Seeing red

[The Grand Nudger]

Keep in mind that this was a speculative exploration, GIVEN the assumption that mind is purely physical-- an assumption I don't normally make.  So I'm not trying to reinforce my normal world view, but to examine the physicalist position from more angles and in more detail.

...except that you aren't expressing the physicalist position at all.  All things are made of matter, but not all things can fly.  So too, all things are made of matter...but not every thing can think.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what complexity of structure is required to support qualia.  Let me put it this way:
1)  There is nothing called mind except at the macro level-- mind only "spawns" when you hit a certain critical mass of processing;
2)  It's a spectrum-- the simplest kind of processing represents the simplest kind of mind-- so in this case, just as the human brain is made of large structures, sub structures, and microstructures, the human mind would be composed not just of ideas, but would be a composition of atomic "idealets."

IDK, if you give the simplest processing mind....and I'm not sure why you would, then any old calculator has mind.  I think that "mind", as a term, is meant to express more than the range of ability of a pocket calculator.  Don't you?

My point is that if you don't think the SIMPLEST data processing represents the simplest mind, then at what arbitrary level of complexity would you draw it?  Arbitrary lines in the sand aren't really good either in science or in philosophy, IMO.

I don't think that the simplest data processing represents mind, simple or complex, so I wouldn't know where a person who does draws that line.