Does it make sense to speak of "Universal Consciousness" or "Universal Intelligence"?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I love how Chas clamors for evidence and then ignores a post that makes reference to three compelling studies:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-26059-po...#pid671757

[Cato]

Now, let's consider the OP proposition. How would you know whether an atom, or a star, or the galaxy has some kind of awareness-- its own kind of qualia? You can't-- because you never had access to qualia in the first place. An atom won't produce words about meatloaf or have shaky hands, or show any of the physical markers that make you feel justified in making your philosophical assumption about people's minds.

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Philosophical zombies, qualia of atoms. There is no deep thinking here; just mindless speculation. Do you really believe in the existence of philosophical zombies? Do you really think atoms experience their environment with what we have come to call qualia? This is absurdity parading as profundity.

[bennyboy]

Now, let's consider the OP proposition. How would you know whether an atom, or a star, or the galaxy has some kind of awareness-- its own kind of qualia? You can't-- because you never had access to qualia in the first place. An atom won't produce words about meatloaf or have shaky hands, or show any of the physical markers that make you feel justified in making your philosophical assumption about people's minds.

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Philosophical zombies, qualia of atoms. There is no deep thinking here; just mindless speculation. Do you really believe in the existence of philosophical zombies? Do you really think atoms experience their environment with what we have come to call qualia? This is absurdity parading as profundity.

It doesn't matter whether my thinking is deep or not. It doesn't matter what I personally believe. What matters here, according to you, is evidence. So what evidence do you have that anything in the universe possesses, or allows for the supervenience of, the experience of qualia? If you point to fMRIs, I'll say that as the brain processes information from the environment, it needs more energy. If you point to brain waves, I'll say those are electromagnetic traces of brain function. If you point to behaviors, I'll say that the brain is processing information and outputting a behavior. At no point in any of this is it necessary to form the belief that there is a real experience of qualia happening in that brain.

And yet you believe that all brains exhibiting certain behaviors must really be experiencing qualia. What is your evidence for this extra, and unnecessary, property, which you can neither see nor in any way measure? Sounds like a belief in ghosts to me.

[Cato]

It doesn't matter whether my thinking is deep or not. It doesn't matter what I personally believe. What matters here, according to you, is evidence. So what evidence do you have that anything in the universe possesses, or allows for the supervenience of, the experience of qualia? If you point to fMRIs, I'll say that as the brain processes information from the environment, it needs more energy. If you point to brain waves, I'll say those are electromagnetic traces of brain function. If you point to behaviors, I'll say that the brain is processing information and outputting a behavior. At no point in any of this is it necessary to form the belief that there is a real experience of qualia happening in that brain.

And yet you believe that all brains exhibiting certain behaviors must really be experiencing qualia. What is your evidence for this extra, and unnecessary, property, which you can neither see nor in any way measure? Sounds like a belief in ghosts to me.

I trust that when a fellow human is describing his/her experience that he/she is experiencing qualia. This is reasonable since my experience is very similar to that being described and the fact that qualia is able to be discussed.

What isn't contestable are the types of existents that experience qualia. You'll hear speculation as to whether or not a squirrel or toad will experience qualia, but will never hear reasonable people discuss whether or not a rock or an atom experiences qualia. To do so is absurd and meaningless. Inveighing the hypothetical philosophical zombie as something to be taken seriously is similarly grotesque; reason being is that you areYou are engaging in useless speculation and calling it philosophy.

Productive conversations can be had regarding qualia, but not when you hang your hat on atoms experiencing qualia and the existence of philosophical zombies.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Now that psi has been proven I say that physical system that can producce evidence for psi should be regarded has having mental properties.

[MindForgedManacle]

Anyone claiming that quantum mechanics solves the problem of consciousness is full of it. The initial, obvious problem is that quantum mechanics is already strange enough, to the point that the ACTUAL physicists involved don't even have a consensus of what quantum mechanics means. Worse, we don't understand consciousness either, so essentially they're appealing to a mystery to solve another mystery.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Anyone claiming that quantum mechanics solves the problem of consciousness is full of it. The initial, obvious problem is that quantum mechanics is already strange enough, to the point that the ACTUAL physicists involved don't even have a consensus of what quantum mechanics means. Worse, we don't understand consciousness either, so essentially they're appealing to a mystery to solve another mystery.

I don't think anyone says the problems are all solved. You do at least accept that looking for links between QM and conscious experience is one of the most promising directions for making progress in this area, yes?

