But, until homo sapiens eventually became Self-Conscious, there was no "what it's likeness" as postulated by Nagel. "Likeness" is the ability to make analogies & metaphors to represent experienced reality in abstract concepts. — Gnomon

You speak of secondary consciousness. Primary consciousness is also "what it's likeness", but it is not conceptual or self-aware to the kind or degree of humans. There is something of what it's like for a dog to sniff a scent, or hear a command, and what's it like for a bat to send and receive echo locations, etc. A "what it's like" is to have an experience of the world. You don't have to know you are having an experience.

“What its likeness” exists in other animals, and surely existed before homo sapiens showed up. Nagel used the bat as an example. Things happen to rocks. But the rock has no subjective experience of the things that happen to it. There is nothing it is like to be a rock from the rock’s pov, because the rock has no pov.

Things happen to a bat. And the bat has subjective experiences of the things that happen to it. There is something it is like to be a bat from the bat’s pov, because the bat has a pov.

You speak of secondary consciousness. Primary consciousness is also "what it's likeness", but it is not conceptual or self-aware to the kind or degree of humans. — schopenhauer1

I didn't realize that Consciousness had so many degrees, like a PhD. I suppose an earthworm, nosing thru the soil has minimal consciousness -- taste & touch -- like a kindergarten degree. Even an amoeba, with no obvious organs, also seems to be sensitive to touch & taste. Apparently, once life (animation) emerged on Earth, consciousness began to evolve, in complexity & sensitivity, in order to enhance survival probability.

Sentience is now at the point where humans can send artificial sensors to Moon & Mars to experience those alien environments. But, although scientists know what Consciousness does, they can't say for sure what it is, essentially. My philosophical thesis suggests that human Consciousness is a high evolutionary stage of causal Energy, combined with directional Enformy*1. :smile:


*1. Enformy : antithesis of Entropy (negentropy); a directional form of Energy
In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress. [ see post 63 for graph ]. I'm not aware of any "supernatural force" in the world. But my Enformationism hypothesis postulates that there is a meta-physical force behind Time's Arrow and the positive progress of evolution. Just as Entropy is sometimes referred to as a "force" causing energy to dissipate (negative effect), Enformy is the antithesis, which causes energy to agglomerate (additive effect).
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Things happen to a bat. And the bat has subjective experiences of the things that happen to it. There is something it is like to be a bat from the bat’s pov, because the bat has a pov. — Patterner

Yes, events happen to a rock, but the rock doesn't seem to feel it ; to be moved by it --- unless you count gravity & momentum. In humans, the basis of Consciousness is emotion, to be mentally memorially changed by an experience, not literally physically moved by impetus. :smile:

it seems reasonable to suggest that conscious experiences are perceptual representations of information from the outside world — Apustimelogist

... and our inside world. We are also conscious of our thinking, feelings ... whatever happens in us.
Without taking that into consideration any analysis and description of consciousness is incomplete and leads to unreliable results and/or conclusions.

We can further motivate this representational view through the knowledge we have from neuroscience about how perceptual qualities are directly related to different physical stimuli at our sensory boundaries e.g. colors and wavelengths etc. — Apustimelogist

Such a kind of representation is unreliable and futile. Consciousness is not a physical thing --i.e. non- physical in its nature-- and it is not created by or resides in the brain or other physical means as Science falsely claims. The brain is only a link between consciousness and the outside world. As you correctly said, consciousness is based on perception (senses), as far as the external world is concerned, and for that to work. a brain is required.
A lot of neuroscientists today "admit" that and also the widely accepted by now hard problem of consciousness, which escapes from the vast majority of scientists.

As for the rest and larger part of your description, as I said, it is based on an incomplete if not false view of consciousness and, by extension, our experiences, or "experiencing", as I prefer to call, which refers to a dynamic process.

Hi. I see your point. The physical world exists but we can never know the true nature of what we are looking at because it is a figment exclusive to the species that "sees it." The sensory systems evolutionarily speaking became capable of registering data according to how the species interacts with the environment. The stimuli that have various types of emissions correspond to pressure, sound waves, chemical, and light which stimulate the sensory apparatuses that result in representations in the brain (transduction). A baby for instance cannot see the full range of colour when they are born. It takes about 5 months to develop to the extent of adults. It takes time to develop as it interacts with the environment. But, evolution does play a role because how else would the baby have acquired vision in the first place which is nothing but electromagnetic frequency stimulating the retina via the cones to project an image in the mind?

