”

The Conscious Star Hypothesis: More than Speculation?

Could the Sun “make decisions”? Could solar flares be “expressions” rather than accidents?

This is, of course, speculation—but speculation guided by philosophical depth. It doesn’t claim personhood for the Sun, but dares us to consider:

What defines awareness?
Can complex systems outside biology also feel in some way?

As Sheldrake notes, if electromagnetic fields can hold patterns of memory or responsiveness, then perhaps the Sun, with its immense magnetic field, is more than passive matter.

Carl Jung’s Archetypal Insight: The Solar Symbol

Jung, though not a physicist, offered psychological truths that resonate here. For Jung, the Sun represented the Self—the unified, conscious centre of being. He saw it as an archetype of illumination, awareness, and wholeness.

In his own words:

“The sun, with its immeasurable power and radiance, naturally lent itself as a symbol of the source of life and psychic energy.”

Whether conscious or not, the Sun has always been a mirror for our awareness. In collaboration with Wolfgang Pauli, Jung also hypothesised the existence of a psychoid realm — an ontological domain that defies the Cartesian divide. This is where symbols are not merely mental nor only material, but something in-between: phenomena that “participate in both the physical and the psychic.”

Could the Sun, as the centre of our solar system and archetype of cosmic order, also be a psychoid phenomenon? Neither fully mind nor matter, but both?

Solar Myths, Symbolic Memory, and the Human Psyche

Historically, humans have always intuited the Sun as more than an object. Helios, the Greek sun god, rode his chariot across the sky. The Vedic tradition saw Surya as both physical light and divine insight. For the Egyptians, Ra was the creator, cycling through death and rebirth each day.

Are these myths merely projections of the human psyche? Or do they hint at an intuitive truth — that the Sun holds more than heat and light?

In Jungian terms, these archetypes live in the collective unconscious — repeated symbols that reflect psychic structures. That nearly every culture saw the Sun as divine may reflect more than cultural coincidence; it may reveal something about the nature of mind, cosmos, and their mysterious link.

Another shot of the sun approaching solar maximum—also shortlisted is “The Great Solar Flare,” an image by Mehmet Ergün from Traisen, Germany.

It shows a solar flare on the left of the image stretching 435,000 miles into space. It was taken using a Lunt LS60 B1200 Double Stack telescope.

Reclaiming a Sense of Wonder

Even if the Sun is not conscious in any conventional sense, rethinking consciousness through these lenses shifts our relationship with the world.

We don’t need to believe the Sun is conscious in the way we are. But perhaps, in the spirit of ancient wonder and modern openness, we can entertain the question with sincerity.

Maybe the Sun doesn’t “think,” but something is expressed through it.

If we grant even a sliver of possibility to this idea, our view of reality expands. Consciousness ceases to be a private event in the skulls of mammals and becomes a principle as ubiquitous and mysterious as gravity.

It reminds us that our reality might not be as dead or inert as the cold materialism of the past century suggests.

Perhaps, as we learn more about consciousness, we must also learn to listen differently—to the stars, the Earth, and the silent language of the universe itself.

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