https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

There is an "Objective Reality" (mutable, evolves into many forms and includes both material/non-material concepts) and a "Witness-Consciousness" (immutable and attributeless). The latter is embodied in one form of the former which we call Sentient Living Beings. But we forget the distinction between the two and experience reality through its own subjective evolutes within the embodied being i.e. Sensory Mind, Intelligence and Ego. Various techniques/practices have been prescribed in Samkhya/Yoga/etc. to break out of this illusion and realize that one is simply pure awareness/consciousness beyond any experience. This is what is called as Kaivalya/Moksa/Nirvana i.e. a state of mind in which there is total freedom from everything to do with objective reality.

See also the paper A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications and previous discussion on it here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40844824

Because the Essence that is the arrangement of molecules replicates onto other molecules, and it is more effective at replicating when it dedicates some of it's molecules to perceive and model it's own existence, in order to run experiments on it. That way it's more likely to find a behavior for the rest of the molecules to successfully replicate. So the molecules experience themselves, and the experience becomes more intense the more advanced the experiments are that can be run on the model.

It's not true that we have to be conscious - we can do things on autopilot too. The same way we can be thoughtless in treating others - we can turn the machinery off.

I do feel like most forms of leisure - watching / playing something, alcohol / drugs, sleeping - are basically this, you lose some of your consciousness and awareness in favor of what you're focusing on, or floating / free associating.

That's a weird use of the term. Doesn't match how I would define it, but you do you.

Humans believing that they are special is as old as human history goes. Special as a species, but many groups also consider themselves special, and individuals as well. Seems to be an emergent thing from the human psyche. One that has had terrible consquences over the millenia, but I might be overlooking the upsides.

The former could be applied to whatever LLM is the hype of the day.

It's interesting though that the only consciousness that I'm sure of exists is my own. Anybody else's is just somehing I'm assuming. You can measure intelligence, but not consciousness.

Looks like they received $1 billion in private + government grants, so upper end would be 15%?

> The University ended fiscal year 2024 with an operating surplus of $45 million compared to $186 million in fiscal year 2023, on an operating revenue base of $6.5 billion.

Wow!

Don't we already have evidence of this? Many developing nations do not have adequate funding for academia and it is not increasing their happiness and productivity. Neither we can see any benefits on the society.

Who is to say that if I stop eating I won't see long-term benefits and also result in a net increase in happiness and productivity?