In the sense you are talking about, yes. For something to unknowable means it doesn't have a meaning in experience. It is that which is beyond experience. Something which cannot possibly mean in experiential terms. Not even as something "unknown" or "beyond description." It's equivalent to the "world outside experience" which the immaterialist derides others for (supposedly) supposing.

The unknown and mystery only function when there is something which might be known. In either case, their significance is defined the the experientially thing to meaning which someone is missing out on, whether that be how some part of the world works, what another person is feeling, what happened in the past, what's going to happen in the future or even what's occurring in the present.

If there to be something which cannot be known, which is outside all possible experience, then there cannot be anything of significance. There is really nothing anyone is missing out on. You are caught proposing this thing which is not of experience and has no impact on anyone's life. Such "mystery" is nothing more than an appeal that we are explained by something outside our experience, as if we were defined by something beyond what's experientially significant.

I'm not sure that, even if I were to fall on your rhetorical sword, I'd be that offended. — The Great Whatever

Good, I prefer it that way.

If this is not a fair characterization, what is wrong with it? If it is, in what way is 'oh you just don't like mystery' not a completely fair assessment of it?

No it's not the 'oh it's all mysterious' that gets me, its more like in the face of: 'look what we can say if we take this into account, and this, and this, and that'; only to have someone say 'naaaah, mysterious.'

My claim was simply that people are separated in such a way as not to brook, ultimately, complete understanding of one another, and a kind of soft, empirical solipsism prevails, because there is no universal place in which everything comes together and no one world that can be explained by a single field of interacting mechanisms.

To move to more interesting, philosophical ground, I don't think my position commits me to saying that there can be 'complete understandings of one another'. Indeed, one of the more interesting ramifications of the kind of thing I'm promoting is that we don't even have complete understandings of ourselves. The fact that the self is differentially constituted out of a trans-personal ground means that we always retain a constitutive relation to that ground, one that pretty much by definition exceeds us in ways which we cannot ever fully master. If it applies to the 'other', it applies to 'me'.

If I were to say that some position or another is 'radical', this would be it, because it affirms not just some sort of epistemological limit to our understanding, but an ontological one: the so-called 'mystery' is 'built in', naturalized from the very beginning, as it were. To use a quip of Zizek's: "the reality I see is never “whole” — not because a large part of it eludes me, but because it contains a stain, a blind spot, which indicates my inclusion in it."

My claim was simply that people are separated in such a way as not to brook, ultimately, complete understanding of one another, and a kind of soft, empirical solipsism prevails, because there is no universal place in which everything comes together and no one world that can be explained by a single field of interacting mechanisms. There are, in other words, gaps that can't be filled. — The Great Whatever

I relate to this, for what it's worth. We strive toward such a universal place, but the smallest unit of meaning is, in a sense, the unique personality as a whole. And what is explanation but postulated necessity that's cashed as a rule for action, in order to produce pleasure and avoid pain?

No it's not the 'oh it's all mysterious' that gets me, its more like in the face of: 'look what we can say if we take this into account, and this, and this, and that'; only to have someone say 'naaaah, mysterious.' — StreetlightX

But I haven't said anything of the sort. I've given my reasons for believing what I believe in detail. I don't see your characterization of the way the conversation has gone as accurate.

Indeed, one of the more interesting ramifications of the kind of thing I'm promoting is that we don't even have complete understandings of ourselves. — StreetlightX

I don't see how that's a ramification of your position. It seems like it could be amenable to many sorts of positions. The OP was about a much more specific topic.