Why should a representation of a tree be reducible to brain components which have nothing to do with the tree and are physically separated from it? If that were the case, wouldn't that mean the tree were reducible to multiple mutually exclusive physical arrangements of matter - that seems implausibly incoherent to me? I use the example of a tree but that should be the case for any representational experience that is caused by information at sensory boundaries. Wouldn't it be bad evolutionary design if our perceptual representations were giving us information about what was going on inside our own head as opposed to the things in the world they are supposed to represent? Wouldn't doing so require an implausible neuronal architecture also, transmitting information about its own goings on, which would then interfere with the useful information coming into the brain from the outside world? — Apustimelogist

That is an interesting point but evolution is sometimes a gradual process that happens when the body and mind interact with the environment. Thus, it just creates whatever has shaped its chassis. In other words it indiscriminately develops for no rhyme or reason. But, we need a system in our brains that is effective to organizing the outside world's as manifested by our sensations so that the species can continue to reproduce and propagate their genes. It is a process that involves many factors that intersect to create the brain and the body as we know it. In other words, it does not have a purpose, it just changes according to many factors.

There is something of what it's like for a dog to sniff a scent, or hear a command, and what's it like for a bat to send and receive echo locations, etc. A "what it's like" is to have an experience of the world. You don't have to know you are having an experience. — schopenhauer1

I imagine that is so, too, but how do you know it is true?

Yes, events happen to a rock, but the rock doesn't seem to feel it ; to be moved by it --- unless you count gravity & momentum. In humans, the basis of Consciousness is emotion, to be mentally memorially changed by an experience, not literally physically moved by impetus. :smile: — Gnomon

What I was trying to get at is that there was “what it’s likeness” before there were homo sapiens. What you are describing here:

"Likeness" is the ability to make analogies & metaphors to represent experienced reality in abstract concepts. — Gnomon

is not the “likeness” Nagel is describing. He’s just saying there is something it is like to be a bat. A bat has subjective experience. He is not saying a bat has the ability to make analogies & metaphors.

Yes, that’s what I was getting at in my last post.

I imagine that is so, too, but how do you know it is true? — Janus

Inference. Why not believe everyone’s a zombie then? I’m not sure the implication but if it’s that humans only have access to mental events, I’d turn that question right around but without the “imagine that is so, too”.

Yes, that’s what I was getting at in my last post. — schopenhauer1

I hadn’t read that post. Yes, I see that now.

Perceptual representations of trees can be reduced to the constructs of biology, chemistry and physics that occurs within a tree because those things are what trees in the outside world are made of. — Apustimelogist

If we accept a Representationalist paradigm (which I believe is the only coherent metaphysical stance) then how is it possible to know "what trees in the outside world are made of"? Surely we only 'know' our constructed biophysical representations of the observed putative bit of reality we have labelled as a tree. These may be conceptual rather than perceptual, but are still representations ... and as I think you point out, representations are different from their representata. Failure to acknowledge that the physical is most coherently categorised as a form of representation is Physicalism's fundamental fallacy. Incidentally a parallel criticism can be made of Psychism.

If we are confined to our representations in such a neo-Kantian way, how is it possible to make any ontological claims about what reality 'really' is? To know/experience is to represent. So we cannot logically claim that reality is physical, psychical, informational, whatever. All we can do is represent it in convenient ways depending on our purposes, and all these modes have their uses.

I am reminded of Bohr's admonition to Einstein about not telling God what to do: we should stop telling reality what it should be. Isn't it anthropocentric and hubristic to claim that reality is as we experience it? I prefer the more modest epistemic claim of us having efficacious models of reality. But am I open to the challenge of hypocrisy by positing such a metaphysical stance as the way the world is? I don't think so, because I am not positing an ontological proposition, only claiming that Representationalism is the most coherent metaphysical representation I have found ... an epistemological proposition. For instance the Hard Problem dissolves: the bits of reality we call bio-agents don't consist of different onticities, they just need (at least) two modes of representation, mind/psychical and brain/physical. Neural correlations of consciousness are to be expected since the two modes have the same referent, but there is no substantive primacy (eg mind emerging from a sub-stratal brain). The dualism is not an ontologically irreconcilable one, but an epistemic one allowing informational correspondence between the two modes. What's not to like?

