///"How is it we can all look at the same data and use the same words and come to different conclusions?"

It seems to point strongly towards there not being a universal consciousness.///

No, it points strongly towards it. There isn't a universal consciousness residing somewhere amidst the universal matter. The building block of the universe is not matter, it is consciousness. The universe IS the consciousness. How?

It is analogous to dreaming. The UC dreams reality and everything in it. We are all bit players in the dream. That's why consciousness is a unity. We're all part of the Dreamer just as all the characters you dream about are just part of you. And do those characters live in perfect harmony and act like one mind? No. They usually don't. The horrifying monster that makes you wake up with a start and your heart pounding was just you playing another role.

This is why an omniscient god can't exist. It would know everything that has happened, is happening now and ever will happen. But the UC isn't omniscient. In order to know itself, it must break its own unity and play different roles. It can't know love if it doesn't know hate. It can't know nobility if it doesn't know degradation. It can't know fulfillment if it doesn't know want. it cant know purity if it doesn't know lust. So it dreams characters that play all these roles and interact.

It could learn nothing if every character was identical and agreed on everything. It can only now harmony by also know dischord. It has to wear every hat.

Since everything in reality is part of the Dreamer, everything is inside everything else. The part is in every whole, the whole in every part. And when physicists bash particles together, that's what they find--the whole in every part like a Chinese puzzle box. There is no final bit of matter to arrive at because matter is really consciousness. Doesn't seem that way but it is. Just as we differentiate solid objects and space. Solid objects ARE space.

So row, row, row your boat...