Why the Universe might be conscious.

Such a thinker must incorporate and keep abreast in neuroscience.

That's a funny thing to say since neuroscience has thus far had, literally, nothing to say about the nature of consciousness.

The irony with you is your continual mystification by perceived non-materialist dogma while being a dogmatic materialist.

Aside from this, panpsychism is a poor fit to a whole world of psychic phenomena that are conveniently (and typically) dismissed and ignored by most theorists including this one, presumably as a priori impossible therefore of necessity just unscientific anecdotes. Phenomena for which there is a large body of empirical, veridical evidence. Such as NDEs, past life memories of small children, death bed visions, mediumistic communications. These phenomena and others fit much more easily into interactive dualism which is of course derided and totally politically incorrect in academia.

Do you mean two discrete substances, or rather the idea of a soul/body duality?

The latter seems quite capable of fitting into a kind of panpsychism (see Weiss' The Long Trajectory & Doctrine of Subtle Worlds), the former suffers because even many people open to non-materialist explanations find it hard to explain how two discrete substances can interact?

Admittedly, as the materialist Lycan noted in Giving Dualism its Due, no one has a wholly accepted explanation for causality when there's only a single substance so...

Finally I do think mathematical modeling does have its undeniable uses - it would be very strange if the structure of our brains had nothing to do with consciousness whether that is some panpsychic-informational explanation or Grossinger's argument in Dark Pool of Light that brains have a pattern that attracts spirits to incarnate...

That's a funny thing to say since neuroscience has thus far had, literally, nothing to say about the nature of consciousness.

The irony with you is your continual mystification by perceived non-materialist dogma while being a dogmatic materialist.

The point is a lot of you are rather certain consciousness is not an emergent property of brain functions. Neuroscience indicates otherwise. And please stop with the materialist finger pointing and it's childish.

That's a funny thing to say since neuroscience has thus far had, literally, nothing to say about the nature of consciousness.

The irony with you is your continual mystification by perceived non-materialist dogma while being a dogmatic materialist.

There does seem to be disagreement among neuroscientists about the brain/consciousness relation, to give a few examples:

https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-p...0#pid33620

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What neuroscience cannot tell us about ourselves

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The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed (The MIT Press)

Do you mean two discrete substances, or rather the idea of a soul/body duality?

The latter seems quite capable of fitting into a kind of panpsychism (see Weiss' The Long Trajectory & Doctrine of Subtle Worlds), the former suffers because even many people open to non-materialist explanations find it hard to explain how two discrete substances can interact?

Admittedly, as the materialist Lycan noted in Giving Dualism its Due, no one has a wholly accepted explanation for causality when there's only a single substance so...

It very much seems as if the mind, the psyche, the soul, can separate from the physical body and brain and exist as a mobile center of consciousness. As exhibited in many veridical near death experiences. As seems to be what happens with reincarnation, where young children remember an immediately previous physical lifetime in a different body, as a different physical person (though the same soul).  It seems to be that the mind and consciousness are not themselves physical, with the limitations of the physical, but can manifest in the physical world through the brain and body.

The actual evidence points to there being two separate kinds of "stuff" (mind and matter) that still interact with each other via the brain. This at least superficially looks like some form of interactive dualism. It does require postulating that there must be some sort of underlying commonality between the two substances in order for them to be able to interact. They are not totally separate in their basic natures. 

So be it - surely the overall resources of Reality as a whole can accommodate this requirement. It certainly doesn't seem to break any of the basic laws of logic. Whether this can be termed some sort of soul/body duality or interactive substance dualism seems more a matter of semantics.

The point is a lot of you are rather certain consciousness is not an emergent property of brain functions. Neuroscience indicates otherwise.

There are far too many contradictory articles, misleading and misinformed assertions and sensationalised studies (that often have nothing to do with consciousness pertaining to 'the self' at all, and are instead relying on blatant wordplay) for my taste when it comes to neuroscientific research. Mark Mahin's blog Head Truth does a good job at explaining evidence against materialism IMO. I don't agree with him completely in some areas but he makes some good points that I feel are often overlooked. 

Also, as others mentioned, neuroscience is quite clearly conflicted on the matter. I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that there's a common consensus, especially given the neuroscientists such as those mentioned in the article, as well as the likes of Mario Beauregard and Donald Hoffman, who are not materialists.

The point is a lot of you are rather certain consciousness is not an emergent property of brain functions.  Neuroscience indicates otherwise.

Interesting choice of words.  Curious why you didn't use "proves" or some other, more definitive verb?  (Its a rhetorical question as you well know since you can't say Neuroscience proves otherwise.)

"Indicates" doesn't really mean anything, does it?  Its a term that is open to interpretation; hell that's at its core meaning.  For some NDE's would seem to "indicate" neuroscience will never fully explain consciousness.  Yet, I'm sure you'd pawn that off as woo.

Now, the scientific materialist might use words like those you chose, but .......

I fail to see how mathematical equations and models can even in principle come anywhere near to really understanding what is the essence of conscious experience, which is what it is like to experience, will and intend, from the inside.

The essence of such equations and models begins with concepts and abstractions (immaterial aspects of consciousness and thought) and is implemented with numbers (immaterial and abstractions). A new theory that starts with its basic components totally mysterious and unexplained, part of the mystery the new concept is supposed to explain. This is circular and gets nowhere. And since it involves models, the new theoretical idea must be implemented with externally observed phenomena not the subjective internally experienced immaterial qualia and abstractions of consciousness which even in principle can't be objectively observed and quantified.

So the "hard problem" remains unchallenged.

The word essence is most telling.  In older cultures the "blood" of humanity carried an "essence" that made the character and being of a person.  This essence was passed from parents to children.  It was quite universally believed - and at some unconscious level it makes sense.  Now, we know this is the coded instructions of DNA/RNA/Ribosome systems.
 
Today in the information age -- if we want to know the essence of something or person -- we look to the associated data and what it tells us about actual output  generated in the surrounding environment.  The essence of a machine is its functional output.  This is formalized as its capability ratio's like Cp or CpK.  Processes are modeled so that simulations tell us what will be the potential faults and advantages.  A computer sim is the classic information object.

Likewise, people are rated as to individual output, in school, on the job, as partners and online.  Big data collects it and sells your "essences" to anyone who pays.  Information is essential in making commerce go 'round.  Intentions and will-power are measurable as outcomes.   This is not to address anything qualitative where morals are parsed.

Math concepts are abstracted (drawn out) from the patterns we observe.  So it is fair to call them abstractions and immaterial.  However, if both observable aspects of information: its semantic (meaningful) activity and its formal structure as bits and bytes both - are just as REAL as forces and materials - then information objects are just as influential as physical ones.  And minds generate information objects, with which they navigate life.

The hard problem can be generally explained in quantifiable terms, in the framework of understanding that information science describes a parallel generation of reality in concert with physical sciences.  Bodies interact with environmental materials, minds interact with environmental information. Messages and responses cause changes in probability as the output of mind.