Alice feels betrayed by her own mind for a lot of the book. Um when I started the novel, I did it, too. And the reason why the prose is kind of jarred and chaotic and it's crammed with references that feel like they're about to spill over and just explode, that's because that's what living in her mind is like and what living in my mind was like.
Our minds are black boxes to each other. I think if we actually switched consciousnesses, if we had like a Freaky Friday situation, initially we'd be totally lost in the wilderness.
Our minds are black boxes to each other. I think if we actually switched consciousnesses, if we had, like, a Freaky Friday situation, initially we'd be totally lost in the wilderness.
Consciousness is kind of how we do sentience. For animals like us, we need a much more elaborate sentience. We need the ability, say, to imagine what's going on so that we can have counterfactuals.
Sensience is kind of the base default case of having a certain awareness of your environment and a sense of the changes taking place in your environment and whether they're good for you or bad for you and then the ability to move toward the positive and away from the negative. Consciousness is kind of how we do sensience.
AI has never had its heart broken, you know, AI's never been in love. So it's like those things. Of course, there will be a math equation that equals up to heartbreak or love or something like that. But I don't think, like, actually going through it.
3mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
