[FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics

[Roger Critchlow]

Andrew Gelman's blog had a post this morning about his sister's research
into the acquisition of reasoning.


https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/24/this-ones-important-looking-beyond-the-obvious-essentialism-and-abstraction-as-central-to-our-reasoning-and-beliefs/

Children begin organizing their experience with concepts that have no
material existence very early in life.  Perhaps as soon as they start
talking to each other about WTF is going on.  Not in the research, but I
expect they talk to their pets about this, too.

-- rec --

On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 11:31 AM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:

> Nick,
>
> Looking for self-awareness in animals before language emerged feels to me
> like searching for culture in anthropology before civilizations appeared.
>
> People in anthropology study human societies, cultures and their
> development, but sadly mostly in the time before it gets interesting (when
> religions, writing systems and civilizations emerged in ancient Egypt and
> ancient Mesopotamia). They examine for instance primitive hunter gatherer
> groups in Africa or ancient tribes in the Amazon region.
>
> Looking for examples of particular experiences with animals that show
> signs of self-awareness (and not only respond to the world around them, but
> also respond to their own responding to the world around them) feels
> similar to me: it is like focusing on a fascinating phenomenon but at a
> place before it gets interesting.
>
>
> If this comment bends the thread too much then please ignore it :-)
>
>
> J.
>
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
> Date: 7/23/24 6:57 PM (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>,
> Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics
>
> David's last post so effectively blurs the lines between these two that I
> am going to give up, for the moment, on my attempt to keep them straight.
>
> Intuition tells me that Dave's post falls on one side of the line, and
> Glen's on the other,  but I have to go shopping.   I am still hoping to
> hear examples of particular experiences with animals, computers, spouses,
> etc., that confirm your sense that they are not  only responding to the
> world around them, but also responding to their own responding to the world
> around them.
>
> Back to this later when stocked up
>
> In the meantime, Please, you-all, don't dick with this thread, don't fork
> it and do, if you are responding to a particular comment, speak to that
> person, don't just fling your wisdom out into the ether.
>
> I never thought you guys would turn me into a thread-Nazi.
>
> Nick
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