What I was trying to get at is that there was “what it’s likeness” before there were homo sapiens. What you are describing here:

"Likeness" is the ability to make analogies & metaphors to represent experienced reality in abstract concepts. — Gnomon

is not the “likeness” Nagel is describing. He’s just saying there is something it is like to be a bat. A bat has subjective experience. He is not saying a bat has the ability to make analogies & metaphors. — Patterner

Yes, animals also seem to experience "what it's likeness". But we only know that by inference from animal behavior that is analogous to human behavior while experiencing such "likeness" as pain. Nagel wasn't talking about bat metaphors, because we have no way of knowing what they are thinking. So anything we say about animal mentality will be by analogy to human ideation.

That's why I, not Nagel, suggested that animals probably share the human ability to create analogies & metaphors. But I can't prove it without getting inside the mind of a bat, to see what it's like from the bat's POH (point-of-hear). Or until bats begin to share their inner imagery in poetic similies that humans can understand. Til then, we will just have to guess "what it's like to be a bat", silently soaring in the dusky dark, and seeing fleeting flying bugs with sensuous sonar barks. :smile:

It seems obvious that animals feel, hear, see, smell, taste just as we do. So what, according to you, could the "what it is like" be over and above the obvious real phenomena of feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting? Is it not perhaps a self-reflective post hoc reification, an artifact of linguistically mediated thinking?

The salient problem is how to determine what the "what it is like" really is. It is not self-evident that it is a real phenomenon as its proponents like to claim, as opposed to being just a linguistic reification.

If the question as to the ontological status of the 'what it is like' is undecidable, as it seems to be, the question that seems to remain is as to what the importance of an answer one way or the other, if such were possible, would be to human life. Do you have an answer for that?

That's why I, not Nagel, suggested that animals probably share the human ability to create analogies & metaphors — Gnomon

That is a very big claim. It obviously can't be proved, but what aspects of animal behaviour make you think that is plausible? I believe that analogical thinking is uniquely human, because no other species produces symbolic artefacts or behaves in ways indicating such abstraction. Am I wrong here? I'd be interested to know.

That's why I, not Nagel, suggested that animals probably share the human ability to create analogies & metaphors
— Gnomon

That is a very big claim. It obviously can't be proved, but what aspects of animal behaviour make you think that is plausible? I believe that analogical thinking is uniquely human, because no other species produces symbolic artefacts or behaves in ways indicating such abstraction. Am I wrong here? I'd be interested to know. — Christopher Burke

Our thinking about analogies tends to be strongly associated with language and I don't find it plausible that analogy in a linguistic sense plays much of a role in the behavior of non-human animals. However the 1a definition of "analogy from Merriam-Webster says:

1a: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

If we consider analogical thinking more broadly, such as in terms of noverbal pattern recognition, perhaps this youtube cat video provides behavioral evidence suggesting analogical thinking in cats?

The salient problem is how to determine what the "what it is like" really is. It is not self-evident that it is a real phenomenon as its proponents like to claim, as opposed to being just a linguistic reification. — Janus

Is there any meaning to asking 'what the "what it is like" really is'? Is it not like asking what a quantum field really is? Doesn't there necessarily come a stage of deconstruction where there is nowhere else to go ... epistemic bedrock? Just because we have a word/phrase labelling an aspect of life doesn't necessarily imply reification, although I agree it can often lead to that error. But of course it depends on your definition of 'thing', which is a vast and fascinating epistemological rabbit-hole in itself. A definition of (phenomenal) consciousness as 'what it is like to be a bio-agent', as distinct from a description of its structure and behaviour, seems useful to me.

One example of its usefulness is blindsight, where people's reactions indicate that they have sensed something yet they are not aware of doing so. (Cf https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness for Nicholas Humphrey's concise description and exploration of its implications.) In such a case, there is no what-it's-like-to-be-ness during the intramental-extramental interaction, despite its efficacy. The same could be said of artificial sensory-perceptual systems where similarly 'the light's on but no-one's home'. So it's a useful phrase which perhaps seems less prone to reification that consciousness, phenomenality, sentience, awareness, etc.

I am ontologically agnostic, so I will refrain from making any statement about what what-it's-like-to-be-ness 'really' is. I concur with your remark about its ontological status being undecidable ... because I think anything's(?) ontological status is undecidable.

behavioral evidence suggesting analogical thinking in cats — wonderer1

Thanks for that. I wonder if the cat's would be as grateful! But does their reaction show analogical thinking ... or merely an inherent or learned reaction to a particular form? A domestic cat seems highly unlikely be comparing those objects with a snake, something beyond its experience. It is surely simpler to assume that certain long thin stimuli, be they cucumbers, socks or snakes, provoke a heuristic reaction. Indeed the cats' reaction speeds lend support to the latter explanation.