If I were to say that some position or another is 'radical', this would be it, because it affirms not just some sort of epistemological limit to our understanding, but an ontological one: the so-called 'mystery' is 'built in', naturalized from the very beginning, as it were. To use a quip of Zizek's: "the reality I see is never “whole” — not because a large part of it eludes me, but because it contains a stain, a blind spot, which indicates my inclusion in it." — StreetlightX

The metaphor of a stain is telling here though isn't it? As if there were an epistemic ideal with a wrinkle in it. I think what I am saying is different: there there is nothing there to stain. I don't really have much sympathy with ontology, and epistemological limits are not limits of talent or transcendental limits, but limits of power and relevance. All around are things that you won't ever understand, that don't care about you and that you don't care about. And moreover that what is important is not my inclusion, but what is other than me. The self as a hole as opposed to a whole is very old (and it weirdly, even in your formulation, gives a super-important placement to oneself – and notice also the upset coming from subjectivity again). The kind of incompleteness I have in mind isn't so banal as to be reduced to or driven by me.

I think that a consequence of Cyrenaic epistemology is that we don't even strictly speaking see anything in the classical Aristotelian sense. That to me is the interesting thesis.

In the sense you are talking about, yes. For something to unknowable means it doesn't have a meaning in experience. It is that which is beyond experience. Something which cannot possibly mean in experiential terms. Not even as something "unknown" or "beyond description." It's equivalent to the "world outside experience" which the immaterialist derides others for (supposedly) supposing.

The unknown and mystery only function when there is something which might be known. In either case, their significance is defined the the experientially thing to meaning which someone is missing out on, whether that be how some part of the world works, what another person is feeling, what happened in the past, what's going to happen in the future or even what's occurring in the present.

If there to be something which cannot be known, which is outside all possible experience, then there cannot be anything of significance. There is really nothing anyone is missing out on. You are caught proposing this thing which is not of experience and has no impact on anyone's life. Such "mystery" is nothing more than an appeal that we are explained by something outside our experience, as if we were defined by something beyond what's experientially significant. — TheWillowOfDarkness

What is this other than the insistence that, to the extent I can allow anything to mean anything, it must mean something to me and so on my terms? If you have no sympathy for that all-seeing impulse, then the appeal of this falls away.

The irony is delicious here.

The proponents of "mystery" are the ones always seeking an explanation. For them, it's never enough to describe (or not describe) something some particular thing (i.e. have incomplete knowledge). They are always seeking a reason for why a specific description applies. What ever we might say about the world, it's not enough. There always has to be a "mystery" behind it.

In the face of not knowing everything (e.g. only one person, a limited part of oneself, only individual states of the world), they run to "mystery." I might say, for example, that I know my friend is feeling sad. An instance of incomplete understanding, which only grasps (to one level or another) one feeling my friend is. What does the proponent of "mystery" (i.e. you) say? That I can't have this instance of knowledge because I don't know everything about my friend.

Supposedly, they are in a separate realm which I can know nothing about merely because I don't know everything about them. They (supposedly) become a "a mystery."

"Mystery" is an attempt at universal explanation. When people appeal to it, they are trying to bring all the separate pieces of knowledge under one thought, such that if we say "mystery" we finally have enough to understand everything in one thought. It is to run from incomplete knowledge or understanding.

"Mystery" is an attempt at universal explanation. When people appeal to it, they are trying to bring all the separate pieces of knowledge under one though, such that if we say "mystery" we finally have enough to understand everything in one thought. It is to run from incomplete knowledge or understanding. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Not at all. Part of what makes something mysterious is that the mechanism behind it is not know, and so there are infinite ways, not one, for something to be mysterious. Mystery is a negative term insofar as it only disavows its amenability to me. To insist that everything must be completely explicable to or by me, on the other hand, is to always demand further explanation.

It takes a certain kind of pathology to insist that one knows or can know everything there is to know about someone else's sadness.

No-one said it was explicable to you or that it must be. To say anything could be known is not to insist that it is known. People never know about a whole lot of things. To claim anything could be known is not in conflict with people never knowing about a whole lot of stuff.

What is this other than the insistence that, to the extent I can allow anything to mean anything, it must mean something to me and so on my terms? — The Great Whatever

You already insisted that in saying there was something unknown. It's meaningful to you even if you never find out about it-- "that thing (with a meaning) I do not know." Sure it a "mystery," but only in the sense that you aren't aware of it, not because it cannot possibly be known.

