Tag Archives: consciousness

Cats Can Swear Now

Look, I get why the official scientific jury is still out on “do animals, like, reaaally have thoughts and feelings and stuff, or is it all just mimicry and operant conditioning, maaan?” Science is all about repeatability and rigor and proof beyond unreasonable doubt and it takes a lot of work and studies and evidence to elevate a hypothesis to the level of Theory, let alone Consensus.

BUT.

There are tons of people who don’t give a crap about scientific rigor, as well as scientists just voicing personal opinion, who are still on the fence even after seeing sh*t like this:

I mean, come on! You’re telling me you’ve seen all this stuff about cats swearing and bonobos making up new words and dogs saying “oops” and talking about their dreams and you’re still going “but is that, like, reaaaaly thoughts and emotions and a complex inner life”??

What in the name of Love are you waiting for? A dissertation written by a squid???

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What Is Consciousness?

In one of my previous essays, I described Jeff Hawkins’ theory of intelligence. This essay relies heavily on that theory–if you’re not familiar with it, I recommend you read my other essay first.

The question of consciousness–of what it means to be “self-aware”–is one of the longest-standing unsolved problems in human history. It has showed up in practically every field from philosophy and theology to literature and the arts to multiple scientific disciplines including psychology, biology, programming, and even mathematics. Like the nature of sleep and dreams, it is one of those tantalizing problems that has resisted all solutions for millennia, despite being a fundamental part of our daily lives. Yet intelligence was also considered such a problem, and Hawkins’ theory tied a neat bow on it. Might the problem of consciousness be similarly solved? Continue reading

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