[MD] Consciousness a la Platt

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[Arlo]
> Just out of curiousity, would you say the consciousness of mosquitos
> are analogous to an infant?

No, I think a mosquito operates only by stimulus/response, while an infant moves beyond this fairly soon.
  
[Arlo]
> A mosquito knows the food
> it is ingesting is "not it", but I don't think it has any sense of
> "who I am".

I can’t attribute even that small amount of knowledge to a mosquito.

[Arlo]
> the words and sounds and sights [humans] see are symbolic
> representations of their world, and that by using those symbols the
> power of a social world opens up to them.

But I think words are symbols in a very differ sense than sounds and sights.
The Wittgenstein part of me says our only criterion for having a self is having the concept of self provided by a language with the word ‘self’.
Another part of me says any emergence of a distinction between me & not  not me is evidence of self-consciousness.
  
[Arlo]
> (mutual of omAHA?... the shared buddhist moment?)

Good one.
Craig