satisfaction and correctness

I think there is a useful distinction to be drawn between these two types of ‘intentionality’ – the first is a type of ‘satisfaction’ condition, the lattera type of ‘correctness’ condition.

Type A.

Desire - satisfied/dissatisfied
Goal - attained/unattained
Problem - solved/unsolved
Competition - won/lost
Question - answered/unanswered
Task - completed/incomplete
Difficulty - resolved/unresolved
Fact - established/not established
Theory - confirmed/disconfirmed
Understanding - attained/unattained

And so on.

Type B

Belief/statement - true/false
Reasoning - valid/invalid
Behaviour - appropriate/inappropriate
Action - rational/irrational
Game playing - correct/incorrect
Object - valuable/worthless
Performance - good/bad
Action - moral/immoral
Institution - just/unjust
Situation - fair/unfair

Question: Do these regulative criteria/judgements develop together: is there a common developmental root?

Cognitive competences related to theory of mind.

On the theory I've been develeping over the past year, there is the following progression of abilities: association > hidden cause tracking (may involve basic simulation) > normative standard 'content'/ intentionality > aspectual perspective taking > normative standard (deep) perspective taking.

It is only when we get to the aspectual perspective taking at around 6 years old that we get real 'theory of mind' on this view.

Normative standard intentionality is something that is not domain-specific to 'minds': it is externalist with respect to multiple domains - behavioural, mental, action, social practice, objects, tools, etc.

mental simulation and particulars

Mental simulation/mental modeling - an aspect of causal reasoning - requires the representation of particulars, located in space and time as unique individuals.

Emergent consciousness

Gell-Mann in this talk suggests that the human mind, like life itself, could be emergent - a product of laws and accidents. In the case of the human mind it could be an emergent property of the complexity of neo-cortex. The cerebellum - which is not involved in conscious awareness - has the same neuron density, but is not as interconnected as cortex: it is not as complex. I think the idea that consciousness is an emergent 'global' property is a more plausible than the ideathat it is a module, an exaption, an assembly and so on.

Gell-Mann's TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/194