I think it’s more accurate to say that the part of our mind that is conscious is the part that uses words, since when you want to tell if someone knows something consciously or unconsciously, you ask them about it.
That’s the same fallacy as I was trying to get at. I am conscious of a thing, or not, whether or not I tell anyone else, and it is easy to think of situations in which I can tell whether someone else is conscious of something without their saying anything. Words can tell you a lot, but they’re telling you about something which is not those words, and is not the mechanism of producing those words.
I think it’s more accurate to say that the part of our mind that is conscious is the part that uses words, since when you want to tell if someone knows something consciously or unconsciously, you ask them about it.
That’s the same fallacy as I was trying to get at. I am conscious of a thing, or not, whether or not I tell anyone else, and it is easy to think of situations in which I can tell whether someone else is conscious of something without their saying anything. Words can tell you a lot, but they’re telling you about something which is not those words, and is not the mechanism of producing those words.