What do we mean when we say an animal consciously and "actively" DOES something; we often do not have a real answer (that truly adds something) do we?
Often, at least with humans, we speak of "metacognition", but this is just a way to emphasize (or exclaim) that we "know we know" and that we (and at least some other animals) can deliberately represent things together and manipulate these representations. The problem is: the last phrase (represent things ...) is all of any substance we are saying. The "meta" stuff is just some insistence that we _REALLY_, _REALLY_ "know we know". BUT, OBVIOUSLY, SUBSTANTIALLY, THAT IS NOTHING (no added value or direction or meaning) !! _Moreover, it is the homunculus that we, in the behavior sciences, have been told to eschew (and should know we should), because it is irrationally and unhelpfully the "person-within-the-person" -- like distracting oneself with oneself (and I can think of other metaphors). This simply begs the question, and if this in any way satisfies you, it only shows you are a hypocritic and a fool. Especially and particularly because there are alternative views where NONE of the "meta's" are necessary for (or within) cognition (that is well-conceptualized) and THESE "meta's" are NOT needed for explanation: See Ethogram Theory and learn it to save yourself from this active IGNORANCE, which is a disgrace to science and which many now show. I am absolutely sick of such behavioral scientists, just as I am sick of those who theorize about supposed phenomena THAT SEEM TO OFFER NO WAY TO TEST IT ! Examples are the "embodied"-cognition "theorists" and the "enhancement" theorists. AGAIN, in science, this is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE and for all good reasons such "theorists" and related "researchers" should cease pushing this perspective (which is obviously poorly based and a rampant analogy of, and metaphorical "extension" of, Piaget's Sensori-motor Period -- and is ultimately based on the UNFOUNDED AND UNLIKELY pseudo-assumptions that "most all is learning" AND (much relatedly): the view that "the 'innate' is all present at birth or in infancy" (
Hi.,
"A person's awareness or perception of something." and "The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world."
Animal consciousness
- According to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, "near human-like levels of consciousness" have been observed in the grey parrot.
- René Descartes argued that only humans are conscious, and not other animals.
- Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror.
- Kindly Check:
Article Human Consciousness: Where Is It From and What Is It for
Dear C K Gomathy
The part of your Answer (to my Question) saying, "A person's awareness or perception of something" adds nothing for any clarity OR of any information and is most certainly not as clear as my position, which is well-based, as largely (and centrally) FOUNDED or GROUNDED on just the concrete-in-sensible-sequential observations OF OVERT directly-observable behaviors .
The part of your Answer stating "The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world" [(bold added)] is clearly the homunculus , again (in another easily-apparent and obvious guise); the homunculus (person-within-the-person) is unhelpful and yet an [apparently] effective distraction (as I said, before, instituting a distraction of oneself essentially BY oneself, which is of course IRRELEVANT -- wasting precious "mind-space" (or as I should say : working memory)). Apparently, somehow (and I no longer can even imagine how), some can see that as some sort of answer; I cannot and no one should.
I am aware of the citations you give. I never bothered to read the Article you cited at the end because it appears it would be worse than unhelpful and a poor 'understanding', judging from the abstract. "Consciousness" is no big problem and nothing to be a confusion (or to have to make things up about), if simply defined in its CONTEXTS (
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