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1/ "We don't exist in the physical world. We do exist inside of a story that the brain tells itself." 2/ "but they got it completely backwards. A physical system cannot be conscious, only a simulation could be conscious"

3/ "Consciousness emerges over dimensions of disagreements with the universe. Things where you care, where things are not the way they should be, that you need to regulate"

4/ "what spirit actually means: it's an operating system for an autonomous robot. And when the word was invented, people needed this word. But they didn't have robots that built themselves yet"

5/ "An organism is not a collection of cells — it is a function that tells cells how to behave. "

6/ "Happiness is a cookie that your brain bakes for itself. It's not made by the environment. The environment cannot make you happy. It's your appraisal of the environment that makes you happy."

7/ "In this sense, intelligence and life are very strongly connected because the purpose of intelligence is to allow control under conditions of complexity"

8/ "I don't think that God has anything to do with creation. ... I think that Genesis is actually the childhood memories of a god. It's basically a mind that is remembering how it came into being."

8 (cont)/ "We typically interpret Genesis as the creation of a physical universe by a supernatural being… there is light and darkness that is being created. And then you discover sky and ground —you give everything their names and so on. That's basic cognitive development. "