> In De Anima III.2, Aristotle writes:
>
> "Since it is through sense that we are aware that we are seeing
> or hearing, it must be either by sight that we are aware of seeing,
> or by some sense other than sight. But the sense that gives us this
> new sensation must perceive both sight and its object, viz. color:
> so that either (1) there will be two senses both percipient of the
> same sensible object, or (2) the sense must be percipient of itself.
> Further, even if the sense which perceives sight were different
> from sight, we must either fall into an infinite regress, or we must
> somewhere assume a sense which is aware of itself. If so, we
> ought to do this in the first case."
>
> Aristotle seems to be arguing that unless consciousness is reflexive,
> there must be a logical fallacy in our understanding of consciousness.
> A little while ago I was conscious of birdsong, but at that time I was not
> conscious of my consciousness of the birdsong, so the proposition that
> consciousness is reflexive is clearly false. What, then, are we to make
> of the impression that we are conscious of our own consciousness? ...

> I just watched a program on difficulties that young children have with
> separating symbol and what a symbol represents. Experiments showed
> that they do have such difficulty, they recognize, say, a baby bottle
> very clearly but are uncertain how to treat a color photograph of a
> baby bottle. They attempt to treat it exactly as they would treat a
> "real" bottle, trying to pick it up for example. Only after training
> and maturation do they acquire the ability to treat the picture in the
> way adults treat symbols; pointing to the picture instead of trying to
> pick it up, for example.
>
> One could view the brain as "making" symbols of sensed objects, those
> symbols are part of the "world view" that the brain maintains all of
> our awake time. A birdsong, as perceived, is not the actual birdsong,
> which is a disturbance in the air, but some brain symbol for the
> birdsong. A memory of a birdsong is also a symbol which refers to the
> perception of the birdsong, which was a symbol that referred to the
> actual birdsong.
>
> The brain does the same thing for "internal" objects, stomach aches, ...

> "Ed" wrote:

>> I just watched a program on difficulties that young children have with
>> separating symbol and what a symbol represents.  Experiments showed
>> that they do have such difficulty, they recognize, say, a baby bottle
>> very clearly but are uncertain how to treat a color photograph of a
>> baby bottle. They attempt to treat it exactly as they would treat a
>> "real" bottle, trying to pick it up for example.  Only after training
>> and maturation do they acquire the ability to treat the picture in the
>> way adults treat symbols; pointing to the picture instead of trying to
>> pick it up, for example.

>

>> One could view the brain as "making" symbols of sensed objects, those
>> symbols are part of the "world view" that the brain maintains all of
>> our awake time. A birdsong, as perceived, is not the actual birdsong,
>> which is a disturbance in the air, but some brain symbol for the
>> birdsong.  A memory of a birdsong is also a symbol which refers to the
>> perception of the birdsong, which was a symbol that referred to the
>> actual birdsong.

> ...

> This time I wasn't disagreeing, just commenting, hopefully with relevance.