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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 cooper
by 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.