Sublime

Canetti, Elias (2002): Über Tiere.

Utilitarianism: Positive conscious experiences should be maximized and suffering should be minimized. • Diversity: A diverse set of positive experiences is better than many repetitions of the same experience, even if the latter has been identified as the most positive experience possible. • Autonomy: Conscious entities/societies should have the

It is the survival of knowledge, and not necessarily of the gene or any other physical object, that is the common factor between replicating and non-replicating genes. So, strictly speaking, it is a piece of knowledge rather than a physical object that is or is not adapted to a certain niche.

An objective phenomenon exists independently of human consciousness and human beliefs.

female mammals, and primates in particular, being able to work effectively in a social environment is much more important for their reproductive success than anything

Similarly, we can note that the polar bear doesn’t try to count snowflakes but is cognizant of the presence or absence of snow, or that the anteater slurps up a lot of ant on its tongue, unlike the insectivorous bird that tracks individual insects. And notice that just as we don’t have to speculate about elevator consciousness to draw this

To return to where we started: the mishnah subtly makes the revolutionary claim that our ultimate worth as human beings is a function not of what we achieve in the world, but of the simple fact that we have been created by God.