0.4 The definitions of meta-representation and meta-cognition  (Page 2/3)

So meta-representation is actually a type of meta-cognition then (unless it is about an external representation (I explain more about this later) - it is really just a matter of defining the terms) because someone is thinking about their own thoughts. You have a representation in mind, and when you think more about this representation it becomes a meta-representation. For instance, if you think the thought 'I have a dog' then you have a representation of 'having' your dog. If you think 'I am thinking about the fact that I have a dog' then you are thinking about your representation of your dog, so it is more 'meta' then just having the simple representation of your dog.

That makes it sound confusing, however. It seems like all representations are 'meta' because a representation is a representation that a person thinks about to themself - and whenever someone has a representation they automatically think about it to themselves. Some representations are more second-hand, however, and these are more considered to be 'meta' representations.

Hybrid metarepresentations are representations of external objects, like a drawing on a piece of paper. Here Sam Scott references Dennett's theory:

• Following Dennett (1998), it stands to reason that if a representation exists as an object in theworld, then it too can be represented. Dennett's examples of metarepresentation tend to be of a hybridnature. For instance a drawing on a piece of paper is a type of non-mental representation, which is representedin the mind of the person viewing it. The mental representation is of the drawing, but since the drawingis itself a representation, the viewer has a (mental) metarepresentation of whatever it is that the drawingrepresents.

When someone 'believes' something they don't necessarily have to think about it - they don't have to say to themselves 'I believe this'. When someone does say to themselves 'I believe this' then they are forming a meta-representation because they are thinking about some belief they have - they are forming a meta-represenation of it. The belief is the representation, however when they think about it they become aware of it and form a higher - 'meta' representation of it.

For instance if you think 'I believe I have a dog' then you are thinking about the representation of your dog and your belief of that - so you formed a meta-representation of a representation (your dog).

That example also shows what I said previously - that metarepresentations are a type of metacognition. That is because they are thoughts about your own thinking (the thinking being representations). Unless it is a representation of an external object such as a drawing, in that case you aren't really thinking about your own thinking you are thinking about something that doesn't necessarily require that much thought or is already represented.

So it seems there could be some confusion with the terms 'metacognition' and 'metarepresentation' then. For instance, what exactly is the difference between a thought and a representation? When exactly is someone thinking about their own thoughts? When exactly is a representation a representation of another representation if they are both just individual thoughts in the mind by themselves? Could a meta-representation be a thought of another thought?