Hey there, hi, howdy, hola, hello.
I was tempted to start this with a Charlie Day meme. Wires and yarn everywhere. But instead, I’ll point to John Muir:
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
I’ve been thinking (a lot) recently about consciousness — which, as you might guess, is literally just, like, life? It’s the experience of knowing that there’s something going down and that we’re a part of it. I mean, I think I’ve just been thinking. Each thought loops back on itself eventually.
I’m overhyping my mental activity, tbh.
So, in order to avoid sweeping, navel-gazey proclamations on what it means to be alive (and what it means to be aware of our own aliveness), imma instead start hyping Project CETI: a nonprofit that is using machine learning to understand whales!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know when you hear about some person or some project and you’re like yeah, that’s exactly what our tax dollars should be funding? That’s me right now. I’m stoked about this.
They don’t have any findings yet but I’m incredibly excited about this. Because, like…….the implications! Are cool!
But, simultaneously, I’m also, like, fuck.
Because apparently there are real and genuine scientists on this planet who believe that humans are the only things with consciousness. And it literally takes us translating animals’ clicks and snorts into English for them to begin to be like, “Oh, that thing might be aware of its own aliveness! It might have feelings!” (I’ll get into this more in a bit.)
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