This is what I mean about "mystery" acting as the universal explanation. You weren't willing to just say: "I don't know that, but maybe someone else does."--i.e. it might be known, but I do not know it. To insist that everything be completely explicable to you is not required at all.

Your lack of knowledge had to be "explained." What you just don't have (an understanding of what you don't know) is equated with "mystery," so you can proclaim to know something about it (even though you don't know it at all). You are unwilling to have incomplete knowledge. It's always "further explanation or bust."

I'll go through the rest of your response later, but I wanted to address this because you've misunderstood what I meant. When I said external physical effect (in males) I meant an erection, which is required to complete the act of sex. And sexual hunger is what causes the erection. — Baden

This is where we meet the vagueness of the external/ internal boundary. I don't see how an erection is external. My penis is part of myself, just like my hands, feet, lungs, and heart. Why would you single out the penis as part of yourself which is external?

In any case, other than through the means of imagination, the erection is caused by awareness of an external thing, not by an awareness of an internal pain of deficiency. That is the position I am arguing. The pain of deficiency is caused by failure to satisfy.

MU wants to cut the link between sexual hunger and sex. But without the physical manifestation of the sexual hunger, you cannot complete the sex act. — Baden

Well that's the point, isn't it? There is a divide here, it's the inversion of the is/ought divide, a divide between what is desired and what is the case. We cannot proceed logically from X is desired, to the premise that there is a deficiency of X, because we cannot even say that a desire for X is necessarily recognized as a desire for X. What if the desire for X is recognized as a desire for Y? Having a sexual desire does not mean that you are aware that you have a desire for sex, nor does it mean that you are aware of a deficiency of sex, because this would require that you know that the erection is a desire for sex. That's why we have sex ed. in school. You and TGW want to jump this chasm, to proceed on the premise that if you have an erection, you are aware that you have a desire for sex.

The interesting point here is that the penis per se, is not throbbing for anything in particular. So I would say sexual desire is something far more complex than the mere throb of the knob (sorry, couldn't resist a bit of schoolboy humour O:)). — John

That's the idea, young boys play with themselves, their hands play the role of the external objects which cause arousal. They are not aware that a hard on is a desire for sex.

This is where we meet the vagueness of the external/ internal boundary. I don't see how an erection is external. My penis is part of myself, just like my hands, feet, lungs, and heart. Why would you single out the penis as part of yourself which is external? — Metaphysician Undercover

The penis is classified as an "external sex organ" (for obvious reasons). I didn't just pluck that out of the air. Of course, it's not external to myself in that it's part of my body but it's a part where the physical manifestation of the sex drive is obviously apparent.

Having a sexual desire does not mean that you are aware that you have a desire for sex, nor does it mean that you are aware of a deficiency of sex, because this would require that you know that the erection is a desire for sex. That's why we have sex ed. in school. You and TGW want to jump this chasm, to proceed on the premise that if you have an erection, you are aware that you have a desire for sex. — Metaphysician Undercover

The awareness is a desire for sex / the sexual hunger is a form of awareness. If it wasn't, it wouldn't work too well. Evolution may not know what it's doing but it ain't stupid. So, you're still a long way from solving the problem of my paradoxical sex life. I guess I may have to ask Dr. Phil.

The awareness is a desire for sex / the sexual hunger is a form of awareness. If it wasn't, it wouldn't work too well. Evolution may not know what it's doing but it ain't stupid. So, you're still a long way from solving the problem of my paradoxical sex life. I guess I may have to ask Dr. Phil. — Baden

I still haven't found this paradox you are referring to. The problem appears to be that you are incorrectly describing your erection as "desire for sex". It is not, and you are invalidly proceeding from the described situation, "having an erection", to the conclusion of "desire for sex". To exemplify this invalid procedure, we could explicate completely what "having an erection" actually means, and what "desire for sex" actually means, and find that there is a huge gap between these two. You assume that there is no difference between these two, and this causes your apparent paradox.

