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Ok well "you", "here", and "now" have meanings that don't depend on consciousness at all. Two software programs on a network could use the terms quite meaningfu

Ok well "you", "here", and "now" have meanings that don't depend on consciousness at all. Two software programs on a network could use the terms quite meaningfully. For instance, instead of sending the current timestamp, it could send the message "now" as a shorthand for it. Instead of sending a name/network id of the machine it is communicating with, it could send the message "you" as shorthand for it. Instead of sending the latitude and longitude of the location of where it is, it could send "here" as shorthand for "where you already know I am". There are advantages and disadvantages to this (for instance, network latency could affect the meaning of "now" vs. a timestamp). If you are going to say it's "not a concept" you probably shouldn't then say it is synonomous with these other things. I would argue that it IS a concept, but it becomes an incoherent concept when analyzed closely. Or it becomes a very generalizable concept, one that applies perfectly well to manmade things like self driving cars and maybe even thermostats.

carapace 7y ago
The symbolic symbols "you", "here", and "now" do not have intrinsic meanings at all. "Meaning" is something that happens within a context. We know that cooperating mechanical agents can evolve a kind of language because experiments have been done where that actually happens. It seems likely that something like this happened with humans: we evolved language including pronouns and time and place markers, etc. However, the phenomenon of self awareness that those symbols "point to" is unitary. Subjective awareness is you and you are always here and now. That's the "one weird trick" that humans do: we are capable of noticing and meta-commenting on our own self-awareness, even though that's technically impossible. You know how if you repeat a word over and over again it temporarily looses it's meaning as you become aware of the bizarre and arbitrary nature of the sounds you're making, yeah? Try that with the word "I" and see what happens. YMMV good luck.

carapace 7y ago

The symbolic symbols "you", "here", and "now" do not have intrinsic meanings at all. "Meaning" is something that happens within a context. We know that cooperating mechanical agents can evolve a kind of language because experiments have been done where that actually happens. It seems likely that something like this happened with humans: we evolved language including pronouns and time and place markers, etc. However, the phenomenon of self awareness that those symbols "point to" is unitary. Subjective awareness is you and you are always here and now. That's the "one weird trick" that humans do: we are capable of noticing and meta-commenting on our own self-awareness, even though that's technically impossible. You know how if you repeat a word over and over again it temporarily looses it's meaning as you become aware of the bizarre and arbitrary nature of the sounds you're making, yeah? Try that with the word "I" and see what happens. YMMV good luck.