Y'all talk a lot about consciousness. So I thought this might be interesting:
https://www.the-hinternet.com/p/spreadsheet-selves I've attached an OCR'd version of the PDF they link as well. -- ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2024/02/07/a-spreadsheet-for-the-soul A Spreadsheet For The Soul Are you legally woke? THE ANCIENT GREEKS were not conscious. At least, so argued Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes in the 1970s. Jaynes’ theory of the ‘bicameral mind’, which involves a model of divine commands similar to schizophrenia, is heavily disputed: but his polemic inspired this columnist to reflect upon reflecting. Speculation on such matters is typically reserved for the more psychologically- (or psychosomatically-) inclined; but altered states of mind are surprisingly quantifiable. Can human consciousness be indexed? The Economist, in its Jaynsian hubris, has given it a go. To use the index, it is helpful to clarify our terms. ‘Consciousness’ is a notoriously wishy-washy term: there are several _infuriatingly —_ unhelpful ‘know-it-when-you-see-it’ definitions (named after one US Supreme Court Justice’s 1960s attempt to define pornography). Other attempts, notably by philosophers, are mind-numbingly dense. Thankfully, all but the most radical definitions concede there are some moments in a human life where the ‘I’ is present. Think of the thuddening climax of a work of literature; or the rush as a prospective romantic partner takes your hand. Your breathing becomes audible; time oozes by, and later on, your memories of that moment are vivid, polychromatic. But these moments are rare. As any retiree will tell you, life goes by without you noticing. The American anthropologist David Graeber concurs, arguing that humans are almost always lost in a fug of mechanical movements, performed — quite literally — absent-mindedly. Graeber cites neurological findings that, in an average day, an adult human is only truly conscious for seven seconds. The ninth-of-a-minute rule has since passed into legal precedent: an insurance provider drew on it to successfully avoid a payout in an Australian court in 2015. The Economist initially imagined this seven-second benchmark would be too conservative to statistically measure: surely, every human would meet that definition of consciousness. But, as the interactive tool below proves, such is not the case. Our statistical model identifies three broad types of ‘consciousness inhibitors’: environmental, psychological, and technological. Data was scraped from a range of sources, from OECD databases to Meta quarterly reports. Imagine a Burger King drive-thru operator at a busy service station. Her day is filled with environmental inhibitors: her 9-5 is consumed by the various activities involved with assembling Whoppers, or constantly taking orders from irate customers and jibes from irate managers. Her mornings and evenings are dominated by childcare, meal prep, ablutions and marital sparring: they offer scant chances for philosophising. Proustian ponderings before bed are blotted out by the roar of a nearby bypass. Perhaps a half-minute before her shift can be snatched to contemplate the sun-dappled leaves; but often she is in too much of a hurry for that. The Economist used Al-created algorithms to calculate what proportion of the global population suffers from enough of the Burger Queen’s environmental inhibitors (like overstimulated working conditions, or noise pollution) to plausibly deprive them of even seven seconds of consciousness a day: the result is a depressing 40% of humanity. That 40% are overwhelmingly located in poor countries; but the next two consciousness-inhibitors affect the rich world too. Take the psychological inhibitors. Before he found fame, the American novelist Stephen King was once in the thrall of cocaine and alcohol to such an extent he cannot remember writing one of his early works. It is reasonable to assume King would have not met the seven-second benchmark for many days in that period of his life; though he has (thankfully) cleaned himself up, many have not. How many people, at this moment, are experiencing mind-altered states? Whether addled by narcotics or tormented by withdrawal, or blocked from proper thoughts by stupor brought on by sleep deprivation? Anxiety is ubiquitous across income levels, and even in the wealthiest countries chronic hunger and stress is surprisingly prevalent. All of these internal maladies stymie human flourishing in well-known ways: chronic stress slows the healing of wounds; sleep deprivation hastens the ageing process. But, though there is less empirical evidence to prove it, it is reasonable to assume each of the above factors also prevents human consciousness. Quantifying exactly how many seconds an insomniac is properly aware each day is tough: estimates at that precision involve guesswork. Nevertheless, our model assumes that people suffering from several psychological inhibitors, to a severe enough extent, would fail to meet the seven-second benchmark (especially to the extent where, like King, they would fail to produce any memories). Once psychological inhibitors are accounted for, the proportion of legally conscious people shrinks by a further two-thirds at least. (Less conservative statistical models, even at this stage, shrunk the conscious population by a factor of six). The psychological inhibitors, though present in developed countries, heavily correlate to income. The final inhibitor is the most egalitarian of the three: rich and poor are victim to technological inhibitors of consciousness (also known as ‘brainrot’). King and the Burger Queen may have been forced into their consciousness-eroding states by lack of opportunity; but bona fide monarchs are equally liable to be tempted into dullness by the lure of the For You Page. According to a study in World Psychiatry on the “online brain”, 45% of US teens are online ‘almost constantly’, and US adults do not fare much better. Short video and microblogging sites are most often invoked in invectives against online brain; less discussed is ‘audio brainrot’, like the increasingly popular long-form podcasts, which also drown out conscious thought. Finally, when people have time and inclination to perform cognitive tasks themselves, they are now exporting that to ChatGPT (this is a vicious circle: AI use, as an MIT study recently concluded, atrophies human critical thinking). None of this is exactly news: cable TV has been producing similar mind-dulling effects for decades, and if you think podcast conspiracy theorists materialised in 2016, Rush Limbaugh is laughing beyond his grave. Yet added together they represent a significant inhibitor. Explore this model and its conclusions in the tool below. By the default metrics, combining environmental, psychological and technological inhibitors, the Economist has concluded that the number of people on Earth who meet the legal definition of consciousness is equivalent to the population of Guinea-Bissau. Tool failed to load In an essay, the Irish author Sally Rooney wrote of a ‘flow state’ reached by the most consummate sportspeople, where “all distractions, even the ego ADVERTISEMENT itself, melt away”. Of more pressing concern to this publication’s readers is perhaps the prospect of their profits, not their ego, melting away. Does the lack of human consciousness present an issue for the economy? A workforce “receptive” to managerial messaging is “not the worst problem a company can have,” says Ben Akron, a consultant. Nor is a pliant client. (More than one of the industry professionals interviewed for this article expressed interest in a future index of particularly non-conscious consumer markets.) The managerial classes are not untouched by this shortage of being. Take this newspaper. Your columnist conducted an informal poll scoring Economist writers on the index. Nearly all, including her, fail to meet the legal definition of consciousness. This paper’s editorial staff did not seem unduly concerned: they can guess how their readers score.
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