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

[bennyboy]

I have no problem whatsoever with the universe ticking along without any conscious beings, and I don't accept any kind of universal consciousness as no credible mechanism has ever been proposed.

I'm sure that a credible mechanism has never been proposed for the experience of qualia at all. There's a lot of narrative about how useful awareness is to an evolving species, etc., but that's just a two-step, because it's not the kind of causation that people are interested in.

I definitely view consciousness/mind as emergent from brain, with the definition of 'brain' being either wetware or hardware. Therefore, I don't discount the possibility of strong AI.

I think it's clear that the brain is very important to human consciousness. But there are some aspects of the brain which are unique only to brians, and some which are much more universal. The particular chemistry of the brian may be unique in all the universe, for example. However, the ability to receive and process photons is intrinsic to all matter-- on some level.