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

[pocaracas]

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I guess we both agree that the theory needs to mature a bit more until it's to be taken seriously... so I'll reply only to a few things.

Ok. Let me just try to clarify where I think we disagree and agree.

We certainly agree there is not enough evidence for the theory; it might be false, but it also might be (in principle) true.

But we seem to disagree at least on couple of crucial things.

1) You give much lower subjective prob. value on the possibility that the theory might turn out to be true than I do.
2) You think the theory is not "mature enough" (even if you don't really understand it, as you admit) where I think it is really no better nor worse than its alternatives.
3)You think its should not be taken "seriously" (first you ridiculed it openly, now you seem to have slightly more moderate attitude), whereas I think it should.


Now, my point was and is and has been and will be simply and only this: in such a situation as we are with consciousness, its genuine mystery (not some pseud-mystery like astrology), it is un-ethical not to take all options that make sense (and Orc OR certainly makes sense, however miserable the evidence for it were) seriously.

As we're dealing with real mystery, none of the competing theories have real evidence, and practically everyone working on the field agree at least on this point.

In such situation the recourse to "intuitions" or "common sense" is really only an euphemism for dogmi; if no-one takes a theory seriously (and when you ridicule it, you aim precisely at that), it will not be researched; but when a theory might really, even if it is not seen as the most probable one, be true, this would be bad option; thus, one must encourage also the research of those theories, which one finds less attractive which is to say, take them seriously. a circle: there is no evidence for T, and because there is no evidence, it is not seriuos, and as it is not serious, no evidence should be searched for it, and as no evidence is searched, if T is correct, that will never be found out.
=A bad outcome.

I even once had to solve it for a Hydrogen atom... yeah, every grad student's dream!

I don't know how to build up S's equation for complex systems (and the Penrose model deals with quantum gravity which I understand nothing on mathematical level and I guess he gives some sort of geometrical form to the equation) ... but it can be done as you know.

Anyway, the major evidence for the theory is precisely that the original major counter-argument of Tegmark by which it was debunked in 90's based of decohenrence for the theory has turned out to be false. That is proves that the theory does make sense in the light of current understanding of physics.

No, and I don't care.

Well, its a real epistemological fallacy. Not rocket science, but it's easy to make mistakes on these things.

Just because the man is smart, doesn't mean he's correct.

That's right. As I said, I do not believe his gödelian argument is correct. Yet, I find it, again, a matter of ethics that I grant him the chace of possibly correcting my criticism, if there is some blind spot in it, etc.

Like I said on day one, he's biased.

Might be the case, but don't forget that so are coputer-scientists, who love the idea of hard AI, neuro-physiologists, who have faith in the "weteware", etc. Everyone is "biased" on the field.

He may be correct, to some extent... But the theory is not tested enough to become the mainstream notion.

Now, I think we have reached the point at which we have some sort of understanding what we disagree on.

But I would like to make a question: which one of the mainstream theories (soft AI is, I guess the most mainstream) then has some "real evidence" and what that evidence is?
That something is "mainstream" does not mean it does not have burden of proof. I asked Cato this question, but he did not answer. So, are you accusing me of "creationism" because of this skepticism? I think that's a false accusation: right accusation would be: I am like a lamarcist, for I am not some dualist denying that brains and neurons &c are extremely crucial. That would be like creationism! But lamarcism ... that was like "there might be more to it than you darwinists (although Darwin himself was a lamarcist) think", and that's also my position with the "orthodox" neuro-cognitive theories (as corresponded with darwinism). And how is happening to Lamarcism? That seems to be a happy ending now. But for decades ... it was according to the mainstream "non-sense", "falsified", etc.

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I sure hope some theory does get on with evidence for it...

The trouble is accounting for everything consciousness, or self-awareness, seems to be dependent on a few structures in the brain, macroscopic structures, as evidenced by the changes in personality (could we say personality is related to self-awareness?) brought upon by damage, or absence of these structures.
Sure, one could argue that a single neuron (and its microtubules) is the one responsible for that change, not the whole missing structure, but then, what was all that matter doing?