No, I don't assume that absolute identity. But I'm not going to re-litigate the whole thing again here. I'm not dismissing everything you said either. There is certainly a place for socialized habit in motivating and modulating behaviour, and some of your recent posts make more sense to me than previous ones. But we're in danger of going around in circles and never getting back to the OP, so I'll take it up with you by PM.

I think that by the time we engaged, we were off the OP anyway. Then StreetlightX acted to revisit or revise the OP, such that my original comments were not too relevant to the revised OP anyway. Actually, StreetlightX's revision. or "clarification" seemed to render the OP meaningless.

I'd rather say instead that both self and other are derivative notions which become (roughly) sedimented into place based on a variety of developmental factors, both biological and social
...

For example, the child developmental psychologist Daniel Stern notes the basic 'awareness' in infants probably takes the form of what he refers to as 'vitality affects', which are kinds of 'life-feelings', or life-qualities':

...

Importantly, these vitality effects do not find their locus in a 'self' but are simply experienced 'as such':

...



In other words at this most basic level, there simply is no self-other distinction - there 'are' simply vitality affects.


...

Difference does not occur through the stratification of self and other or inside and outside. Difference emboldens processual shiftings between strata that foreground and background modes of experience, each of them affected by incipient reachings-toward, a reaching-toward not of the subject, but of experience itself. Senses of coherence emerge that unfold as feelings of warmth, intensity, texture, anguish." — StreetlightX

Seems like there are "vitality effects" which just randomly occur, in nature, not within a self, or in a particular location where there is a thinking being which has established an internal/external differentiation, but there are just random occurrences of vitality effects, and therefore "experience", around the world.

This makes sense.
If we only had self reference we would not be able to define self.
It would be logically impossible.

Self-recursion is a recursion that is defined in terms of itself, resulting in an ill-defined infinite regress.

You have to have an "other" or reference to self is ill defined.
That is to say if there is no other, then self has no meaning.

I'm starting to read a little on this topic, and there seems to be some psychological evidence that the OP thesis is false – apparently feral children raised with their physical needs met, but with no significant interaction with others, learn to distinguish between themselves and physical objects in order to gain the requisite non-communicative skills required to feed themselves, avoid obstacles, etc., but do not gain the ability to recognize the existence of other people, effectively existing in something like Husserl's solipsistic reduction to the sphere of ownness perpetually. With personal contact renewed, this defect can be ameliorated but not fully remedied, past a certain age.

There is also the matter of theory of mind tests that young children, and autistic children later on, are unable to pass, that apparently require some degree of self-consciousness (the ability to recognize one's own memories and perceptions, and the difference between 'what I know' and what 'I don't know'), but evidence struggle with the notion that other people have analogous self-consciousness. This shows that other-consciousness develops at some ontogenetic stage, and probably at a later stage than self-consciousness.

Children also show a telling pattern when mastering first and second person pronouns. On the production side, they master the first person pronoun before the second. On the comprehension side, they master the second before the first. In other words, children learn to recognize themselves as referents of pronouns before recognizing an other or addressee, even when grammatically they have mastered the discourse function of both the first and second person. In other words, the grammatical category appears not to be missing, only the psychological category of an other – the first and second person make sense just fine, but only when the child understands itself to be the reference, as author or addressee.

I'm starting to read a little on this topic, and there seems to be some psychological evidence that the OP thesis is false – apparently feral children raised with their physical needs met, but with no significant interaction with others, learn to distinguish between themselves and physical objects in order to gain the requisite non-communicative skills required to feed themselves, avoid obstacles, etc., but do not gain the ability to recognize the existence of other people, effectively existing in something like Husserl's solipsistic reduction to the sphere of ownness perpetually. With personal contact renewed, this defect can be ameliorated but not fully remedied, past a certain age. — The Great Whatever

I think this can be accommodated by the ideas articulated in the OP, with some modification. It would require taking into account the plasticity of brain development, in which neurons 'wire' differently depending on the developmental history of the organism. To the extent that feral children lack the chance to learn self-other distinction through interaction with other people, objects become bulwark against with all interaction becomes measured, and the loss of brain plasticity through age makes it harder for other people to be recognized as others after a certain time. It's a matter of taking a longer term view upon developmental history than the OP accommodates for, which largely deals with the 'ideal' case of a very plastic, young mind.

