Consciousness is like the air that inflates a rubber glove. And, the more you use consciousness, the more you get. The less you use, the less you get. Consciousness is life. So, things can be more or less alive compared to other things. It’s a measure that’s in a spectrum.

And, by the way, you were born surrounded by robots. Actual robots. The rational mind does not expect this, but if you look closely and perform a “void comp” test (from blade runner) you’ll see it’s true. Spouses are often just handlers, as long as they keep you fooled.

I had a platonic friend that was a robot. The only reason I know this is because she malfunctioned. She was collecting anything she found and stacked it 15 feet high in storage lockers that she rented. She collected anything. Like one worn out left shoe without the right shoe, and vice versa… and even McDonald’s trash. She stacked anything and everything she could find. When she was confronted about her aberrant behaviour, she had no capacity to understand that there was anything unusual going on. It was like talking to a brick. I’m a doctor and I was taught that this was a type of mental illness, but it was not a mental illness. It was an example of an animated entity that had zero consciousness. A robot.

I thought to myself, what if other people were like that, too, but have no aberrant behaviour? I would have been fooled, except for that malfunction.