I Accidentally Discovered Consciousness

My grandpa passed away many years ago, but I remember spending time with him fixing a broken chair. The chair was 80 years old and had been gifted to my mom by her grandpa, so we wanted to save and restore it.

While discussing how to fix the chair, I asked my grandpa, “Hey, what if we add a screw here at this angle?”

His answer was: “What do you mean?”

I repeated my idea with more details, and he said, “Yes, now I understand what you mean.”

I was immediately struck by this reply: What just happened? Why did his brain switch from “I don’t understand” to “I understand” after I added details?

Then, I realized that his brain had built an abstract model of what I was trying to convey in my message. It seems like each time our brain builds that model, it tells us, “All good. We can continue. Now I understand.”

This makes me think of other things, like how past experience probably plays a significant role in our consciousness’s capabilities. The more you learn, the more you can learn because you have more and more new abstract models that you can apply to different topics. Having a wide range of interests probably helps you learn even more.