[MindForgedManacle]

No. We have no good reason to even think consciousness is related to QM at this point. The development of QM has not been improved at all by trying to inject consciousness into it. This is especially obvious when you see that of those whom experts in "Quantum Foundations" (what QM means), only 6% of the 42% who hold to the Copenhagen interpretation accept that consciousness causes collapse.

It's all well and good for Penrose and Hammeroff to posit Orch-OR, but this quickly makes the conversation masturbation. The reason being that I can quote numerous, prestigious experts who would be more inclined toward my position and emphatically reject the idea of consciousness' involvement. But really, are we going to play the game of "my expert can kick your expert's ass!" in an area where there isn't even a consensus?

[pocaracas]

Anyone claiming that quantum mechanics solves the problem of consciousness is full of it. The initial, obvious problem is that quantum mechanics is already strange enough, to the point that the ACTUAL physicists involved don't even have a consensus of what quantum mechanics means. Worse, we don't understand consciousness either, so essentially they're appealing to a mystery to solve another mystery.

I don't think anyone says the problems are all solved. You do at least accept that looking for links between QM and conscious experience is one of the most promising directions for making progress in this area, yes?

If you wish to describe how the various elements and even chemicals interact within the human body (or, more specifically, the brain... although, some people will claim any neuron can process conscious information and we sort of have those all over), then yes, QM is important.

If you wish to claim that these chemical interactions (and do note that a nervous impulse is composed of ions moving) describe consciousness, then that's a rather large leap, no?
I mean, yes, ultimately, everything tuns through those QM interactions (even my typing on this keyboard as electrons repulse each other so that the matter in my fingers doesn't dissolve into the plastic of the keys), but as a whole, they become intractable and some simplified models are required.
Consciousness as awareness or ability to understand concepts is probably easiest to describe through such macroscopic models. Hence the usual approach which is to assume it's some emergent property of the collective neuron behavior in brains.

Yes, simple chemicals can disable many of these neurons, while allowing a few critical ones to remain active, which is what we'd think of knocked-out, or unconscious. And they must surely act at some QM level... on a lot of neurons at once... leading to the collective behavior of unconsciousness.

Now, doesn't that sound a lot more reasonable than having decision making processes within a single neuron?

[Chas]

I love how Chas clamors for evidence and then ignores a post that makes reference to three compelling studies:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-26059-po...#pid671757

Dean Radin, PhD, is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Compelling? No.

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You are declaring things out of bounds for science. Is this your faith, again?

I haven't made any statements of faith, so you are wrong to use the word "again."

Science can mean a lot of things, but I assume we are all in this thread talking about science as it is practiced now: physical observation, hypothesis, and experimentation or other methods of confirming the hypothesis. And-- most importantly-- the ability for others to independently reproduce the observation and confirmation.

Some things are not observable by others. For example, my qualia are real and easily identified-- by me. You, however, cannot ever have access to my "what it's like to drink cocoa" sensations.

This is precisely where you are making assumptions. You do not know this to be true. Nor do you have any evidence for that claim. You are simply declaring this to be not possible.

Pro tip: Every time a scientist has predicted there is no room for advancement, or that all is known, he has been wrong. Every. Single. Time.

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Philosophical zombies, qualia of atoms. There is no deep thinking here; just mindless speculation. Do you really believe in the existence of philosophical zombies? Do you really think atoms experience their environment with what we have come to call qualia? This is absurdity parading as profundity.

It doesn't matter whether my thinking is deep or not. It doesn't matter what I personally believe. What matters here, according to you, is evidence. So what evidence do you have that anything in the universe possesses, or allows for the supervenience of, the experience of qualia? If you point to fMRIs, I'll say that as the brain processes information from the environment, it needs more energy. If you point to brain waves, I'll say those are electromagnetic traces of brain function. If you point to behaviors, I'll say that the brain is processing information and outputting a behavior. At no point in any of this is it necessary to form the belief that there is a real experience of qualia happening in that brain.

And yet you believe that all brains exhibiting certain behaviors must really be experiencing qualia. What is your evidence for this extra, and unnecessary, property, which you can neither see nor in any way measure? Sounds like a belief in ghosts to me.

"Extra"? "unnecessary"? Why? Because you see them as something other than consciousness?

I suspect they are part and parcel with consciousness.
That they are an integral part of what consciousness is.
You have no evidence that they are not.

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Now that psi has been proven I say that physical system that can producce evidence for psi should be regarded has having mental properties.

Except it hasn't. So, there's that.