A Conscious Universe

[The Grand Nudger]

So what? You were talking about people communicating on the internet, not QM particles or qualia.

I'd say something similar, "qm particles, not mind"

Never happened.

....okay

So, organization...this is the part where I call you mean words, btw.
[quote]
I dunno, man. A galaxy looks pretty organized to me.

Not as organized as a comp system - thats why you can distinguish your pc from the water in a pond or "the rest of the universe"- for example. It;s a particular type of system that produces a particular type of effect - though it can be made with a variety of materials and lean on multiple different architectures (we're discovering more architecture now with QM computing).

Photons traveling among galaxies seem a lot like information to me.

Sure, takes more than just information to compute, though. I could beam radio at your computer all day and it won;t ever do any computation on that, eh?

I just want to know exactly what this "computation" you are talking about is. So far, you've said mind is not -in- the brain, it -is- the brain. Then you started talking about computational systems. Fine. What is a computational system,

One of the more amusing questions ever asked about computation, and as yet unanswered. It is, in practical use and terms, a system organized such that logical functions can be performed upon variables. We can point to examples of computation more readily than we can explain computation in toto, if you ask me. That's actually the crux of my position on mind - when we parcel up the universe into what does ort does not fit a technical description (or when we consider it as a whole) where do we draw the line. We all think a calculator does comp, we all think a pc does comp, some of us are pretty sure a plant does comp, cells do comp.....but people..ah, people "experience qualia".

and how do you know whether it experiences qualia?

I don't know that any more than I know that you experience qualia. Maybe neither of you do. All I know is that as you describe this qualia business to me it has clear computational analogs.

I don't think I know what you're talking about. The PC is a system created by people to organize and process information which they feed to it.

Right, when we "feed information" we're selecting physical states of an actual structure - that's how that's accomplished, it is an example of a computational system. It's like a train track for current. A simple example of architecture that everyone is familiar with is a circuit breaker. When then lever is in the "on" position contact is made and current can pass through - this is "true". When it is in the off position contact -is not made- and so current -cannot pass through. This is "false". Or, 1/0. Arrange enough circuit breakers just so and you have a computational system

Since it is a computational device, then you are, I believe saying it is conscious, right?

I don't think so, no - I think that it's computation is alot like ours, ours alot like its...but I doubt that a PC is quite as robust as a conscious agent such as myself or yourself. I think that our line of conscious/not conscious is a benchmark along the functional range of computational systems. I do think that consciousness is at a point lower than ourselves, yes - though I also see consciousness as having a broad representation on that range.

The human brain is a system not created by people to organize and process information which someone feeds to it. . . unless that someone is God, I presume.

Not sure what gods doing in the discussion at all? Does our brain not seem to be a system organized to process information which it is fed (not really the best description of a comp system but even so...what part of this is true of computers but not true of the human brain?
(I don;t think it matters all that much how it got to be what it is, for the purposes of our discussion, so long as we can both agree on what it is - at least in this bare bones summary, though, allow me to offer that even though coming from my angle the things you find difficult to conceptualize in the current model are not...in my model, a whole different set of things is difficult to conceptualize - the process by which such a system might be implemented biologically is definitely one of those things even though qualia is not)