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

[bennyboy]

My intention is to show that the belief in other-qualia is a philosophical choice mediated by instinct, rather than a physical fact.

Philosophical choice mediated by instinct? What does this even mean?Will you at least concede that it is reasonable to conclude, if for no other reason than to direct inquiry, that all humans without significant injury or aflliction experience qualia?

I cannot know for sure that any other entity, human or otherwise, actually experiences qualia. I cannot see your thoughts, or interact with them. I cannot see, for example, what red looks like to you.

That being said, I am a human. I look in a mirror and see a shape similar to that of other humans, and I'm willing to make the philosophical jump that since I experience qualia, they do too. The main reason I believe people, and other things in my environment, are objectively real, is that I FEEL they are real.

This is fine when considering those like me. However, as an overall test of sentience, it fails, since it cannot reliably test sentience in robots, or in strange lumps of stuff on alien planets. Nor does it tell me WHY those people are sentient (if my philosophical jump was correct) : is it because people involve information which feeds back on itself? Is it a property of a specific organic material or function? Is it a googly spirit which has magically invaded an otherwise inanimate machine?