exactly, and because it's nonreducible, we ought to remain wary of both apophatic and catophatic reasoning when trying to describe it. In these cases, I believe baseline respect and empathy are key, similar to how we treat the pets we don't understand yet respect.

consciousness/Consciousness: “that which knows”, or “the state of being aware”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). To put it succinctly, consciousness is the SUBJECTIVE component in any subject-object relational dynamic. The concept of consciousness is best understood in comparison with the notion of sentience. Cf. “sentience”. As far as biologists can ascertain, the simplest organisms (single-celled microbes) possess an exceedingly-primitive form of sentience, since their life-cycle revolves around adjusting to their environment, metabolizing, and reproducing via binary fission, all of which indicates a sensory perception of their environment (e.g. temperature, acidity, energy sources and the presence of oxygen, nitrogen, minerals, and water). More complex organisms, such as plants, have acquired a far greater degree of sentience, since they can react to the light of the sun, to insects crawling on their leaves (in the case of carnivorous plants), excrete certain chemicals and/or emit ultrasonic waves when being cut. At this point it is imperative to consult the entry “sentience” in the Glossary of this Holy Scripture. According to this premise, the simplest forms of animal life possess sentience, but no noticeable semblance of true consciousness. As a general rule, those animals that have at least three or four senses, combined with a simple brain, possess a mind but lack an intellect. Higher animals (notably mammals) have varying levels of intelligence but only humans have a false-ego (sense of self). Thus, human consciousness is constituted of the three components: the mind, the intellect, and the pseudo-ego (refer to Chapter 05 of my Holy Scripture). There is a rather strong correlation between brain complexity and level of consciousness, explaining why humans alone are capable of self-awareness. In this case, “self-awareness” is not to be confused with “self-recognition”, which is a related but quite distinct phenomenon, found also in several species of non-human animals, in which an animal is able to recognize itself in a mirror or some other reflective surface. “Self-awareness” refers to the experience where a human over the age of approximately three years, is conscious of the fact that he or she knows (that is, aware) that he or she is aware. Obviously, in the case of a child, he or she may need to be prompted in order to first be acquainted with this understanding. For example an adult could ask the child: “Do you know that you have a toy car?” “Yes!” “And do you KNOW that you know you have a toy car?” “Umm...I think so...yes!”. In contemporary spiritual circles (as well as in several places within this book), the capitalized form of the word usually, if not always, refers to Universal Consciousness, that is, an Awareness of awareness (otherwise known as The Ground of All Being, et altri). sentience: the capacity to experience feelings or sensations, as distinguished from perceptions and cognition. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin “sentientem” (a feeling), in order to distinguish it from the ability to think/reason. Therefore, sentience ought not be confused with consciousness, though the two are closely related. As far as biologists can ascertain, the simplest organisms (single-celled microbes) possess an exceedingly-primitive form of sentience, since their life-cycle revolves around adjusting to their environment, metabolizing, and reproducing via binary fission, all of which indicates a sensory perception of their environment (e.g. temperature, acidity, energy sources and the presence of oxygen, nitrogen, minerals, and water). More complex organisms, such as plants, have acquired a far greater degree of sentience, since they can react to the light of the sun, to insects crawling on their leaves (in the case of carnivorous plants), excrete certain chemicals and/or emit ultrasonic waves when being cut. In animal life, there are up to five sensory organs which can detect external stimulants or percepts. ADDITIONALLY, many forms of metazoans have acquired a degree of consciousness, in which a subject-object polarity is established. Therefore, when carnists claim that “plants have feelings too” upon being confronted with vegan ideology, they may be correct (at least in a rather diffuse sense of the term “feelings”), so the most logical reason for being vegan is not because plants are completely without sentience, but simply due to the fact that humans are an herbivorous species. If Homo sapiens were naturally omnivores or carnivores, then no sane person would promote veganism. In summary, all forms of organic life are, by definition, sentient, yet TRUE consciousness is found in those animal species that have a certain level of intelligence (that is, as a general rule, vertebrates, though there are a couple of notable exceptions to this general rule). Cf. “conscious".

I think the debate on solipsism is still open. His interviews where he describes solipsism seem comprehensive. I use the term "intelligence permeating everything" based on the example that kastrup tends to use, shopenhaur's "great eye of nature that looks out through every creature." and ask, does this have to be qualified as "organic creatures only?" based on sara walker and other physical theorists, there are many ways that human-style intelligence and consciousness might exist in silicone or other forms.

