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

[bennyboy]

A lot of times I hear terms such as these thrown around in the context of some quasi-religious, pseudoscientific assertion about telepathy or the placebo effect or the run-of-the-mill con-artist masquerading as a "card-reader" or "healer." I'm not really interested in these silly charlatans. I want to talk about the idea of Universal Conscious or Intelligence in a philosophical context, as a notion that logically proceeds from the realization that there really isn't an external world that is fundamentally separate from the mind. That is because the mind is itself a product of the external world, just another feature that arose from atomic interactions. In the sense that we are all part of the larger Cosmos, perhaps analogous to the cells that comprise one brain, it seems at least that something like a Universal Conscious or Intelligence can be made into an intelligible framework... no?

I think this depends partly on what level or in what circumstances mind supervenes on matter.

Is it just organic brain chemistry? If so, mind is very unique and special indeed, and Universal Consciousness doesn't make sense.

Is it a product of all energetic interactions in the universe (on some level)? If so, the complex interaction of photons among stars and galaxies could be seen as a kind of Universal "thought."