What God is to the Universe is what your mind is to your body

[The Grand Nudger]

A table is full of electrons, with all kinds of electrical bonds and perhaps even a little bit of variable flow here and there, but I wouldn't say my desk is electronic.

Nor would I.

It may be that a camera is integrated enough to have some actual experience.  Certainly, it has sensory apparatus, processing, memory, etc.  I'm agnostic on whether/what a camera experiences, though.  My point was that its an error to say that because elemental mental events are happening all over and in the camera, that there's some unifying principle.  I'd consider it an interesting possibility-- perhaps all mind is reducible to magnetic fields and we will some day be able to use magnetic helmets to give us experiences beyond the capacity of the brain.  But that's just fun stuff to talk about.

A phenomena with no unifying principle, or no unifying principle just in this particular case?  Isn't the notion of a "spark of mind" itself, a unifying principle?  

Not if it's true, because it would mean that mind is intrinsic to interactions, right at the most fundamental.  But qualitatively, it would still be important to say that the matter is self-aware, and aware of the interactions happening within it.

Which is something you don't say, in the case of the camera, for example -even if mind is intrinsic to interactions.  Obviously, we both think that at least -some- matter is self aware.  

If we're talking about human experience, then the brain is where the cool kids hang out.  No doubt.  Elements of mind must combine into more complex arrangements, and new properties should be expected to supervene.  No single reception event, for example, could allow for "flatness."

It doesn't sound like the spark is indicative -of- mind in the way that we are addressing it (namely, "having" one, like we do- ostensibly). You've said as much yourself.

I'm not endorsing this theory.  As I say, there are many levels of organization at work in the brain, and I'm agnostic about which level is the minimal requirement for the supervenience of mind.  However, by a process of reduction, I see only a few "critical mass" moments which seem likely contenders.  One, in the human brain, would be the minimal composition that a neuron requires to fire.  A single neuron firing seems like a fair candidate for the essence of mind.

Not to me.  Plenty of things have nuerons that you probably don't consider as candidates for mind...and some organisms have an entirely divergent structure of nueron analogs and we -might- consider them candidates for mind.  Nor, as a point of fact, does a single nueron seem to have the ability to present anything that you or I would call mind in human beings. It seems to take a -hell- of alot of them, however they might be doing it - by whatever means or unifying principle it's being done. Mind -appears- to b an effect associated with complex and robust systems, not the individual components of the system.

However, it seems to me that in a Universe capable of sustaining minds, that it would be better to look to the fabric for answers to psychogony, than to courser forms.  Subjective awareness isn't something that can pop up as a purely material property unless something very special is in the fabric of the Universe which makes it possible.

You say that, but it's damned sloppy thinking.  You;d have to know a hell of alot more about mind (and the universe) to lend this statement of seeming certainty any credence. In fact, you'd have to know so much that there would be no reason for us to have this conversation to begin with. You;d have to know so much that you were capable of singlehandedly destroying every working hypothesis in every field of science pursuant to this subject. Do you feel that you have the level of knowledge required to do that, the level of knowledge required to maintain this statement?

Let's say your hypothesis is true.  In this case, you have a descriptive hypothesis, rather than an explanatory one-- it explains where to look for mind, and might give us paths to try in researching it more deeply.  However, it doesn't explain what it is that makes matter have this capacity for subjectivity.

It does, ofc, that's just part and parcel of being a -sufficient- explanation.  You aren't satisfied with what it would say...namely, that there -isn't- anything "special" in the universe...that it's the clicking and clacking of a machine that produces the observation, that it's "just processing".  That subjective experience is produced in the same manner that the bitmap of a camera is produced, according to the same principles, by the same fundamental mechanisms. That it's just a much better bitmap, that a more complex and more robust system produces a more complex and more robust phenomena. Which is actually a proposition which you accept at least in part, only suggesting that some other hidden variable is, may be, or must be at play. This variable does not itself, account for "having a mind" - in your own estimation, nor does it seem to be able to escape the criticisms you level at an explanation which doesn't require it. Your description of this alternative positively -depends- on that mundane explanation of "just processing" -to- account for having a mind, and the hidden variable is not in evidence, in any case.

As you've described it, it doesn't appear to satisfy the conditions required to be a worthwhile scientific hypothesis, a valid logical argument, or even a sound proposition. Whereas the proposal of a comp mind (for example) fits all three, and is explanatory with regards to the question you proposed, even if you don't like the explanation. You see, it;s not -matter-...in this explanation, that has -this- ability. This ability is something that -some- arrangements of matter have...which are themselves allowed for by different properties of matter. From the bottom to the top- Matter can interact. Some interactions are capable of producing computation. Some forms of computation are capable of providing an experience, some experiences are necesarrily subjective due to the limitations of the preceding principles and mechanisms. More to the point of the example, seeing red, if you see red computationally, could not be anything -other- than a subjective experience...requiring a connection to -your- eyes....-your- brain. It's not being "allowed for" ( a different system, computational or otherwise, could just as easily allow for something other-than-subjective), it's being -constrained- by well understood properties of the specific system in question, and the matter of which said system is comprised. This much..... isn't even an unknown.