Breaking down sensations/perceptions/concepts and what are concepts?
I’m reading chapter 1 The Objectivist Ethics from Virtue of Selfishness and I’d like to clarify my understanding of Rands categorisations of consciousness which I tried to put into a diagram, and get to her conclusion if “humans are the only organisms that have to think to survive”.
The ultimate goal is life and some organisms are born with just that goal (the first layer in the diagram) and that is enough for them to survive (eg plants automatically know how to grow towards the sun, how to absorb nutrients and that is enough for them to survive)
An ant might need the second layer of sub goals which comes from its sensations: it knows pain is a bad thing and that so having sub goals of “avoid pain” is enough for it to survive (it can retreat if it is being attacked)
A lion might need the third layer of sub goals which it gets through its perceptions: it knows feeling hungry is a bad thing and it knows (and can learn from parents) how to hunt. Being hungry is not necessarily enough for a lion cub to go and hunt but it can acquire the skills to hunt.
Finally humans need the final layer of subgoals which we get through concepts: we can feel hungry, know that it is a bad thing, but we do not automatically know how to hunt. We must learn which foods are safe, how to build a weapon to hunt for big animals. Most importantly once we have this knowledge we have to choose to act on it, we can be hungry and know how to hunt but we can choose to not hunt, a lion who has been taught how to hunt cannot choose to not hunt if it is hungry. And to choose to do something we must think. We are the only animals that have to think to survive.
I’m also not entirely sure why concepts is the right word? Concepts are an abstraction that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a specific kind but I think my dog can understand a concept: I could pick up any different type of lead and she would know it’s time for a walk, she knows that a “lead” is a concept which stands for many different looking things but which all mean “walk”.