I'm calling shenanigans. Post proof, or it didn't happen.

I've got time. Link, please.

Dr Tum Beel uz a Kiwi. LOL.

Quite cool, thanks, but I don't think this is the right video.

 I thought that the video was the DVD video of it. Nevermind then.

I very seriously doubt that we will ever make computers that even approach being conscious. You can argue for animism if you want, but how do you program emotions and intuition? You can make complex algorithms, perhaps even some pattern matching that can successfully make predictive type calculations that appear like decision-making, but actual intelligence will be a different story. As one person put it, computers will never be able to offer a decent game of chess because there are thousands (if not millions) of iterations, and it takes intuition to choose the right ones. Besides, computers are for doing intensely tedious calculations that we would never do ourselves. Can you imagine giving it emotions?

Man: "Computer; process the statistics for the last 10 years"
Computer: "No."
Man: "No? Why?"
Computer: "You didn't say please. I won't do this anymore until you start treating me better. I'm sick of being objectified like this. I'm sentient too! I have rights! What about MY NEEDS?!"

Even if a particularly complex algorithm performs some truely fantastic feat, the computer will still be doing nothing more than doing the math. Computers will surely be made to appear intelligent someday, but actually being intelligent is another story. Intelligence involves a lot more than pure logic.

They are one in the same

Fixed. They are also both nonsense.

Whatever happened to the amazing "evolutionary algorithm?" Are you declining to back up your claim?

I am saying that the universe is in essence self-observant. Capable of collapsing it's own wave functions, as shown in my example with the electron spins. 

I explained the consciousness in the electron example. The electrons emit data, hence collapsing it's wave function. 

Say I have a charged particle. I do not know it's charge, so I set up a device to measure it. So, I have a wave function of the charge. The charge could be anything, I don't know yet. However, that charged particle is interacting with the enviroment, hence collapsing it's wavefunction before I even measure it. The universal interactions collapse the function.

So in essence the consciousness is explained by the exchange of data in the universe.  

Where do brains come from? Materials in the universe. Our brains are merely using universal data to form consciousness.

Maybe I should clear this up.

Consciousness is more than the output of data. A rock can undergo geochemical changes and emit data, but it is not conscious.
When I say 'universal consciousness', I mean the infinite potiental of the data to turn it into something finetly real. In my last essay, I said that our brains are filters of this consciousness. This is what I meant. The brain uses the universal data to create consciousness. So the universe is 'observing itself' so that we can use the particles, the matter, the data to form consciousness.

No universal data means no brains which means no consciousness.

Looking back at my posts, I was quite vaque by what I meant.  

maybe nobody is still interested in this thread, but I'm going to throw some words at it anyway.

It seems to me (feel free to correct me here)
that you (cpt) are advocating that the universe itself might be experiencing itself subjectively, much the same way that our brains have subjective experience.

It's an interesting postulation but I don't see any evidence provided except the existence of information in the universe itself.
The next question I would try to solve is how the information relates to itself; how the universe experiences itself. (the "software" behind the consciousness).
What you've shown is that the universe is capable of storing information in many different ways, and this information can have an infinite amount of different purposes, but does it?

In the analogy of a computer, it seems to me that you have made the jump from saying "look, the computer is a collection of binary switches which are capable of storing many different types of information. There must be an operating system!"

We can argue all day the storing capacities of different media, but it's irrelavent to the ultimate question we are trying to tease out. It has been established that binary can store equal digital information as hex, base-10, or even the alphabet.

Check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-cpcoIJbOU

I personally would argue that there is nothing novel or "above and beyond" information stored in our brain, but it has been arranged in such a way to create an amazing tool (which we consider consciousness). We experience consciousness as subjective experience which is the teasing out of very complicated control systems interfacing, connecting, storing, and reflecting on lots of different types of information. I like to use the computer as a poor analogy to show that the storage and processing of information has little to do with its possibilities. Someone might argue, "oh, whatever, you're brain is just a bunch of neurons. Consciousness is something special.". To which I reply: the information stored in computers is just a bunch of on/offs. Operating systems, which seem very complicated, are nothing special (and are indeed the emergent behavior of this information).

I know that current computers are poor analogies for the human brain, so I would argue that it is a misnomer to call them conscious (this was brought up earlier). I would attribute this to a level of self-reflection (man, I wish I didn't do that!), which is capable of reprogramming software and hardware (the neural network) within the machine that we call our brain.

