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

[bennyboy]

We experience consciousness/qualia, therefore we are sure that it exists - we don't need to know a mechanism for that.

What's this "we" stuff, Chasmatic 3000?

Yes, consciousness may require a biological brain, or maybe not.

But I don't care for your use of the term 'process' in that sentence. What do you mean by it?

I mean that there is a causal chain: sensory input, brain processing, behavioral output.

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The one question materialists never answer is this: "What does consciousness actually do?"

Discriminates stimuli, reports information, monitors internal states, directs behavior and experiences the aforementioned.

Sounds like deterministic brain activity to me, except for the last part. But the problem is you haven't shown the last part is necessary for the first three. And if not, it has no evolutionary value, and its existence is therefore an accident of truly miraculous proportions.

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So it boils down to personal incredulity supporting a position lacking evidence, because it supports a position you prefer.

I don't prefer the position in which the brain is waved at and taken to be an explanation, because mind is unique to other properties, and our understanding of physics doesn't include a good theory of mind.

Given that others experience qualia, and that changes to brain structure or chemistry affect experience, the question is still wide open about what that relationship is. There are many possibilities:
-the brain represents a content generator for mind, which is like a canvas and which exists independently of the brain (substance dualism)
-mind is a physical property like any other, supervenient on certain structures and functions, and we just need more research to understand (physical monism)
-all the universe is mind, and it is the physicality which is the accidental byproduct (idealistic monism)

Let's select for now just the physical monist view. There are still many ways in which brain could be related to mind
-on a QM, atomic or molecular level: maybe a kind of elemental mental field or property is intrinsic to all matter, or to all matter of a certain type, and the brain brings the fields of a gazillion particles into relationship with each other, creating a unified, singular "mind."
-maybe mind is a special property created by the flow of information itself, independent of any specific physical mechanism
-maybe the brain structure is intrinsically aware, and we just can't remember that awareness which happens while we are in deep sleep

So, EVEN GIVEN that the human mind supervenes on the brain, whether you'd be likely to extend the concept of mind to other structures (or to the universe as a whole) depends on which of these cases is true.

Yes, I'm incredulous. I'm incredulous that waving at the brain narrows the possibilities sufficiently to establish a strong position on the OP.