On 7/19/2014 10:38 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
On 20 Jul 2014, at 3:11 pm, "'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List"
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
*From:*[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *meekerdb
*Sent:* Saturday, July 19, 2014 9:49 PM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 7/19/2014 9:25 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
On 20 Jul 2014, at 1:44 pm, John Clark <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 11:26 PM, Kim Jones <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Consciousness comes in two flavours (that I know of):
1. I know
2. I know that I know. (Presumably something to do with remembering
that
you knew.)
Are there any others?
Well, do you know that you know that you know? Even if the answer is
yes after
just a few more iteration the answer will certainly be no because you
won't be
able to follow even what the question means. And as a practical matter
at least
99% of the time you don't know that you know, you just know. Most of
the time
it would be counterproductive anyway, if you were fully aware of how
you know
that you know how to walk and chew gum at the same time you'd fall flat
on your
face.
John K Clark
OK. So what separates us then, from dolphins and elephants who apparently
also
'know that they know'? You aren't allowed to respond "Intelligence" because
intelligence is what makes introspection possible in the first place.
Without
self-awareness there is no self to inspect. You can can question many
things about
the content of your consciousness. A cat can't. There needs to be a
'knower', a
'self' or a 'subject'. Who or what is that? What part of your brain is more
evolved
than a cat's brain that allows you to say "I know"?
The language part.
Brent
Let us not overlook those nifty opposable thumbs that made us superior tool
makers.
Chris
How do language and/or opposable thumbs construct an experiencing subject?
Clearly the subject precedes the existence of these things.
No it's not clear at all.
Where does the self come from? What is it? A self constructs language and sees the value
of opposable thumbs. The self is primary.
Of course even without language animals have a self concept. They know where they are,
how they feel. But that doesn't mean they have the introspective ability to say "I
know." Once they have language they can articulate that some people "know how", e.g.
their parents know how to find food. With language they can put "I" and "know" together.
It's not that different than mathematicians putting Peano's axioms and rules of inference
together and "knowing arithmetic".
Brent
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