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Comment by ohiovr | Hacker News Reader

What will make the writer really mad is that the world began with humans, and nothing else, for a basic reason. Before us, there was no one to give the world, or anything else, a name. Some say the beginning of wisdom is understanding the meaning of words. I believe the most essential difference human beings have over all other creatures is the development of stories. And those stories can last for thousands of years.

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If you haven't read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, you'd probably dig it. He makes a very good case that storytelling is a cornerstone of the evolution of society as we know it.

If you add up every thing that an author has argued is a cornerstone of the evolution of society the picture starts looking more and more like the grains of limestone in a concrete foundation.

The reason the term "argued" is used is that we can't prove what actually were cornerstones of the evolution of society. The evidence is scarce enough to allow many different ideas, that in itself is not a valid criticism.

If the evidence is scarce enough to allow many different theories, that means no particular theory has much value at present.

Douglas Hofstadter has made a career out of arguing that human consciousness is founded on the ability to interpret analogies. "This is like that except..." Kind of like a generalization of the story theory.

I've read a lot of Hofstadter (GEB, Mind's I, Metamagical Themas), though mostly decades ago,. I don't specifically recall this, though I might have missed it.

Where's his distillation of this?

That's how I explain stuff to my kids.

"What is jello?"

"Uh... tastes like fruit, except it isn't fruit..."

Heck it is how I learn programming... maybe everything.

"cost is like let but..."

It seems to me excruciatingly obvious that either human consciousness does not involve the ability to interpret analogies or else humans are not generally conscious.

This is based on observing innumerable vehement and apparently unresolvable disagreements on the internet over whether a given analogy is valid, particularly in the realm of politics.

...don’t use internet discussion to draw conclusions about consciousness. It’s just not credible.

As this is an internet discussion, accepting your opinion leads to a paradox as I would be doing what you say not to.

When someone tells you to not trust them, take them at their word - Maya Angelou (paraphrase)

One trick of human mind is the ability to work with fuzzy definitions. You can spawn infinite and unresolvable disagreement on the Internet over the true meaning of the word "chair", and yet everyone can use that word correctly in their lives.

Want to bet? Try to get people to agree whether they should use "chair" or "chairman/chairwoman"...or for that matter "chairperson".

They are all correct in the appropriate context. The problem is not the usage and understanding; it is the drive for certainty and absoluteness which ignores the contexts and multiple realities we inhabit.

that's taxonomy not analogy?

Claiming an analogy isn't valid is not the same thing as being unable to interpret them; it's actually one step past interpreting them.

One only has to work in IT security for a relatively short span to see ample evidence that humans are not generally concious.

> human consciousness is founded on the ability to interpret analogies

That's a scary thought, because at least anecdotally it feels like run more and more often into people who can't handle analogies, and aren't even trying. It's like someone who can't digest food not because of something to do with their stomach, more like because they put it in an envelope or in a drawer.

That is, so often the response to an analogy is a difference between the two elements of it being pointed out, any difference at all is supposed to suffice to "refute" it. As if there being a difference was not implied anyway (it makes no sense to "compare" two things that are 100% the same), as if the areas of difference necessarily said something about the point of the analogy.

"The mind is a flame to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled", maybe so it is for consciousness. We take it for granted that we ill remain conscious now that our "species" achieved it once and for all, that we simply become it automagically because the "is a member of conscious species" flag is set in some invisible book... but since it doesn't require consciousness to imitate words and actions and operate machinery, we very well could loose it before we notice something is wrong.

Combine that with Debt: the First 5000 Years and you have your bases covered

How is that book relevant to this?