sentience andru235 it lives here, too amonst the atoms you speculate, perhaps there are others in the galaxy, the universe the macrocosm will treat your planet as you have treated the microcosm how have you treated the microcosm? fission, fission, fission f f f 6 6 ... 041226 ... apocalypse not just mere existence, but summoning thought about it 050614 ... z see: the_ghosts_of_birds 050615 ... anne-girl dude. i was looking out at the lake yesterday, thinking about how animals just do whatever their instincts say to do... or at least that's what we think, I guess we can't really be totally sure but, but it'd be sooo much easier not to have to think about shit all the time... just to do whatever the hell we felt like but DAMN sentience is cool... i think that when Genesis talks about being made in god's image, that's what it means - the ability to reason, make decisions, do the wrong thing or the right thing (that's why there's morality... because we can choose, right?) i mean, i can't imagine being not able to imagine or think and stuff... to just walk around all day doing whatever my senses told me to do like you can't give goldfish too much food because they'll eat it all and die but humans are smart, right? If they have too much, we'll leave it for later, right? but i'm still a slave to my senses, not ruled by logic but it's gorgeous... i mean, just the ability to choose and do whatever the hell i want to do; break the law or just social rules but i don't... i just go along with generic normal things it's a terrible waste, really... i mean, if i don't use my fantastically cool ability to wander around intellectually and consider different things and evaluate morals and reasoning and try to come up with some sense of ethics that makes sense and maybe try to get something out of this gigantic pile of knowledge and thought we've accumulated over the millenia (religions & philosophy & all that) then what's the bloody point? it's beautiful 050617 ... z it shrinks from detailed analysis. it colors everything we know, perceive and remember. it evades definition, becoming different even as we examine it. it is the structure of what we know, as we know it. it is what we are. see: symbolic_fatigue signal_and_noise evolutionary_psychology consensual_reality involuntary_sensory_signals intelligence sensorium 050617 ... () (i feel my knowing now) 050928 ... (z) (i am my knowing now) 051118 ... z i know my seeming now 051202 ... z i dream my saying now. 060828 ... unhinged the buddha taught that we are the sentient beings capable of enlightenment...we are better than this - jerry colonna 190904 ... unhinged it's not just for humans anymore has been watching a lot of animal rescue vids in quarantine 200414 what's it to you? who go blather from