Seeing red

[bennyboy]

I wasn't quoting the dictionary as an authority, so it's perfectly appropriate as a starting point.

Okay.

A galaxy appears to lack a means of representing things.   It's possible that it is forming a representational system that I simply do not comprehend, but then the onus of supporting that notion would be on the person suggesting that it does.  You've suggested that mind is endemic to matter.  To date you don't appear to have supported that with anything but speculation.  Speculation is fine, but it doesn't establish anything.  Regardless, that form of representing things would be entirely separate from the type of material representational systems which I suggest are essential to mind.

I'd argue that ALL states represent something-- they at the very least represent previous states and some function over time. I mean, an atom which absorbs a photon is carrying a record of an interaction from the transmitting body. If a billion photons are absorbed in a small burst into a patch of rock on some planet, is this not, until they are re-emitted, a kind of memory? I think hidden behind the various discussions of intention, representation, etc. is an implied substance dualism: we are looking for those things that we already consider meaningful, because we have minds. However, our brain doesn't follow special physical rules; why then would it achieve a special state?

As for mind and matter-- it is definitely speculation, since I'm trying to view this through the eyes of a materialist. A couple pages ago, I did a kind of process of reduction that kind of makes me feel there's no clear point at which we can say A is not mindful, but B is. If there's no critical mass at which mind sort of pops into existence, then I'd expect a spectrum of mind, from complex all the way down to very elemental.