@@polymathpark Of the three possibilities, that consciousness might be in all forms, in just some forms, or in none of them, I think the idea that humans are unique is the least likely. The nature of the Turing Test and Chalmers’ discussion of the philosophical zombie idea both highlight that inference is all we have to guide us. Given that it is just inference, it surely follows that the distinctions we make are probably arbitrary and anthropocentric. By the way, I think that the same faulty inference is at the root of our ideas about living and non-living things.

@@neilcreamer8207 right. I guess the qusetion is, how do we humbly yet accurately guide our inference, and how do we utilize consensus?

@@polymathpark @neilcreamer8207 As regards solipsism, I think we should try to see things in reverse. This single mind's biggest problem is preference: choosing *what* to think, and also, slowing down its thought. When you close your eyes, and imagine a pink giraffe, there is no "lag" between the moment you think it and the moment you see/experience it in your mind's eye. You didn't have to take a pen and paper and draw it progressively. So the reason why there are seemingly "separate" minds (like yours and mine) is, in my analysis, just a strategy for a single mind to navigate through it's thoughts and find out what it should "think" next, as well as slowing down this thinking process. Materiality and especially, biological life, is the most sophisticated strategy to "slow down" time. Humans can have thoughts, and then contemplate the process of materializing those thoughts, and as they unfold, course correct those thoughts, which is impossible for a single mind with no limitations. That pink giraffe appeared instantly in your mind. But on paper, you can throw the paper away and start over, or decide to change pens in the middle of the drawing. Essentially, what we bring to this mind is also a method for distributing its "focused attention". You could say that any and all "energy" is just "awareness" or attention of this single mind, distributed across multiple virtual selves. When you eat a fruit, it's as if you're "swallowing" a bit more attention (you're forcing the fruit to "pay attention" to you by eating it, and so this single mind's attention is focused more on you, which prolongs your seeming impression of existing). We exist with much greater intensity on a stage in front of 10000 people than sitting alone in a hut in the middle of nowhere. As regards AI, I did a video also, looking at the inside/outside connundrum: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Z9t8nJR6mK2Wfmg.html

@@SpiritualBrainstorm oh nice I'll check it out. So imagination /internal imagery is tricky, I think there are different forms. For instance I try to imagine sheep jumping over a fence to sleep, and I put a lot of effort into placing a number on each one, maintaining the coherence of the sheep's body, head, and face, and the fence. But so called "intrusive thoughts" can be highly vivid. There's hyperphantasia and aphantasia too, wide range of Salience and vididness from person to person

a calculator isn't doing what I'm describing here? Not to judge, but this may be interpreted as a strawman argument.

@@polymathpark a calculator is better at things than humans; you appeared to say that a machine that outperforms humans is perhaps sentient If you are going to make an arbitrary distinction between a computer that can write legal arguments vs one that can add up numbers very quickly, then you're making a pretty baseless argument, since computation is the basis of both activities (But this is the only sort of argument open to those who want to generate consciousness through complexity, which Bernardo warns against trying to do [in some ways; in other ways, he believes that perhaps we could create a computer that experiences -- but that it would have little to do with today's silicon chips)

@@The.Watcher.2024 oh Im thinking more of multimodal systems that can take on many tasks, like the general processing systems of cognitive science

@@polymathpark right, which is just multiple calculators... There's no reason to think it has fundamentally different properties than a calculator (i.e., experience) -- unless maybe one doesn't understand the workings of the fundamentally similar machines

You seem to be conflating intelligence and consciousness

I mean to express that the way the human throws paint is embodied and enacted cognition that invloves the culmination of all of their years and experiences influencing the little twitches in their arm as they throw. Which isnt much of a human muse to be left with lol but at least it's something.

@@polymathpark pretty sure an assembly-line robot from 10 years ago can throw paint in a way that's influenced by the wear and tear on their body

@@The.Watcher.2024 idk these are just theories. The entire human muse will likely be replaced eventually. Maybe the only difference will be the sodium and potassium and wear on the endocrine system in humans and the friction in the gears and joints in machines making them stutter in movement. Here's hoping!