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I'm not sure I have a good sense of what mental tasks require 2nd order cognition - what are some examples of the tasks that you saw?
thinking abstractly or indirectly — thinking about thinking
Do we gain insight comparing President Obama to a chimpanzee?
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Well, Harris has been out-of-date for decades in anthropological circles, I'm afraid. He's a fun read, but I wouldn't take his books too seriously at this point. It's pretty well understood now that a strict economic materialist framework doesn't explain why people do what they do (humans are _not_ rational actors, by any stretch of the imagination), but he was never able to allow himself to think outside his Marxian…
I've definitely noticed a tendency in modern times, especially among Americans, towards all-or-nothing-ism. Someone's work is either completely right, or completely worthless. All you have to do is poke a few holes, and then you can dismiss the whole thing as nonsense. Usually, it culminates in an insular attitude of "I don't need to see the evidence to know it's wrong."
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It's not walking, it's the realization of why we reproduce and why we die that makes us humans. Most animals are unaware of their own death and will just hunt more for more food in the short term, not knowing they may be killed as they are too tired to return.
I'm pretty sure most animals are aware of death in others, so it would seem likely that they may be aware of self mortality. Our general understanding of other animal behaviours is still quite primitive - generally things considered unique to the human animal are discovered in others after someone bothers to look. As for reproduction - do humans really know why they reproduce?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I have a good sense of what mental tasks require 2nd order cognition - what are some examples of the tasks that you saw?
thinking abstractly or indirectly — thinking about thinking
Earlier quoted context omitted.
thinking abstractly or indirectly — thinking about thinking
Thanks. That is exactly what I meant. I was busy writing up some research today and didn't make my way back here to answer.