my "depressing" view of sentience 

It doesn't exist. We rationalize mechanical reactions. Always. Anxiety is arousal, discomfort. Why arousal discomfort coming from the body? Pick a stressor. Freak out about it. You rationalize simple feelings. You rationalize automatic reactions.

But why is that depressing? Why not find it freeing? Zen? Perfectly calming? You can't control your moment to moment reactions but your rationalizer can increase and decrease the probability of reactions.

@Fuego also... blindsight was exactly what I thought of when I read this, only saw your toot about it just now

Follow

@bea As a person who "yass"'d my feelings about consciousness, did you find the book depressing?

@Fuego I can not recall, maybe unsettling? I read it long ago and was already very depressed, not to mention I have some memory issues so... hard to say

I do know that it stuck with me forever though in terms of its reflections on sentience and intelligence

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!