Annaka Harris

I know that conscious experiences exist in the universe.

And so the answer isn't none.

So the answer has to be all or some.

And this is a starting assumption that you're really kind of forced to make and that it's all or some.

I would say one is some also.

We either need an explanation for why there's non-conscious matter in the universe and then something happens for consciousness to come into being, or it's part of the fundamental nature of reality.

I'm not sure what that means.

I don't think we can look at consciousness that way.

I don't think...

I mean, many people like to try to make that argument that it's a spectrum.

Why do we have to say all or nothing maybe?

And I agree that I actually think it is a spectrum, but it's a spectrum of content, not of consciousness itself.

So if a worm has some level of conscious experience, it is extremely minimal, something we could never imagine having the complex experience you and I have.

Um, maybe some felt sensation of pressure or heat or something super basic, right?

So there's, there's this range, or even if you just think of an infant, you know, like the first, the moment an infant becomes conscious, what that there's a very, very minimal experience of inputs of sound and light and whatever it is.

And so there's a spectrum of content.

There's a spectrum of how much a system is consciously experiencing, but there's a moment at which you get on the spectrum.

And I truly believe that that piece of it is binary.

So if there's no conscious experience, there is no consciousness.

You can't say consciousness is there, it just hasn't lit its flame yet.