Stars

The Rebel Worlds, V.

When the ships of the sector fleet depart, Flandry reflects that:

"The stars ignored them, were not touched by the wars and pains of life, were immortal - No, not that either. They have their own Long Night waiting for them." (p. 42)

The stars are mortal but where did the energy that started the universe come from? 

In one of John Sanders' novels, the hero ascended an Alp, there gained a perspective transcending international conflicts, then returned to resume his part in one such conflict while I, one of the readers, was still in the Alpine perspective. The stars do not "ignore" anything because they are not conscious in the first place but people can adopt a stellar or cosmic perspective according to which life does not matter because it is transient.

The forces and processes that generate, sustain and will outlast intelligence are almost entirely unconscious:

energy

entropy

temporary, local negative entropy, i.e., life

natural selection

consciousness

intelligence

 

Animals that preexisted and coexist with human beings are conscious but everything else is unconscious and we are a transient expression of that.