Synopsis:
- How self-conscious beings came to be: first sensations, then attention, then emotions, then memory, then internal representations, then planning, then the self, then free will and finally language
- Perceptions (the interpretation of sensations, which are representations directly related to the world) vs "detached" representations (representations about something that is present here and now)
- Detached representations allow a being to "become increasingly detached from the immediate vicinity"
- The self presupposes a you
- The "I" emerges from a network of inter-related cognitive functions
- Language came last: human language is very much about the "I" and the "you"
- Language is an emergent property of cognitive systems (it is a natural evolution of cognitive skills that preexisted it)
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