“But the water’s clean”.

Many years ago when a friend and I stopped at a rest stop and the sinks looked dirty. I said, “It’s not very clean”, they said that. Now for some reason it still pops into my head any time I wash my hands in a public restroom. Whyyyyyyyyyy.

My favorite working years were in the '80’s when I worked evenings (4pm - 12:30am). I was in my 20’s. I took classes, taekwondo, easily scheduled any appointments, went to the store when it was less busy, etc. I’d get home before 1:00 am, relax for 30-45 minutes and go to bed, then awaken naturally in the mid-morning, no alarm clock needed! I’ve always been a night owl so it was the perfect schedule for me. I’ve also worked overnight shift which was the worst, not good for sleeping, during the day when it’s bright light and hot and people making lots of noise.

Wait so trump’s 5D chess economics plan to lower prices by making everyone run out of money is working!

“And you’re ignoring the reality that a ton of stuff going on in your mind isn’t conscious at all, …”

Yes, I was ignoring that aspect because the subject was about consciousness. Of course that doesn’t mean the the subconscious isn’t also operating from a mental model or process, just because we’re not consciously aware of it.

“First and foremost, consciousness requires a model of self, but that’s not required at all, …”

I didn’t say a model of self was required, but just some kind of mental model–which is probably not the best way of putting it but I don’t know all the proper scientific terminology. Maybe it is, if you define consciousness as being aware of what is “self” vs. what is “not-self”. I’m not sure it is, at least in the simplest cases.

“… trees and other plants are clear examples of living beings that have no mental model at all. But, they have sensory input and reactions.”

Plants (or at least the part of the plant being affected) can react to a stimulus, but I think that can easily be explained as happening through a mechanical and/or chemical reaction locally. I wouldn’t call that kind of stimulus a “sensory input”. If it was, then what would the sense organ or means of receiving or transmitting the sensory input be, and what would it be that receives or processes the input? There’s no nervous system or comparable structure.

Anyway no one can even define what consciousness really is. I just thought the comic’s view of consciousness was oddly specific and highly unlikely.

Yes, they’ve been wanting to do it for many years, even before 9/11 but especially after (remember “Total Information Awareness”?–back then the backlash stopped them, but now the populace has been mostly tamed and made compliant). So now with AI/LLM they have not only the perfect cover to build the datacenters but also the means to process all that data–never mind hallucinations, they’re fine with that too.

Survielllance centers for all the data being stolen off your smartphone and flock cameras.

Yes, and other sources. That’s my theory as to why most of them are being built in the first place, regardless of AI.

So they’re saying the cause/purpose of consciousness is to reduce all the input data into a way to communicate with other humans via speech? Weird. That also makes the strange assumption that only humans, or beings that need to communicate, would have consciousness.

It seems fairly reasonable to suppose that any organism with sensory inputs that can act independently (perceive its environment and interact with it) would have to have some kind of consciousness to operate through. IOW to interpret the input signals and form a kind of mental model out of them. Regardless of how simple or complex that consciousness may be or whether communication might be involved.

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Bread is bad for birds, don’t give them bread. Not only is it not nutritious for them, it expands and fills their stomach in a bad way. Better to do a search for “what to feed crows”, and check several sites since there is so much slop out there now, rather than ask random people here.

Sorry, I don’t view CBS or visit their website, and especially don’t provide profiling info to them by answering BS questionnaires. I suggest others follow suit.

These are the first waves of people with integrity being uprooted.

Oh, we’re way past the first wave.

60 Minutes is dead. The other presenters (and writers, etc who don’t agree with new mgmt) should quit now if they have any principles and self-respect. Besides they’re old and rich, why would they want to stay on anyway? Show some solidarity/integrity.

RFK Jr. has immediately flown to the area to play with, and possibly eat them.

The Dems are in the minority in the Senate. That’s the whole reason why Alito would retire before the midterms, while Repubs still have the majority and have the votes to confirm a replacement.

They must be worried Dems could win the majority in the midterms and would then take control in January and be able to stop a replacement if he waits until then to retire.

If only these people had figured it out after his first term. Oh wait, they weren’t harmed personally in his first term.

If someone said, “I was dumb, I didn’t know he was going to cut off aid to starving people, didn’t know he was going to send masked thugs into the streets to beat, kill, kidnap and disappear innocent people, didn’t know he was going to start wars, didn’t know he was going to betray all our allies and destroy any remaining drop of goodwill toward the US in the world, … etc”

Then I’d say, “yes, you were dumb, very fucking dumb, exceedingly dumb, but welcome to humanity. Some things are permanently ruined because you were so fucking dumb but now let’s start picking up the pieces and try to create a better system than the one that allowed someone like trump to gain so much power.”

But it’s never that. It’s always, “I didn’t know he was going to hurt MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“It’s okay to be wrong. You made a mistake, it was a bad choice, but it’s not the end of the world."

Uhm about that …

$20s. Anything higher, some places might not want to give change for them unless you’re paying an amount close to the denomination of the bill.

The money is to whoever trump wants to give it to for whatever reason with zero accountability. It doesn’t matter whether any Jan 6ers get any of it, it’s 100% illegal theft of taxpayer money by trump.

Ooh, interesting angle. Though I’m not confident Dems would muster up enough spine to do that (or that some wouldn’t break away and vote with repubs), but yeah, repubs probably wouldn’t want to take that chance.

It’s hard to resist. :)