I posted a thread on autism not to long ago which jibes with much of what I wrote here too, and the case of grammar is neither here nor there I think, but I realize I'm not going into brusque with these last two points.

I don't want to dig my heels in too hard on this because these are only the beginnings of arguments. But I don't see how the first paragraph addresses the first point, and as for the latter two, I think I conveyed that they are neither about autism nor grammar, respectively, but about an outward signal of self-consciousness being present while an outward signal of other-consciousness being absent.

... apparently feral children raised with their physical needs met, but with no significant interaction with others... — The Great Whatever

I'm very skeptical about any such experimentation. Wouldn't that be harsh cruelty, punishable by law, to keep a child locked away, and only show up with food and water now and then? Were do you find these "feral" children, and how do they live after being born if there is no one feeding them? How can you take a baby and meet that baby's physical needs, then claim that the child has had "no significant interaction with others". Clearly you are in contradiction.

On the production side, they master the first person pronoun before the second. — The Great Whatever

Of course, for the child, it's all about "myself", what "I" need. So "I" might be learned prior to "you". But this doesn't indicate that the child does not recognize the mother as the one fulfilling the needs, prior to recognizing the needs themselves. As I argued earlier, the act which satisfies the need (involving external object) is recognized before the need itself is apprehended.

In many cases, "mommy" or "daddy" is the child's first word, not "I" or the baby's name, so obviously you're barking up the wrong tree.

I'm very skeptical about any such experimentation. Wouldn't that be harsh cruelty, punishable by law, to keep a child locked away, and only show up with food and water now and then? Were do you find these "feral" children, and how do they live after being born if there is no one feeding them? How can you take a baby and meet that baby's physical needs, then claim that the child has had "no significant interaction with others". Clearly you are in contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Case studies have been done with naturally occurring feral children that are the result of neglectful parenting. You can feed a child without speaking to it or cuddling it.

Case studies have been done with naturally occurring feral children that are the result of neglectful parenting. You can feed a child without speaking to it or cuddling it. — The Great Whatever

Still skeptical, and you cannot say that feeding a child, and providing the necessities of life is not "significant interaction with others". That is contradiction.

You should recognize that your argument makes absolutely no sense. The child is fed, and given the necessities of life, by other human beings. Your claim appears to be that the child goes on to learn how to supply itself with food and the necessities of life, without ever having noticing the existence of those who previously provided it with food.

Significant interaction with other people beyond being given food by them is required to acquire language and to recognize the existence of other people. I don't need to argue about this, because the cases are real and actually happened.

Language is required to recognize other people? My cat recognizes me. My dog recognizes me. What does language have to do with recognition? Language is irrelevant here.

I'm not sure what you're complaining about and don't feel like replying to these posts. The cases actually happened.

Yes, I think that it is fair to say, in terms of ordinary parlance, that your animals recognize you. It is logically fair to say as well if it is fair to say that they cognize you in the first place. In fact cognition seems to be interdependent with re-cognition; one cannot exist without the other. But then the question becomes a more subtle: What icounts as cognition?

Is linguistic ability necessary for the sort of cognition that requires that the re-cognizer conceives of the re-cognized as a separate entity exterior to itself and/or is merely 'picking out' of the re-cognized as a kind of bare gestalt "affordance" 'to-be-responded-to' sufficient to qualify as what we would call 'recognition'? It seems that something like that must be the foundation, in any case.

What icounts as cognition? — John

What counts as cognition, is being aware of, and this leads us to perception, sensation, and the external objects. That is what I've argued for the entire thread.

Is linguistic ability necessary for the sort of cognition that requires that the re-cognizer conceives of the re-cognized as a separate entity exterior to itself and/or is merely 'picking out' of the re-cognized as a kind of bare gestalt "affordance" 'to-be-responded-to' sufficient to qualify as what we would call 'recognition'? It seems that something like that must be the foundation, in any case. — John

Clearly, linguistic knowledge is not necessary for an animal to recognize separate entities, like my pets recognize me. All this requires is sensation, perception, and the ability to apprehend one thing as distinct from another.

