I think animals should have more rights already. It’d be nice if they could talk or something to help people realize they’re actually living things worthy of empathy.

But to your point, cats and dogs are already among the better-treated animals in large parts of the world.

Compared to animals who get farmed (especially factory farmed), or get the death sentence label of a pest or invasive species.

We have our place on the planet purely by right of conquest.

It’s fundamentally immoral what we do to animals but people just ignore it, accept it as a necessary evil, or somehow block the empathy from their brain applying to animals.

We all should, though.

Or trying to drive to the shop instead of getting a tow.

Plain sparkling water. It’s already my favourite one. I drink it by the pallet.

This is like us too. The important stuff aligns, but we have very different general interests and hobbies.

How different from water does it have to be? Just not in the title?

Because both something like sparkling water and juice are basically water.

But I already pretty much only drink sparkling water so I’ll pick that one if it’s allowed (if the spirit of your question is “no flat water”).

Make sure you use it with Firefox. It works better.

There is no reason what you describe should give rise to consciousness rather than a biological artificial intelligence. The sense of self, the perspective that feels like me peering out through my eyes, is not explained by anything you said.

A copy of me does not equal me because we’d both have separate senses of self. Having copied memories does nothing to affect that.

Consciousness is not based on memory or else computers would be considered conscious.

And if according to what you’re saying, a clone with all of your memories would mean you have two points of view. I could take your clone into a different room and you’d be able to tell me what they see. But it obviously wouldn’t work like that because your own sense of self would still be locked in your head and the clone would get its own sense of self, albeit one with the same memories.

So you’d be fine with a scientist creating a perfect clone of you, and then killing you, letting the clone take your place?

If it had the same memories.

Is it me functioning or is it a clone?

The general idea is a teleporter rips you apart and the atoms go to the destination to be reassembled in the previous state.

Whether or not it kills you is speculation. Arguably you’re pretty dead if you’re ripped apart atom by atom, and then a clone is assembled using the same parts.

But I don’t think it’s answerable if the recreated “you” is a clone or not until people can figure out what the mind even is.

It sucks to hear when you’re truly down. Feels like the pain will last forever. But it truly does start to fade after a while and continues to do so as time marches on.

I’ve been through excruciating heartbreak a decade or so ago and it’s just “meh” now.