This paper, its commentaries, and the author response are together the best thing I’ve read in a really long time. Not easy reading, but an amazing resource for debates on consciousness, the nature of the brain, and rejoinders to the “consciousness must be computational” views I hear so often.
![Excerpt reads: "Prioritize your neighborhood
Neighborhoods drive our happiness (or unhappiness) more than we think.
When Lina Martinez, director of POLIS, the Center for Wellbeing Studies at Universidad Icesi in Colombia, studied the happiness of households in the city of Cali, she couldn’t find much difference between poorer and richer areas. “Their happiness is pretty much the same,” she said. But that changed when she isolated neighborhood conditions, such as access to transit, health care and parks. “The conditions of the neighborhood affect happiness,” she said. “I can’t link that to the space where [people] live.”
That aligns with findings from a 2023 study of the Vancouver metro area: Researchers found no significant differences in well-being between people living in single detached homes, duplexes, townhouses, laneway houses and apartment buildings (basement units smaller than 300 square feet were the only negative exception). What did people say they missed most in their neighborhood? Affordability, proximity to family and friends, and a sense of community. Home design was eighth on the list."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreicapfknasylzk2lqzaxxeb5mchgnru75obggn45dusda6j5zogvuu)
