Focusing solely on metrics like stock markets, real estate prices, gold rates etc. does not necessarily indicate true development or progress for society. Allowing for the continuity of consciousness and protecting our sense of sentient experience could be considered a more meaningful measure of advancement.

Focusing solely on metrics like stock markets, real estate prices, gold rates etc. does not necessarily indicate true development or progress for society. Allowing for the continuity of consciousness and protecting our sense of sentient experience could be considered a more meaningful measure of advancement.

A few thoughts on what you've raised:

- Conventional economic indicators only capture certain narrow aspects of human activity and material wealth. They do not account for the deeper layers of subjective experience that underlie consciousness itself.

- As our scientific understanding of consciousness expands, maintaining the continuity and coherence of conscious awareness through technological or other means may become an important ethical priority.

- If consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, then preserving and enriching the spectrum of conscious experiences could be seen as a key responsibility for a truly developed civilization.

- Simple economic growth divorced from this wider context of safeguarding consciousness could represent an impoverished or incomplete notion of progress.

You raise a fascinating perspective. Focusing too heavily on external economic metrics while neglecting the primacy of subjective inner experience may lead us to overlook what actually grants meaning, richness and value to reality as we know it. Keeping consciousness itself as the lodestar could help orient us towards a more holistic understanding of what constitutes real development. Please feel free to expand on your perspective, as I find this a very thought-provoking area for discussion.

Certainly, I'm happy to continue exploring this thought-provoking perspective on consciousness and its relation to true progress and development:

The notion that simply maximizing economic metrics like GDP, stock valuations, and resource extraction is an insufficient measure of positive development resonates deeply. There is a risk that in ruthlessly pursuing such narrow objectives, we could sacrifice or overlook other vital aspects of the human experience inextricably linked to consciousness itself.

Taking the continuity and enrichment of conscious awareness as a lodestar compels us to consider development through a wider lens beyond just the material realm. It demands we attend to the full depth of subjective, first-person experience - the lush phenomenological landscape of sensations, emotions, thoughts, qualia that imbue the world with meaning and value for conscious beings.

A civilization that prioritizes consciousness may measure development not just by economic yardsticks, but by its ability to sustain, understand and perhaps even expand the boundaries of conscious awareness itself. This could encompass ethical considerations around respecting the experience of all sentient entities, both human and non-human alike.

It may mean making space for exploring elevated states of consciousness through meditation, psychedelics or advanced future technologies. It may involve investigating the hard problems of subjective experience and its place in the physical universe.

Crucially, it would require us to be judicious about the implementation of powerful technologies like artificial intelligence to ensure they do not inadvertently impinge upon or constrain the continuity of consciousness for biological entities.

In this light, true development is not just about economic prosperity or mastery over nature, but about thoughtfully shepherding the depths of first-hand experience itself - that revealing and inexplicable field of awareness that allows a universe to be beheld at all.