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

[bennyboy]

Your thesis isn't scientifically testable, and doesn't qualify as science.

And on the contrary, the answer is only accepted if it supports what either of you already think, as demonstrated many times over in this thread.

For instance, if a reply does not presuppose the supernatural directly influences the physical, then it is discarded, or bombarded with questions as to how that can be so, without ever even addressing the question of how the supernatural can influence the material world, or 1., how one would know the supernatural exists, 2., that it does influence the physical body.

lol your sarcastometer is broken, I think.

Anyhow, I've never suggested any supernatural thesis. There's nothing supernatural about the idea that some kind of mind is intrinsic to all matter, or that it's intrinsic to the flow of information rather than a specific mechanism, or even that the whole universe is idealistic rather than physicalistic. In any of those cases, the reality of things is nature. Until the mechanism of mind is known, it's foolish to choose a single model and proclaim it to be scientific fact-- and the current state of things is that the mechanism of mind is NOT known-- nor is there even a moderately plausible physical explanation for the fact of qualia.

As for presuppositions, you have it exactly backward. I make fewer assumptions than you do. I see a rock as a collection of properties: shape, color, weight etc. I see its interaction with other objects as an additional property which may be interesting to observe and study. You insert additional ideas about the underlying nature of those experiences: they come from such and such, are formed in such and such a way, etc. But while the rock's properties are self-evident, the additional ideas you insert are both intrinsically unprovable and unneccessary to do good science.

And finally, we come to testing mechanisms. You claim there is a "scientific" view on consciousness. However, you cannot ever observe someone else's qualia. You can't prove qualia to exist, anywhere, in any form, in any physical structure or its functions. You simply. Do. Not. Have. Access. To. Others'. Qualia.

You talk about evidence, but it is exclusively implicit evidence for something that cannot even be shown to exist. You could make the same philosophical assumption about ANY intangible entity-- like God, or angels. You could say, "Well, since we already know God exists, and is only known to exist where humans are, God cares more about humans than about other creatures." But that would be bullshit. And so is the statement that "we all know qualia exists, and is only known to exist where the brain is, so the brain makes the qualia."

Don't believe me? Prove that you actually experience qualia, rather than just seeming to.