:)

I thought this excerpt from a correspondence I had with a player who calls himself "sapientdust" might be relevant:

I agree that it's remarkable that parts of the universe become sapient, but perhaps we consider it so because because of our cultural and scientific traditions. Since it happens so abundantly around us, maybe we should see it as just 'business as usual'.

I speculate that sapience may take many forms, and yes, that it's not merely inevitable (speculation, remember) but pervasive at all times and spaces. You will be aware that there are traditions which hold that all things posess some form of consciousness.

Of course, the mainstream philosophy of reality is one which may be termed 'material realism', which basically means that the entire universe consists of energy and energy in it's alternate form, matter. According to material realism, everything which exists springs from this energy, and consciousness (if it exists) is an 'epiphenomenum' which happens only after matter (energy) has been organized into mechanisms (like brains) which then can give rise to the consciousness. But this consciousness thing is a very ephemerous thing, and as you know, some material realists maintain that consciousness doesn't exist, or that it's only an illusion. So material realism usually leads to the conclusion that matter and energy arise independently or were always in existence.

I lean toward the concept of 'monistic ideaism', which posits that consciousness is the ground of reality, and that all (don't like using the word 'all', but it seems appropriate here) other phenomena are epiphenomena of consciousness. (After all, if substantial stuff like matter and energy can exist independently, seems like it would be easier to manifest some insubstantial stuff like consciousness wouldn't it? This is not a logical argument of course, but just sayin'). So that's probably the biggest reason for my position that sapience is pervasive. The universe is made of it, so it's going to pop up everywhere in all kinds of forms (and in my opinion, one should not think that what is normally considered to be consciousness is the only way of it, nor that human consciousness is the highest form), in ways that you can see it. But whether you see it or not, it's still there. Should you be interested in a fuller discussion of these concepts, you might refer to a book called The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, whose credentials include being a full-fledged theoretical physicist. Not saying I agree with everything in there, but just offering a fuller discussion. Consciousness without a brain? This is probably something like equivalent to the dance without the dancer as laid out in The Dancing Wu Li Masters.