The fundamental laws of science, says Daedalus, must apply both to the material and spiritual worlds. These, he reckons, occupy the same space but are very weakly coupled, which is why ghosts are seldom observed and spiritual experience is rare too. The most fundamental scientific law is probably the 'zeroth law of thermodynamics': that any two objects in contact reach thermal equilibrium. Over the age of the Universe, 18 gigayears or so, the material and spirit worlds must have equilibrated. The cosmic microwave background is 2.7 K; allowing for dark matter, the average temperature of the material world should be 10 or 15 K. The spirit world must have this temperature too, making it chilly indeed. Even the stars don't raise the average much.

Our nearest star is the Sun. The Michelson–Morley experiment found that the speed of light is the same in every solar season, making the Earth almost static with respect to the Sun. Spiritual experience and ghost observation are also independent of season, suggesting that the spirit world also moves slowly with respect to the Sun. This could be checked by flying a group of monks or nuns on Concorde or the Space Shuttle, looking to see whether spiritual insight is reduced as the velocity of the group rises with respect to the Sun.

All this leads up to a Daedalian theory of spiritual survival. To free itself for further adventures, a soul released from a body must try to warm itself, and will therefore head for the interior of the nearest star. A temperature of 16 million K will warm it usefully even with the weakest coupling, assuming that spiritual space moves slowly with respect to the solar interior. (By contrast, souls that 'go the wrong way' and head for the Earth's interior at a mere 6,000 K, will find themselves trapped in a local 'Hell'.) Furthermore, intelligent life on Earth over the years has released many souls, most of whom will have reached the Sun. They should perturb its internal reactions slightly, perhaps reducing its output of neutrinos, or setting them oscillating.

This novel theory of the solar neutrino deficit suggests a new way of seeking intelligent life around other stars. Rather than looking for the tiny librations caused by a circling planet, it would be easier to search directly for low neutrino emission by its primary star. Daedalus's recent directional neutrino telescope could prove vital.