But now you want to change the subject, and discuss whether my pets recognize me "as a separate entity", this would require that the pet knows what "a separate entity" is, and that's a completely different question.

The cases actually happened. — The Great Whatever

The point it that the cases are irrelevant to the question at hand.

So I am aware of others pain before I'm aware of my own?

This seems crazy. Other people's pain exists beyond what I can access, so how on earth is there no difference in kind between how I know my own pain and how I know yours? I would hazard its the complete opposite - rather than there being no difference, it's so different in kind to the point that it's basically impossible to understand another's pain from a first person perspective. Whereas I directly know my own, it inflicts itself upon me! It's immediate and inescapable. I cannot 'not know' my own pain, but I can certainly 'not know' another's.

I would think this fundamental difference in the way we know ourselves verses others is what actually makes others, others. Other people really are 'other' to us - we cannot access, experience, know, in principle, everything about them. They transcend us. Sure, this leads to doubts about solipsism - perhaps serious doubts (solipsism is not just some silly idea which can prima facie be rejected off hand - it's a fundamental philosophical issue), but that's whats required for others to actually be 'not me'.

People want to erase the gaping void between us - I suppose to get closer, but all you end up doing is erasing the actual 'otherness' of others in the process. I mean if you know and access everything that composes others, then in what sense do they have an existence beyond your own experience?

It's also fundamentally confused and flawed to try and ground consciousness within biological theories. Cells and brains and sensory organs are objects of consciousness - they're experiential. So you're trying to explain consciousness with it's very own objects. You have to basically posit that your sensory organs and brain are the cause of their own existence.

Science applies to things we perceive, not perception itself. That is, our brains and sensory organs do not give rise to our conscious experience (because if they did, then our brain - as something we consciously experience, would therefore give rise toitselfa)

Hi - the 'we' in the thread title refers to humans as a species, on an evolutionary level, not on an individual, psycological level.

Thomas Metzinger's

StreetlightX
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Interestingly, we can actually scientifically test the above. The rubber hand illusion is famous and should be self-explanatory in the above regard, and there are other tests as well, as when Thomas Metzinger managed to make test subjects 'feel' that they were the 'fake bodies' standing out a few feet in front of them by coordinating their movement together with sensory cues.
2mo — StreetlightX

I take Thomas Metzinger's work to be reductio ad absurdum argument for why its wrong to explain consciousness scientifically. If you take explaining consciousness using brains (and the mirror neurons therein) to its logic conclusion, you end up stuck in Thomas Metzinger's absurd little internal theatre as some onboard homunculus living in its own private world. Not to mention the crippling epistemic problems that plague the onboard homunculus/self-model.

If you try and explain the experience of self/others using mirror neurons, the logical conclusion is that the rest of conscious experience is also 'generated' by (or perhaps equal to) brain processes, and therefore the brain that produces consciousness (including of self and others) can't be the pink jello ones we think are in the head we experience with touch/sight etc, rather, our entire bodies and the world around us are entirely produced by an 'actual' brain in the 'real' world.

Basically if self/other consciousness is equal to, or produced by, mirror neuron functions, then mirror neurons aren't located within your head you experience. There's no actual brain within your head you touch, and the mirror neurons you use to explain your consciousness are epistemically cut off from yourself- existing beyond what you can access. How can you know a single thing about these neurons? They're noumena. Thomas Metzinger just assumes that a physical body models itself and it's surroundings internally in some epistemically magical way, so that from the position of the onboard self/world/others model, knowledge of the 'actual' world (and actual mirror neurons) existing beyond the model can be had. It makes no sense, and what does even mean to experientially model non-experiential noumena?

