Not confident enough to put this as an answer, but
presumably no one could do so at birth
If you intend your question in the broadest possible sense, then I think we do have to presume exactly this. A rock cannot think itself into becoming a mind—if we were truly a blank slate at birth, we would have to remain a blank slate, because a blank slate has no protocols established to process input and become non-blank. Because it’s blank.
So how do we start with this miraculous non-blank structure? Evolution. And how do we know our theory of evolution is correct? Ultimately, by trusting our ability to distinguish signal from noise. There’s no getting around the “problem” of trapped priors.
Not confident enough to put this as an answer, but
If you intend your question in the broadest possible sense, then I think we do have to presume exactly this. A rock cannot think itself into becoming a mind—if we were truly a blank slate at birth, we would have to remain a blank slate, because a blank slate has no protocols established to process input and become non-blank. Because it’s blank.
So how do we start with this miraculous non-blank structure? Evolution. And how do we know our theory of evolution is correct? Ultimately, by trusting our ability to distinguish signal from noise. There’s no getting around the “problem” of trapped priors.
This would imply every animal has some degree of ‘mind’. As they all react to external stimuli, to some extent, at birth.