Self Aware

[Obbe]

When and how did man become self-aware?

[Ninja]

I think it was when he got caught touching himself.

[GothicSeraph]

When and how did man become self-aware?

Most honest answer, we don't know.

[unbreakable matter]

I remember when I smoked my first joint too, obbe

[RisiR]

When and how did man become self-aware?

Ever heard of the Stoned Ape theory?

I'd link you but my internet is fucking around.

[Lanny]

Depends on what you count as self awareness I guess. Wikipedia has it as "the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals", and in the same article it talks about an experiment that suggests magpies have some level of self awareness. So by that I think it's safe to say "man", that is our species, have never existed in a state where we were biologically incapable of self awareness. We've had more cognitive capacity than magpies for longer than we've been homosapians.

[Obbe]

Ever heard of the Stoned Ape theory?

I'd link you but my internet is fucking around.

Yeah, its interesting.

Depends on what you count as self awareness I guess. Wikipedia has it as "the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals", and in the same article it talks about an experiment that suggests magpies have some level of self awareness. So by that I think it's safe to say "man", that is our species, have never existed in a state where we were biologically incapable of self awareness. We've had more cognitive capacity than magpies for longer than we've been homosapians.

So you think it happened before we were homosapians.  Interesting.   I dunno if that's what I mean by self-aware though.  I'm thinking more along the lines of the Julian Jaynes definition of consciousness.

[eBagger]

when a placebo once celled organism was like

dis feel good

dis feel bad

dis make me

feel good not sad

and then we evolved until we can get the internet n shit

I know that how it work so 

[Lanny]

So you think it happened before we were homosapians.  Interesting.   I dunno if that's what I mean by self-aware though.  I'm thinking more along the lines of the Julian Jaynes definition of consciousness.

Ahh, that's an interesting question. There's a temptation to say that symbolic thinking would inevitably and quickly lead to thinking about one's own thinking but like, I could imagine that not being the case too. I do think that would be at least a lower bound on meta-awareness.

[stentor]

Aren't most animals aware that they themselves are self-contained entities and are about as conscious as nature will allow them to be? Perhaps sentience and self awareness all just all part of the package.

[GothicSeraph]

Depends on what you count as self awareness I guess. Wikipedia has it as "the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals", and in the same article it talks about an experiment that suggests magpies have some level of self awareness. So by that I think it's safe to say "man", that is our species, have never existed in a state where we were biologically incapable of self awareness. We've had more cognitive capacity than magpies for longer than we've been homosapians.

We don't even know how long we have been Homo Sapiens? Time frames keep getting pushed around by "science"...

[Dionysus]

If obbe's a precedent, man is barely a step above a potato.

[Bobapanbeers]

You become self aware when you realize you are mortal and you will die and our time on Earth is finite and ephemeral.

[alphadog1]

I often times wonder what is going on inside my dogs head . If they could speak , I wonder what they would say.

[Lanny]

We don't even know how long we have been Homo Sapiens? Time frames keep getting pushed around by "science"...

I mean I'm not an expert obviously but like 30 seconds of googling turned up the consensus of about 200,000 years. I don't know why you think we don't know or why you quoted my post when saying it. I was saying that I thought all our human ancestors would have been self-aware so it doesn't make sense to ask "when man became self-aware" (by the definition I was using, which we see is different than obbe's) because our ancestors have been self aware since well before they were homosapiens.