Seeing red

[The Grand Nudger]

I've always wondered about that, whether whole galaxies or indeed the entire universe could be conscious, because to me it's all about the system, not the underlying hardware i.e. there's nothing special about neurons as information carriers, and there are indeed certain relationships manifested in nature - gravity for instance - that could play a part in creating system structure on such a large scale. But going off on one there, sorry about that

Minor point of correction.  There actually -is- something about neurons that is "special" with regards to nuerons and galaxies (if there weren't we couldn't tell them apart..think about it).   You probably don't expect a cloud of dust to be conscious. I'm also not sure how sensible the notion of separating the system from it's hardware is......give me an example of something where a comment regarding a system can be made without reference either explicit or implied to the hardware?

This isn't to say that there could not be a galaxy out there which would be capable of carrying, processing, and retaining data in such a manner..or of being conscious....but you're flirting with the fallacy of composition in the manner in which you've arrived at the notion. A t-shirt has properties that cotton doesn't...and cotton has properties that a t-shirt doesn't. That a collection of nuerons appears to be conscious does not lend credence to the notion that a cloud of dust swirling a star would be - regardless of both, ultimately, being made of the same stuff, or of one being a part in some categorizing sense of the other.