Yes, please. Draw me a graph.
I grasp all of your clearly expressed statements but I don't understand the relationship between the first 3 sentences and the rest. ements.

So giraffes can't think since they have no vocal cords? :chin:

Certainly they can think but they can't think in words. I am assuming here that your word "think" includes intuitive thinking and other cognative nervous actions in the subconscious mind which is a word I dislike becaise it infers that the totalality of their brain cells don't exist.

What about mutes, especially those with congenital total speech deficits? Are you saying what I think you're saying?

The logical question that arises is: Where did the conscious mind come from? — Ken Edwards

"In the beginning (of consciousness) was the word."

Draw me a graph. — Ken Edwards

I'm sorry, but I can't be bothered at the moment - I don't have facilities to make it easy enough. So instead ...

By your hypothesis words are behaviour/actions. One might say 'gestural'.

So giraffes can't think since they have no vocal cords? — TheMadFool

Obviously giraffes think, but not in words, and I suggest that they are aware, but not conscious. This is a distinction that requires forcing of the language a bit, so I have to explain: awareness is defined for this purpose as sensation (image, smell, sound, etc) + association with a memory, accompanied with affect or emotion. Eg. sensation sight/smell of baobab associated with memory of another tree that smelled and looked a lot like, and feeling of yummy leaves and fruit. (I attempt to describe in words the thinking of a giraffe not in words.)

This whole thought process in a human is encapsulated in a single word - ice-cream. What this means is that a word does not refer to a thing, but to a whole relationship, something like: "that is a baobab, giraffes like baobabs, and I am a giraffe."

And it is this last bit, of crucial self identification, that distinguishes the wide-aware giraffe from the sleepily conscious human.

Aren't you drawing a distinction without a difference? I mean an image of a boabab tree in a giraffe's mind and the word "boabab" in a human's mind are semantically identical. You wouldn't, for instance, say that "water" and "aqua" and a picture of a glass of water are different in any significant sense, right?

an image of a boabab tree in a giraffe's mind and the word "boabab" in a human's mind are semantically identical. — TheMadFool

I have just explicated in detail how I think they are very different.

You wouldn't, for instance, say that "water" and "aqua" and a picture of a glass of water are different in any significant sense, right? — TheMadFool

Wrong. A picture is a record, thus a memory: a word as I explained above is multi-faceted and associates a sensation an emotion and a memory along with, crucially, an identification.

MWW suggested that I might have it backwards and I think he is correct. — Ken Edwards

I only thought your basic contention, that all verbal thoughts must always be spoken, is backwards. Which I thought should be....all spoken must first be thought.

I now think speech itself is only one aspect of a complex gestalt. — Ken Edwards

Agreed.

Without a conscious mind there could be no speech....

Agreed.

.....Without speech there could be no conscious mind.....

Not agreed. Without the experience to prove it, I still think I should be fully capable of playing a decent game of chess, even after vocal chord removal surgery. Multiplication tables should still reside in consciousness, and Mona Lisa will still be butt-ugly.

........Without vocal chords there could be neither. — Ken Edwards

Double disagreed. Without vocal chords there wouldn’t be coherent speech but there could still be perfectly intelligible communication, which presupposes a conscious mind as the necessary means for it.
————

The logical question that arises is: Where did the conscious mind come from? — Ken Edwards

It cannot be said where a thing comes from if it isn’t first known what it is. But knowing what a thing is doesn’t promise knowing where it comes from. It just may be, that asking where the conscious mind comes from, isn’t a logical question at all. Kant would say asking after the ontology of a purely transcendental object, is an exercise in irrationality, because one is then trying to locate something that can never be thought as phenomenon. But what did he know anyway. He’s ancient, right?
————

Early man had more brain cells than any other animal on earth — Ken Edwards

Given all the known extinct animals, is there evidence of that claim? What about unknown extinct animals? Can’t just insist if they had more brain cells then humans they wouldn’t be extinct, can we?

Dunno about brain cells in general, but there is evidence that, against the metric of unit body weight, a shrew has more neural connections than a human, with unit body mass as the metric, an elephant has more neural connections than a human, and with unit brain mass as the metric, an orangutan has almost the same number of neural connections as a human, yet none of those species have taken themselves to Disneyland.

Only in humans, aye. Pro and con.

:monkey: Emoji

You do not play chess by using words. The conscous mind can only deal with words or symbols like math symbols. It is the part of the mind that you and I are using now. It can talk but it can't feel. It cannot regulate the heart beat or the breath rate. It cannot play chess. It cannot control the running muscles while running. It cannot sense anything. It cannot relate to hearing or seeing. The coscious min can talk but it cant itch. The overall mind can itch and it can perform thousands of other things but it can't talk.

Double disagreed. Without vocal chords there wouldn’t be coherent speech but there could still be perfectly intelligible communication, which presupposes a conscious mind as the necessary means for it.

A human has many efficient devices for communication. Laughing is a form of communication. Screaming with rage also. Also shrugging the shoulders. Also frowning, smiling, raising the eybrows, gesturing, pointing , a clenched fist, a shy look, Indian sign language. There must be hundreds, or thousands. None of these require words. For a dog tail wagging. None of these relate to the conscious mind. All of them are easily available to persons with undeveloped conscious minds such as children.

Walk around my house you might see a dozen things that you don't know what they are. But you know where they came from just by reading the label.
Do you realize what you are doing right this second? You are using your conscious mind to create words and you are directing your fingers to type those words. Between you and me there is absolutely nothing except our 2 conscious minds. You are using your conscious mind to tell me that your conscious mind might never be thought as a phenomenon.
I have a strong intuition that if Kant were here he would agree with me.