Analogical thinking requires the construction of correspondences between two different things/events. That's not just a reflex ... it's a much more developed and complex form of cognition. That is using one thing as symbolic of another thing: a line in the sand representing a path; a muddy patch of terrain (field) providing a representational basis for a mathematical space.

It is hard to understand why evolution would grant most animals such an ability. But that raises the question as to how humans got it. That's a big story.

“What it’s like” means subjective experience. There is something it is like to be me, because I have subjective experiences. There is nothing it is like to be a rock, because, while things may happen to a rock, even many of the same things that happen to me, it does not have subjective experiences. There is certainly something real taking place in regards to me that is not taking place in regards to the rock.

But, we need a system in our brains that is effective to organizing the outside world's as manifested by our sensations so that the species can continue to reproduce and propagate their genes. It is a process that involves many factors that intersect to — Justin5679

Well you've just evoked the motivation for that part, ha!

how is it possible to know "what trees in the outside world are made of"? Surely we only 'know' our constructed biophysical representations of the observed putative bit of reality we have labelled as a tree. — Christopher Burke

Yes, this is more or less what I mean. We infer constructs in the physical science from those perceptual representations so that those constructs explain properties of those representations. Its more or less circular in that perceptual representations should only be reducible to things thay share the properties of those representations, things which have those properties because they have been directly inferred from them. The point is that trivially it shouldn't really make sense to reduce it into something which is not itself. It would he a weird world if that were possible or at least cogently defensible.

To know/experience is to represent. So we cannot logically claim that reality is physical, psychical, informational, whatever. All we can do is represent it in convenient ways depending on our purposes, and all these modes have their uses. — Christopher Burke

Yeah, I do make this point in a couple other posts on this thread. As some other posters have pointes out, it is difficult to make physicalism into something cohesive and coherent.

Nonetheless, I think what motivates people who intuitively think of themselves as or defend physicalism is I think the central role of the models we construct in the physical sciences and how other models, constructs, things fit around them. When I look around me in the world... physics. But turns out, making this into something useful or tangible is difficult. I have started to think that maybe physicalism, naturalism, other similar ideas perhaps are often adopted in opposition to, in reaction to ideas of dualism or that there needs to be a separate mental thing because there are things that we find difficult to explain. So maybe it is often adopted without a coherent ontology in mind but is like an anti-dualist stance. I dunno, thats just a thought.

That's not just a reflex ... — Christopher Burke

Not saying that cats necessarily have analogies but I think these animals are much more complicated than people give tjem credit for and this dichotomy between human deliberation and reflexive animal instincts is not correct

Is there any meaning to asking 'what the "what it is like" really is'? Is it not like asking what a quantum field really is? — Christopher Burke

The question is asked as to what a quantum field really is. Is it merely a model or is it ontologically real? And the thing with 'what it is like' is that we intuitively seem to think we know what that is, and yet when asked about it a coherent answer that distinguishes it from merely seeing. hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling cannot be given.

The quantum field is different in that we don't really have an intuitive sense of what it could be, so the question there is not whether our linguistically mediated interpretations of what is a kind of after the fact intuition are indicating something ontologically substantive does not apply in that case. So, I don't think the analogy holds.

The question is asked as to what a quantum field really is — Janus

Yes, that's a good point. Although I doubt that question (what a quantum field really is?) makes any sense. I was trying to say that there comes a point in any epistemic hierarchy where you can't reduce or describe any further. Quantum fields (currently) get to that baseline physically and what-it's-like-to-be gets to that phenomenally.

a coherent answer that distinguishes it (what-it's-like-to-be) from merely seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling cannot be given — Janus

Isn't (phenomenal) consciousness what-it's-like-to-be sensing, perceiving, conceptualising, theorising, with attendant affect at each cognitive level? All we can do at the baseline of an epistemic hierarchy is point to an aspect of experienced or putative reality rather than deconstructionally represent it any further. The baseline concepts, referred to by their relevant symbols (the phrases 'quantum field' or 'what-it's-like-to-be') are perforce essentially indicative, not explicative. So your quest for an answer as to what what-it's-like-to-be 'really' is, seems destined to remain unanswered because we've run out of symbolic road.

