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In Zoltan Torey's The Conscious Mind, the author discusses the emerge of self-awareness:

Turning to the changes that the acquisition of language instantiated, Damasio reflects on these changes in some detail:

To hold extensive memory records not only of motor-skills but also of the facts and events, in particular of personal facts and events, those that make up the scaffolding of biology, of personhood and the individual’s identity, these depending on the ability to reconstruct and manipulate memory records in a working brain-space, parallel to the perceptual space, an off-line holding area where time can be suspended during a delay and decisions freed from the tyranny of immediate responses.

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  • $\begingroup$ It's just a metaphor. Look up scaffolding in a dictionary. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Sep 25 at 12:13
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    $\begingroup$ This sort of question actually has nothing to do with biology, and would be more appropriate on SE English Language Learners. However, in addition to it being pretentious twaddle, I don’t find it a very good metaphor, given that scaffolding only supports something (and not necessarily even that) until it is built or repaired. “Framework” strikes me as better. But, again we are in a realm other than biology — perhaps philosophy. $\endgroup$
    – David
    Sep 25 at 13:01
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    $\begingroup$ I agree with David that the specific meaning here is not really worth dissecting or understanding from the perspective of biology; it won't bring you any closer to any knowledge or understanding of biology. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Sep 25 at 15:38

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