From Kim Broadie, Staten Island, New York, US
My self-awareness thoroughly enjoyed Deleniv's article. Her conclusion, however, seems to relegate human self-awareness to a by-product of the humming of our neural engine, not essentially different from, for instance, the 3D echolocation modelling that goes on in a bat's brain. And if self-awareness doesn't require a higher order of consciousness, but is the running of a simulation in our brains, consciousness may not necessarily have a function.
This line of thinking reminds me of William James's 1890 . In it, he argues that if we fully understood Shakespeare's nervous system, we could account for every word and alteration of the manuscript of , without having to acknowledge the existence of thoughts in Shakespeare's mind.
Having reduced the argument to absurdity, James moved on to consider consciousness.
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