BTW, I think we do need the extra concept of what-it's-like-to-be because cognition (sensing, perceiving, conceptualising, theorising) can occur without it, as in the case of AI (we assume) or blindsight (experimentally well attested).

I'm not sure modern physicists do spend much time asking what a quantum field 'really' is. Post-Popper, they seem content to regard it as representational: a space with appropriate vectors at each point which forms the most coherent current symbolic hypothesis conforming to observable data. Some may go empiricist and propose that as ontological, but in an age where physics has been exposed to quantum paradoxes and is increasingly cast as informational, I suspect they are few in number ... especially among theorists.

Ultimately don't all our normative theoretical constructs eventually boil down to our own 'raw' experience or reports by others based on their 'raw' experience? Perhaps our epistemic condition is rather like that of an exasperated parent, who after a long sequence of whys from their disputatious child, resorts to 'because I say so'. In the metaphysical case, we must end up with 'because I observe it'. I'm sure you are familiar with the Wittgenstein quote from his Tractatus: “That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.” Eventually there always comes a point of representational 'silence'.

this dichotomy between human deliberation and reflexive animal instincts is not correct — Apustimelogist

I do sympathise with that sentiment and obviously human cognition has evolved from the same conditions as all other species which intramentally represent their world. But humans are just such an exceptional species that, if I were an alien scientist, I would immediately conclude that something special (in Earth terms) has happened here ... despite its humble origins. However I agree than we should never forget our roots as just part of nature ... now that Darwin has helped us climb down from our religious and Enlightenment pedestals.

And the thing with 'what it is like' is that we intuitively seem to think we know what that is, and yet when asked about it a coherent answer that distinguishes it from merely seeing. hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling cannot be given. — Janus

Perhaps we can work on this. Perhaps a starting point could be asking: Is there a difference between, say, an electronic device with a sensor that can distinguish different frequencies of the visible spectrum, and is programmed to initiate different actions when detecting different frequencies; and me performing the same actions when I perceived the same frequencies? Or is my experience the same as the electronic device's?

I believe this is the same idea as what Douglas Hofstadter said in
I Am a Strange Loop:

'having semantics' (which means the ability to genuinely think about things, as contrasted with the "mere" ability to juggle meaningless tokens in complicated patterns...)

That is a very big claim. It obviously can't be proved, but what aspects of animal behaviour make you think that is plausible? I believe that analogical thinking is uniquely human, because no other species produces symbolic artefacts or behaves in ways indicating such abstraction. Am I wrong here? I'd be interested to know. — Christopher Burke

For me, that was just a guess. I'm not an expert in animal psychology. But I see videos on YouTube of animals that seem to make analogies in order to judge relationships. For example, a crow who imagines that a stick could be an extension of its beak to reach a morsel in a jar.

So, some experts think it's plausible, though perhaps un-provable, that some animals can reason by likeness. Of course animal reasoning is likely very primitive compared to human judgement. But the ancient assumption that rational thought (this relative to that) is "unique" to humans is passé. Scientists are beginning to seriously study animal thinking, but they are limited by the language barrier --- except possibly for parrots. :joke:


A new study has shown that monkeys are capable of making analogies. Recognizing relations between relations is what analogy is all about.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110923102213.htm

Zoosemiotics is the semiotic study of the use of signs among animals,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoosemiotics

animal reasoning is likely very primitive compared to human judgement. But the ancient assumption that rational thought (this relative to that) is "unique" to humans is passé. — Gnomon

Thanks for that. The baboon research is particularly interesting and I will have to abandon my proposition that analogical thinking is uniquely human. I'm pleased to 're-naturalise' analogical thinking by finding it in our close evolutionary relatives. Indeed the experiment may even indicate a more widespread capability of vision generally, although it is only likely to manifest itself in sophisticated animals who indulge ethological experimenters!

I also accept that widespread tool use, as extensions of their body parts for extra motor control, could be a another 'weak' form of analogical thinking. An ape using a stick to pick out ants from a hole might relate stick and finger. I hadn't thought of it that way before. It is also the case that animals use many signs which refer to something else, such as predator warning cries and mating signals. So I concede it makes sense to see all these as proto-analogical thinking that possibly provides a precursor of our own more sophisticated version. Useful.

