I would encourage you to write this up as an article. It is important. M On Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 10:14 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi TOK List, > > > > So I am doing Chapter 13 in my book, *The Problem of Psychology and Its > Solution*. It is titled Mind2: Subjective Conscious Experiences in > Animals and Humans. I am writing you all about it because I thought folks > might find this interesting. > > > > In the chapter, I wanted to make a contrast between historical points of > view on animal consciousness. So, I wrote about Descartes being very > skeptical of animal consciousness and then, to contrast him, I was looking > at the work of the early comparative psychologist George Romanes. He is > often referenced as someone who was hugely guilty of anthropomorphizing and > imputing massive levels of consciousness in animals. However, I am now in > the process of actually reading what he wrote, especially his work Mental > Evolution <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.biodiversitylibrary.org_item_85138-23page_8_mode_1up&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=s1PNWdvbiV9C9E7Sm8rSPA2o2E4siTO_a64kSu_b4Vw&s=Pzw6lzeJk4KyyHacg4D9nxXAHG3cSW_dz7H1sgsTqJo&e= >. > It is amazing, and actually quite prescient, minus a few stretches. Check > out the attached graph that depicts Romanes model of the 50 steps of mental > evolution and forms the central argument. As you will see, It is remarkably > close to the ToK and map of mind that John and I laid out in Untangling the > Word Knot! > > > > Here is another fascinating thing. In the series, John helped me get a > better frame on what Descartes really meant about “consciousness.” In Map > of Mind1,2,3 terms, consciousness for Descartes was how perceptions and > feelings become *ready for reason*. In other words, it was the jump > between Mind2 and Mind3 and to have full consciousness, you needed both. > Ergo, no (self-reflective) consciousness for animals. > > > > Now, we go back to Romanes. He has a 50 step latter. The first half is > the evolution of animal consciousness…but animals (e.g., dogs and apes) > only get up to level 28. The latter half is all human! And it is cultural > evolution and self-reflective capacities. In other words, the evolution of > Mind3 and the Culture-Person plane of existence! > > > > All of this means something quite remarkable. The two individuals who I > was about to lay out as having the most diametric opposed views on animal > consciousness agree almost completely! They agree that the ground is in the > animal kingdom and it starts with a nonconscious Mind1. Then subjective > experience (i.e., inner perceptions and feelings appear at some point). > That is, they both would have agreed Mind2 is present in many animals. And > they both would have agreed that Mind3 is the domain of the human! > > > > The take home point here is that we had a HUGE problem of language and > conceptual fields. The Enlightenment Gap on matter v mind blinded us to the > proper language and grammar. With the proper language, we can achieve much > greater clarity on what we are talking about! And when we do that, we can > see that what sounded like radically different proposals (animals have NO > consciousness versus animals have consciousness that resembles humans) are > actually remarkably well aligned! It is all based on inadequate language > games! > > > > Best, > Gregg > > > > ___________________________________________ > > Gregg Henriques, Ph.D. > Professor > Department of Graduate Psychology > 216 Johnston Hall > MSC 7401 > James Madison University > Harrisonburg, VA 22807 > (540) 568-7857 (phone) > (540) 568-4747 (fax) > > > *Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.* > > Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at: > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=s1PNWdvbiV9C9E7Sm8rSPA2o2E4siTO_a64kSu_b4Vw&s=6ItQhFT4imd8FJVlPI3tHbscQlefVXZ0lHvKXRZMgoo&e= > > > ############################ > > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the > following link: > http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 > ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1