'Because i can be tricked into mistaking my hand for a rubber one, my hand, body, and the world around it, including other people, is entirely generated by, and exists as an onboard self/world model within, a physical brain existing within a world noumenal to what I have access to, yet I can know things about this world (such as, it gives rise to this model I exist as) because I (without epistemic justification) assume that an experiential model can in some magical way be veridical to a non experiential noumenal world which transcends said model.'

''There is no difference in kind between the experience of myself, and of others, because in an external world which transcends what I have access to, the very same physical neurons are involved in producing/causing both experiences. And the evidence for this is that when I look at (what is actually an internally generated, by a human physical brain, onboard model of) an MRI computer screen (existing within a noumenal world which transcends what I can access), I see the same area on the computer screen light up when (what is an internally generated private model of) a (physical) monkey (in the world transcendent to my experience) sees it's own hand, and when it sees (what for me is also an internally generated within a physical brain model of another physical monkey in the same transcendent physical world as the first physical monkey, along with the physical body and brain of the physical human which produces my experiential world which contains models of both monkeys and an MRI screen which i am presently being tricked through an evolutionary quirk into believing that both my body, the two monkeys, the MRI, and the entire world we all appear to share are not actual monkeys, MRI machines, human bodies and brains but rather, almost like a robot computer modelling it's surroundings, myself and everything around me is an onboard internal self/world model existing within the physical brain of a physical human which is in a world which epistemically transcends the experiential model that is my existence , which i perpetually mistake for being the real thing because the grand illusion is just so seamless except for when I'm tricked into mistaking a rubber hand for my experiential hand which exposes the whole grand illusion to myself!) another (physical) monkeys hand.''

It's a reductio, a domain/category error to a apply science to conscious experience itself. Science exploits the regular, sequential structure of the things within conscious experience. It doesn't work when you take it broader and try to apply it to the whole of conscious experience.

A mirror test is a classic example of self-awareness in action. Infants and a few animals such as dolphins and apes show sudden recognition of the fact they are looking at themselves with the expression on an infant's face being priceless. There is no single type of self-awareness, but many with a mirror giving just one example of how we can become more self-aware. The South African Grey Parrot also displays self-awareness despite its brain being so small, but recent evidence has established birds neurons are more closely packed. All the other neurological evidence indicates the brain operates using pattern matching which means consciousness and self-awareness are emergent phenomena of how many neurons you have. A baby looking in the mirror for the first time and expressing wonder is expressing their own cell's sudden recognition of a new type of pattern matching with unique uses.

All the other neurological evidence indicates the brain operates using pattern matching which means consciousness and self-awareness are emergent phenomena of how many neurons you have. A baby looking in the mirror for the first time and expressing wonder is expressing their own cell's sudden recognition of a new type of pattern matching with unique uses. — wuliheron

If consciousness is produced within a brain, then the brain that's producing your present conscious experience cannot be the brain you believe is within your head that you can feel, touch, and sense in other ways. This is because these sense experiences themselves must already be being produced by a brain. As in, you know about your head using sight, touch, etc, but sense experiences are produced by a brain, so your experience of your own body including it's head, is a product of brain functioning. Your lived body must therefore be a homunculus within an physical brain, and the world around you is merely an indirect private representation of the world beyond said brain. Basically if you hold that cells/brains give rise to conscious experience, then you can't logically locate those consciousness causing cells within your lived head (because your lived body is brainless!). Your lived head must itself be the function of cells within a brain, an experienced head/body/world within the physical brain of an actual physical human body in an external noumenal world.

This position is not only absurd, it also suffers from crippling epistemic issues. For example, from the position of being an onboard self model, how is it that you can know a single thing about the external world beyond the model/representation? How do you know there is physical neuronal brain cells causing your experience, when the part of reality those cells inhabit transcends your epistemic access?

And more conceptually, what does it even mean to speak of non-experiential brain cells? The only cells I know are the images/depictions used and described in the biological sciences - we talk about them Write about them, draw them, observe them in a microscope, posit they're existence, use them within our scientific theories and explanations - they're experiential, part of the lived world. So if we aren't talking about those cells, then what are we talking about?