Having rowed back on analogy as a human USP, what then defines our ability? I would posit the following as specifically human (but now without complete confidence!):

[1] Conceptual analogies, by which I mean the use of one concept as a model for another, is probably unique to humans. This is not just an association of a visual form or sound with something else, but a process requiring much more cognitive ability to establish correspondences. Examples would be a line representing a journey; a tree representing future decision options; a window as the representational basis for accessing information on a computer screen. This is employing the structure of a simple concept as the structural basis for a completely unrelated complex one. I have a theory that all abstract concepts rely on concrete ones as metaphors: the etymology of even our most complex concepts reveal their humble origins. My favourite is 'consider' from the Latin, con sideris, for 'with the stars'.

[2] The other distinguishing behaviour is the creation of symbols. These are not just signs (which merely indicate something else) or tools (which physically extend something else), but actually stand in for or replace something else. A speculative example would be how a stone used as a place-marker (a sign) for a sacred site gets taken away and used perhaps to represent that site. Such natural symbols were subsequently supplemented by constructed ones: symbolic artefacts: eg carving of gods, cave drawings, iconic and alphanumerical marks as symbols. Does any other species represent their thinking extramentally even in simple ways, let alone with language, graphics and mathematics?

A symbolic object (eg Apustimelogist's original example of the photograph) needs extra informational processing compared with a normal object. A symbolic object, natural or artefactual, is still an object and its information qua object can be represented conceptually by an observer as one would normally do with any object (ie the photo is paper with a photosensitive coating). But it also potentially contains (for the appropriate observer) information about something else, ie what it depicts (eg spouse on holiday). Hence a symbolic object needs two types of decoding: its intrinsic information as an object and the referent information it symbolises (by analogy). So I think the following statement could be misleading:

The information in a photograph doesn't contain any direct information about the physical medium it is being represented on, and neither should it if it is caused by information from the outside world. — Apustimelogist

Symbolic artefacts remind us that objects/events need different representations depending on the purposes of the observer. Symbolic artefacts are themselves a metaphor useful for addressing the Hard Problem; ie how can some squidgy jelly produce hopes and dreams? Short answer: it doesn't! When we look at a person's brain you can represent it physically (and somewhat inadequately) as 'squidgy jelly', but that is only one of the necessary representations of that bit of reality. To do justice to that specially complex bit of reality, you need an extra representation involving its psychical functioning. Actually of course there are a plethora of different representations of the brain/mind, all trying to capture different information germane to different observers. Note that the visuo-tactile 'squidgy jelly' representation has no greater claim to fundamental veracity as any other.

So the ontological Hard Problem dissolves from trying (and of course failing) to find an extramental relationship between two different onticities (eg emergence, supervenience, panpsychic coexistence, etc) into finding correlations between different intramental representations of the same bit of reality ... a hard but tractable epistemological problem. Which indicates the most coherent categorisation of the human condition (I believe): we are what-it-is-like-to-be our representations. A bit of reality representing those bits of reality we encounter, including ourself.

Answering Apustimelogist's early question ("Why should a representation of a tree be reducible to brain components which have nothing to do with the tree and are physically separated from it?"): reducibility is not a propitious way to represent the informational process involved with modelling experience. Better to see it as correlating parallel representations: your perceptual image of the tree, your biophysical theory about the tree's functioning and your conceptual model of it stored as a neural configuration ... all referring to the extramental bit of reality you call 'a tree'. That's my representation of representation!

Having rowed back on analogy as a human USP, what then defines our ability? I would posit the following as specifically human (but now without complete confidence!): — Christopher Burke

You could say that what defines a unique ability of homo sapiens is that "we know that we know, and we can communicate that knowledge in words". Although, as drag-on disputes on this forum indicate, the communication is imperfect. :smile:

what defines a unique ability of homo sapiens is that "we know that we know, and we can communicate that knowledge in words" — Gnomon

Yes, that's a good point. Meta-representation ... an essential iteration for selfhood. And of course what philosophy is actually about: meta-theorisation, ie thinking about thinking. Similarly I define wisdom as the intelligent use of intelligence. So thank you for your wisdom. But doesn't your proposition "we know that we know" show that we also know that we know that we know. And doesn't my latter sentence show ... you can see where this is going.

And isn't the intramentality of homo sapiens just a life-long drag-on dispute? That ever-present problem, while conscious, of what to do next. Plus of course the life-long drag-on intersubjective negotiation the 'doing next' usually involves. We know what we know and we 'know' (sometimes) that others know. Hell may be other people ... but so is heaven? Even with imperfect communication.

Thanks again for dragging on the 'dispute' long enough to correct me re analogical cognition being more widely distributed than among humanity. Keep on dragging on!