Metacognition in animals
Do animals and birds have meta-cognition? We can all agree that animals and birds are conscious, are capable of cognizing, but how can you evaluate your own mental states and repeat the acts that you think are causal in producing the mental state of pleasure in absence of metacognition? Playing for fun is not uncommon among animals or birds. But these also demonstrate mimicry, particularly copying human actions. If they are able to copy human actions and are able to evaluate their mental states, are they also able to evaluate the mental states of the humans that they are copying? And if so, they are also inter-subjectively aware. For me, these are not problems, because the way I understand consciousness is it can never be bereft of reflexivity and inter-subjectivity.
Active Forgetting
Sometimes we wish we could switch our brain off and forget some of the events that we underwent or we witnessed. While there may not be agentive or active forgetting, this is fascinating to learn how our brain has the mechanism to push some of our memories to the oblivion. Some meditation techniques might reveal how active forgetting is not only possible but also worth exploring. This paper (“Brain may actively forget during dream sleep”) at least explains the neurology of forgetting.
In the age of information
Just like they used to strive for information, we today need to consciously choose to NOT know. It is different than forgetting. We do not need well-informed teachers any more, as all the information is out there; we need teachers who can help us liberate from what we know. I once read “ignorance is bondage” (ajñānaṃ bandhaḥ). Now I have surrendered to reading it as “knowledge is bondage” (jñānaṃ bandhaḥ).
We have to make a conscious decision every moment to ignore, to close our eyes and ears, and close the gates of the mind and the heart. What we know hurts more today than our ignorance. There is so much that we know but means nothing as we are wrapped around information and handicapped by the overdose of information. I am not even talking about false information. They may all be true information but they hurt our active participation just the same.