One of the popular worldviews is that all things in the world are alive and, perhaps, conscious (that is, have subjective experience). Typically, this concept is treated as a purely philosophical or religious one or as an extrapolation of some of our personal experiences.
However, this concept is also true in a certain, pretty strict sense. Namely, things that we perceive on conscious or subconscious levels are represented by neural processes in our brains. It is quite mainstream to think that if anything is alive and potentially capable of consciousness, it is the neural processes in human brains. Hence the models of the world which we create inside our brains indeed consist of alive and potentially conscious things. Our inner worlds indeed are made from alive things only.
Mishka --- July-August 2000
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