a close relative of Homo sapiens sapiens is described as not consciously sentient but able to intelligently interact socially with humans. This seems unlikely.
Why? Already non-conscious animals like dogs, chimpanzees, and parrots are capable of some fairly sophisticated social interaction; dogs even understand gestures like pointing.
Yeah this looks like the old conscious/sentient/intelligent conflation (where the middle word seems to serve no purpose but to enable confusing the two on either sides of it...)
I plead guilty to perpetuating the confusion. If I try to be more correct and say something like ‘Already non-self-conscious animals like...’, then it looks like I have some complex idiosyncratic classification in mind and I mean something more sophisticated than what I do. There’s no real good solution here.
Why? Already non-conscious animals like dogs, chimpanzees, and parrots are capable of some fairly sophisticated social interaction; dogs even understand gestures like pointing.
They’re not conscious? I must have been in bed with the flu when this was explained to the class.
Yeah this looks like the old conscious/sentient/intelligent conflation (where the middle word seems to serve no purpose but to enable confusing the two on either sides of it...)
I plead guilty to perpetuating the confusion. If I try to be more correct and say something like ‘Already non-self-conscious animals like...’, then it looks like I have some complex idiosyncratic classification in mind and I mean something more sophisticated than what I do. There’s no real good solution here.
I wonder when consciousness evolved in our ancestors? 4 Mya? 2Mya? 500 kya?
An excellent question. I’ve always enjoyed Julian Jaynes’s theory of bicameralism where consciousness only truly developed ~3kya or so.
It makes for a good story, but I really doubt that’s the case.