One clear thing to me about humans is that we exaggerate the implications of the fact we think about things. I’d argue that most reasonable models of human intellect and consciousness should assume that 1) consciousness has evolved over a long period from non-conscious thought in non-human organisms. 2) other animals are conscious and at least some other animal types are self-aware. 3) It is likely that conscious thinking has a fully mechanistic explanations.
I’m wondering about the following fairly simple model of consciousness:
1) Brain as large computing mechanism
2) Brain has many regions, each with great computational power
3) Through learning, esp. language learning and language practice, the brain begins to carry on “conversations” between the regions.
4) As the conversational feedback explodes, we call it “conscious thought”.
….. and then maybe I’m just talking to myself way too much…