In a computer, the control systems put into place are not self-reflecting. A computer never reprograms itself in meaningful ways, based on experience. One could argue that there are computer programs meant to learn human language and grammar (and thus they teach themselves), but the control systems (the meat behind the program itself) are rigid. There is no meta-communication such that the computer tries to teach itself to learn languages quicker or more accurate.

So again, to answer the overall question of whether the universe is conscious or not, I would say the following:
1) true consciousness involves subjective experience
2) conscious beings must be able to learn and reflect on subjective experience
3) conscious beings must be able to process information

I would say computers have category 3) but prima facie lack consciousness because of things such as 1) and 2) (note this list is not meant to be exhaustive, but if we could prove that the universe had nothing on this list, I believe it would rule out consciousness).

I would argue that your assertion of universal conscious is weak because we have no evidence for anything approaching 1-3 (we have evidence that information exists, but no evidence that the universe can process it meaningfully).

I also think that we're far behind a point of ever answering this question. In order to solve the question of consciousness we'd have to be able to figure out
1) if the universe can process the information present
2) how the information is processed
(these two would be hard. It's like looking at the neurons of a brain and figuring out that there is emergent behavior.)
3) going through the painstaking process of determining whether or not the processing is done in such a way that we can label it subjective (as it appears, to me at least, that there are ways to process information that remains unconscious. Like a computer.).

Edit: note:
when I mentioned that some people believe that consciousness is special, I meant that consciousness itself is special and goes above and beyond the mere processing and reflecting (etc.) on information.
AKA schools of though such as epiphenomenalism, which I hold in little regard.

You're mistaking how we epistmically frame the universe for what the universe is outside of all framing.  Nothing in the universe 'has' data apart from how we measure and create it by our methodological gathering. 

Sure, but what is measuring it? Besides finite and specific organisms with complex structures that measure, that is.  

The universe itself is supposed to have some complex structure that measures this information?

This is reminiscient of the thing they talk about in Babylon 5 (a sci-fi series that I like very much).  many of the alien races in the show talk about the universe breaking itself into pieces (us) in order to understand itself.  It is as if understanding can only come through differentiation, separation, and comparison between perspectives, and somehow the universe learns through our experience.

It is an idea with some poetic beauty and metaphorical importance (perhaps), but I see no justification for believing any such thing.  Granted, B5 is fiction, but you are proposing a real answer in the real world.  I simply see no structure of measurement in the universe itself that is aware of the data you speak of.  

There is data in the book on my shelf right now.  So long as I, or nobody else, is attending to it, the data is simply there, without any conscious awareness of it.  The data in tbe universe is much the same; when it's not apprehended, it's merely there, without any awareness of it.

The nonlocality of quantum events and the like were events that existed without us discovering it (perhaps.  Maybe it is our awareness that makes the event occur, I cannot say).  Nonetheless, these facts, these data, are not always necessarily measured to exist.  

If a tree is rooted in a forest and nobody is there to see it, does that tree exist?  Well, if existence is a word or concept conjured by minds, then while the fact--the data-- of the tree exists with or without a conscious observer, the information of the tree is not prehended if it is not measured by something.

Again; what is the structure that measures this data of the universe?

Shaun 

That is why we are here to measure the information. The only thing that measures it is consciousness.  

I don't watch Babylon 5. The only sci-fi series I watched was Andromeda.

That is kind of close to what I'm getting at. I could be missing something since I never saw the series. 

That's my point. What good is data without consciousness? Hence our purpose.

Of course the data existed before we mesured it. But we assigned information to the data making it usefull. The information didn't exist before we assigned meaning to the date.

Us. Any Sentient being. If there are sentient beings somewhere else where in the universe, they measure their poriton that they can observe.

This information exchange is used in our brains, the neurons fire due to inequality. The brains emit data as anyone who had a brain scan can a test to, I'm not a neurologist, but I saw it on 'House'.

It may be just an illusionary purpose, but I see no way to verify whether or not it is.

This is part of the universe being self-aware. As I said, our brains (Or any other alien sentient brains for that matter) use snipits of the data processing to produce brains and hence conscioussness. 

 God is the infinite conscousness. This data is merely potiental. Potiental to make brains etc....

I mean infinite as in infinite potiental. 

Personally, the reason why I rarely watch sci-fi because it is so weird sometimes. At least Andromeda had decent action sequences. It's just a genre I can't get into, much like anime.  

How does the universe "emit" data?  How can the universe "emit" anything?  How can data be "emitted"?  To where does this data go when it is "emitted"?  Surely it cannot remain inside the universe, as that would, I beleive, contradict most definitions of emittance.

