[MD] Intellectual activity

[aesuszynski]

Ham,

We used to be such goods friends. let's just stop all this fighting. :-)

First of all there seems to be a confusion in terms. In my estimation, There 
is a difference between consciousness and self awareness.
In fact, I will say that you can be conscious without being self aware. Just 
because you don't understand a situation does not mean you can't experience 
it. I believe that babies take their time realizing that they are not 
everything around them. So I guess I am saying that consciousness is the 
experience of life.

That would mean the awakening happens as soon as the senses are able to 
record experience. I'm sure this happens in vitro, but it really does once 
the lights of the hospital shine on those fragile eyelids. But there is no 
thought of "What's happening to me?" because for the baby, there is no "me"
The development of that awareness happens over time and takes years to fully 
develop Perhaps what self awareness is is being conscious of being 
conscious.


"My own view is that self-awareness begins as an 'interruption of
> equanimity'; that is to say, at some point in the development of the 
> central
> nervous system the fetus is capable of associating a particular feeling as
> 'something apart' from its holistic tranquility.  The source of the
> disturbance may be pain, perhaps, as the fetal organism is well insulated
> from external stimuli; but the precise nature of the feeling is
> inconsequential.  Whatever its cause, it is perceived as a state or
> condition of being in which sensibility is deprived of its former
> 'wholeness', thus distinguishing a particular sensation from
> undifferentiated sensibility.  The momentary 'discomfort', experienced as 
> it
> is, not by a recollective consciousness but as a negation of holistic
> completeness, marks the beginning of self-awareness.  It represents a
> differential lacking or wanting  -- a definite 'minus' as opposed to
> something 'added' to the former solipsistic serenity."


I think this is you, Ham.

I think your theory is dependent upon some things which I don't admit. One 
would be a perfect state. You seem to think that this exists somewhere and 
that we were there and now we're not and we feel the loss.I think the place 
we were was cells inside of our parents. Isn't that miracle enough? the 
joining of two humans to create another. Once the process starts, it travels 
a very well known path until the neuro-pathways are complete enough to start 
to respond to data.

You also refer to the former solipistic serenity. I think  this might be 
commonly known as a soul or heaven. So it seems that somehow we are called 
from our wholeness to have a human experience.How is that decision made? Do 
we make it or is it like at the bakery? your number is called and then your 
"up". It seems like there must be quite a sophisticated system going on 
there which would indicate that there needs to be a far more elaborate 
explanation than wholeness, it-ness and nothingness.And then were at the 
same place again, the need to explain the mechanism.... Infinite recursion.

"The
neurophysical development required for speech and social orientation is
still several post-partum months away."

But most of what is required is in place, ready to function. It  needs data 
and fuctioning mouth aparatus.

Alice





 The
> neurophysical development required for speech and social orientation is
> still several post-partum months away.
_discuss_archive/
>