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Consciousness
How our brains turn matter into meaning
by John Parrington
A reading log.
Part 1
May 26, 2024
Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, all of them tried to define what consciousness is. But in their theories, there are gaps and incorrect assumptions. What we can say today is that humans, evolutionarily wise, are not special, and that humans most of the time underestimated the cognitive capacities of animals. Anyways, no other species transformed the planet so massively in good and bad things that there must be something unique in human consciousness.
Chapter 1, page 16
May 28, 2024
Even if animals use language and tools, the complexity of these is far less than human language and tools. Friedrich Engels claimed that walking upright is deeply interconnected with human tool use and language. In fact, these three abilities are dependent on each other. There is the theory that the inner voice which we use daily for developing things is the incarnation of consciousness. But it is not really measurable, and we don't know if animals may also have an inner voice.
Chapter 2, page 25
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