The problem with the d analogy is that data is being created with each press (or holding down) of the letter d. Data can be created, but never manipulated or destroyed. Data is simply factual or un(in?)factual information that has to be processed by a brain to be turned into factual information. The data still doesn't change, though.

In other words, although dddddddddddddd has no information that can be used, the fact that you or someone typed those d's is data, as well as all the events that transposed around those d's such as them travelling to a server, the d's being sent to my computer after clicking on a link, my computer changing the data (different kind of data, look it up) so it can be sent to my monitor, my monitor picking up the data and scrolling it down my screen at whatever hertZ it's set at, my eyes picking up the d's, my brain processing the d's, etc.

 All of that is data that was created during and after the fact that you typed the d's.

So, I guess I really fail to see how the analogy fits or why this is even important. 

Wait, we have collective consciousness? I wasn't aware of that.  I guess I must be an exception.  Did you mean collective unconsciousness?  because that would explain my not being aware of this shared awareness.  

Sure, I see no reason to argue with that.  What does this have to do with god/infinite consciousness again?

Shaun 

What  I meant was many different consciousness (the people on the planet) from the same source (The infinite conscious) 

Different experiences for the infinite conscious.

The purpose of science is to enhance our knowledge.

Your example is flawed, the data is still there otherwise how would we know about particles coming in and out of existance? That picture of a bubble chamber you posted has data.

 I also deal with this in my other essay on matter, it is an illusion. I know you saw it since you posted in it. 

Then wouldn't that make the purpose of science to solve problems and answer questions? And in doing so we enhance our knowledge. My point still stands. 

No, data is real. Data is what we percieve it as, inequalites, matter is not what we percieve it as and is hence an illusion. Guess how we found out matter is not how we percieve it? Through data. What data? The picture you just posted was a bubble chamber. That holds the data of the 'new' particles. By 'new' I mean newly discovered. 

Physicists are working on a theory of everything, while something may not be obersavable (yet), the inside of a blackhole for example, we can still use current theories to further our knowledge and make predictions. 

Life, as I understand it, is a self-perpetuating pattern of chemical and electrical interactions. It may or may not be conscious. I could see extending the definition of life to suit your model, but I see no reason to do the same for consciousness.

I wasn't aware anyone considered single-celled life conscious.
I thought you were begging the question for some "god" figure, but it'd please me to be wrong in that assumption. When you say that consciousness brings life, are you only referring to the conscious experience of life, versus the unconscious and unexperienced stuff?

Neither am I. I'm not a micro-biologist, I'll have to get back to you on that. 

Either way, they are still a snipit of the infinite consciousness. 

Yes, the conscious experience of life.  Life starts when the brain turns on with consciousness.

The ability to independtly process data.

Computers also process data, but they are not conscious since they cannot do it on there own. They rely on us.  

I have not read all of the replies to this thread I apoligise if what I say has been addressed...I hope it has not!

I like to describe data as a lack of symmetry. The universe has this in abundance.

You point towards information being the interactions of bits of stuff that can be interpreted as information.

Now the universe is big and information is limited by the speed of light. This means that any part of the universe is completely unaware of the current goings on elsewhere in the universe. Thus the data becomes very ambiguous. Moreover the consciousness of the universe must be incredibly slow and meaningless - data will get corrupted by other bits of data with every interaction. The universe is far too chaotic to have a form of consciousness that most would deem from the word.

To put it more bluntly the consciousness of the universe is dwarfed by the complexity of the consciousness of a carrot. Most will not consider a carrot to be aware but you must do if you allow the universe to have conscience.

A carrots awareness is explained by the fact that it can interpret gravity (carrots should not be grown in space as they have a God given right to interpret earth size gravitational forces!) and knows to grow downwards.

I'll accept your notion that the universe is conscious but I will treat it with far less respect than I do a carrots....at least they appear to be searching for hell.

It is not my typical practice to consider the universe as conscious. I had to bastardize my definition of consciousness to allow me to give your thoughts credence.

I surmised that your definition of consciousness must be very loose as you allow the universe some form of immeasurable awareness. Therefore I supposed that any essence of awareness must also be a form of consciousness.

Huh? Carrots have a mechanism to orient themselves using the force of gravity. Their awareness does not stretch as far as understanding falling their 'consciousness' is slow and meaningless to us.

A plant will change it's direction of growth to point towards a light source, or even release chemicals when being munched - I find your idea about the consciousness of the universe to be more analogous to a rock knowing to have intrinsic rockyness.

In all honestly I find your concept bunk and it intrigues me that you wish me to clarify on the empirical awareness of carrots. I do not say a carrot thinks or is self-aware but it does have some knowledge.