I agree.

The conscious mind can talk but it cant itch. — Ken Edwards

Yikes.

Sorry.....I can’t think of a profitable response to all that.

The conscous mind can only deal with words or symbols like math symbols. It is the part of the mind that you and I are using now. It can talk but it can't feel. — Ken Edwards

On the contrary , contemporary research in cognitive neuroscience and consciousness studies both point to the idea that the notion of unconscious feeling is incoherent.

The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio says “ it’s very important to separate emotion from feeling. We must separate the component that comes out of actions from the component that comes out of our perspective on those actions, which is feeling. Curiously, it’s also where the self emerges, and consciousness itself. Mind begins at the level of feeling. It’s when you have a feeling (even if you’re a very little creature) that you begin to have a mind and a self.”

https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/06/17/172310/the-importance-of-feelings/amp/

No. Mental reading is thinking. YesI

I said: "It can't feel. I didn't say it can feel.

The conscious mind cannot produce emotions nor feelings. Emotions and feeling are produced by the vast-over mind and are, as you state, very different one from the other. (There may be problems with the word "Feeling". It seems to have more than one meaning or definition).

The over-mind contains little or no consciousness, ie self awareness, which existss only in the conscious mind. The conscious mind contains vocabularies of word or symbols. Vacabularies can vary in size. From a single word, "mama", in an infant to thousands of words in a multilingual person.

The conscious mind cannot produce emotions nor feelings. Emotions and feeling are produced by the vast-over mind and are, as you state, very different one from the other. (There may be problems with the word "Feeling". It seems to have more than one meaning or definition). — Ken Edwards

It sounds like you’re making all this up , because it runs directly counter to current research on the relation between consciousness and feelings. Can you cite any research from psychologists supporting your view?

You mean "over-mind" isn't accepted clinical usage?

Maybe he means ‘over hill , over dale’?

I am basing this perhaps on many years reading many psychologist accounts and participating in Freudian and Dianetic therapy. I have written accounts and can send them to you if you like but they are extremely lenghty.

Not at all. These are my words. The more usual name is "subconscios mind" which i dislike because it implies that the overmind or intuitive mind is somehow "sub" to the conscious mind and that is obviously not the case. The over-mind is located in the brain cells and is responsable for thousands of brain cell computations a minute.

I will name a few such. Please excuse my non-professional vocabulary.
The over mind or intuitive mind controls all muscular movements, some of which are deliberate such as pole vaulting or involuntary such as Heartbeat which is a muscle. It measure the level of blood sugar in the body and controls with great accuracy the glandular production of insulin. It carefully measures the outputs of many other glands. It controls the workings of the digestive process although the two extremes of this, eating and defecating are partially voluntary. It produces all emotional processes. It controls the behavior of all blood circulating veins and arteries including the thousands of on off valves in the arteries. It monitors and controls all of the senses and their outputs such as sight, hearing and touch which consists of many thousands of sensors in the skin which can register pressure, hot, cold and another that I forgot. It controls all of the reproductive processes in the testicles. It controls many functions of the brain itself including non verbal thinking and feeling also includes blood circulation and oxygen flow.
The conscious mind braincells are connected to the intuitive mind brain cells with numerous nerves which are very well known to surgeons because of the occasional prefrontal lobotimy operation which is the surgical removal of the entire conscios mind.

All of this data is kindergarden stuff and well known to most prepared minds.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

The conscious mind braincells — Ken Edwards

Isn’t one of the biggest problems of neurology right now precisely the non existence of these brain cells? There is no specific spot in the brain that “does” consciousness.

No it is not a problem not even a minor one. Where in the world did you get that data?

The conscious mind braincells are easily shown to be located in the prefrontal lobes which is the bulge in the head just above the eyes.

Thousands of tests some a half a century old or more have established that fact. Brain surgeons know with extreme precision exactly where it is because of the occasional prefrontal lobotomy operation which is the surgical removal of the entire conscios mind in order to save the life of the patient. The entire prefontal lobes.

After that the patient can no longer talk but none of the rest of the brain is damaged and the patient can live happily.

Do you notice an awkwardness in your thinking? — Ken Edwards

Yes. All the time. Whether I follow your instructions or not.

The conscious mind braincells are easily shown to be located in the prefrontal lobes which is the bulge in the head just above the eyes. — Ken Edwards

Now close your eyes and open your mouth wide, and try to figure out if there is any awkwardness in this opinion.

Jokes aside: if the patient can live happily after a removal of the front cortex, which is a fact that you claim, then he is happy; happiness is a function of the conscious. Therefore the conscious has not been removed with the frontal lobe. Therefore the front cortex does not house the conscious.

Flatly: happiness is not a function of the conscious. Not even close. Happiness is a very complex group of emotions and is not remotely in the conscious.
Happiness existed in men and apes millions of years before the conscious mind was created by evolutionary processes. The conscious mind is brand new created probably less than a half a million years ago.

You may be right. How do you suppose you can support your argument? Do you measure happiness or consciousness in other beings? Do you have an objective tool to do this? If not, then your argument is worth as much as mine. Precisely. "Yes it does." "No it does not." Who is right and who is wrong, without a measuring tool?

But I insist that happiness is a feeling, and all feelings are only felt by conscious beings. A rock can't be happy; but a tiger, a tape worm and god can. I think (can't prove it) that the feeling of happiness is not separable form a conscious mind that feels it.

You may think otherwise. Fine, that's your prerogative. There are no facts here, only opinions. And in proper argumenting opinions are not supposed to be presented as facts.