I’m not sure how to tell what sorts of groups of humans have self-reflection. For animals, including human infants, we can use the mirror test. How about for bureaucracies?
I’m not sure whether “team spirit” might be a projection in the minds of members or observers; or in particular a sort of belief-as-cheering for the psychological benefit of members (and opponents). How would we tell?
Likewise, how would we inquire into a bureaucracy’s decision tree? I don’t know how to ask a corporation to play chess.
Bald assertion: the fact that “team spirit” might be a mere projection in the minds of members is as irrelevant to whether it causes self-reflection as the fact that “self-awareness” might be a mere consequence of synapse patterns.
Just because we’re more intimately familiar with what “team spirit” feels like from the inside, than we are with what having your axons wired up to someone else’s dendrites, doesn’t mean that “team spirit” isn’t part of an actual consciousness-generating process.
No, I was presenting a potential counter to the idea that “I’m not sure whether ‘team spirit’ might be a projection in the minds of members or observers”.
It might or might not be a projection in the minds of observers, but I don’t think that it’s relevant whether it is or not to the questions I’m asking, in the same sense that “are we conscious because we have a homunculus-soul inside of us, or because neurons give rise to consciousness?” isn’t relevant to the question of “are we conscious?”
We know we are conscious as a bald fact, and we accept that other humans are conscious whenever we reject solipsism; we happen to be finding out the manner in which we are conscious as a result of our scientific curiosity.
But accepting an entity as “conscious” / “self-aware” / “sapient” does not require that we understand the mechanisms that generate its behavior; only that we recognize that it has behavior that fits certain criteria.
I’m not sure how to tell what sorts of groups of humans have self-reflection. For animals, including human infants, we can use the mirror test. How about for bureaucracies?
I’m not sure whether “team spirit” might be a projection in the minds of members or observers; or in particular a sort of belief-as-cheering for the psychological benefit of members (and opponents). How would we tell?
Likewise, how would we inquire into a bureaucracy’s decision tree? I don’t know how to ask a corporation to play chess.
Bald assertion: the fact that “team spirit” might be a mere projection in the minds of members is as irrelevant to whether it causes self-reflection as the fact that “self-awareness” might be a mere consequence of synapse patterns.
Just because we’re more intimately familiar with what “team spirit” feels like from the inside, than we are with what having your axons wired up to someone else’s dendrites, doesn’t mean that “team spirit” isn’t part of an actual consciousness-generating process.
“You can’t prove it’s not!” arguments...?
Recommended reading: the Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions sequence.
No, I was presenting a potential counter to the idea that “I’m not sure whether ‘team spirit’ might be a projection in the minds of members or observers”.
It might or might not be a projection in the minds of observers, but I don’t think that it’s relevant whether it is or not to the questions I’m asking, in the same sense that “are we conscious because we have a homunculus-soul inside of us, or because neurons give rise to consciousness?” isn’t relevant to the question of “are we conscious?”
We know we are conscious as a bald fact, and we accept that other humans are conscious whenever we reject solipsism; we happen to be finding out the manner in which we are conscious as a result of our scientific curiosity.
But accepting an entity as “conscious” / “self-aware” / “sapient” does not require that we understand the mechanisms that generate its behavior; only that we recognize that it has behavior that fits certain criteria.