Sentient "Knowing," Non-Sentient "Knowing" & Buddhist "Wisdom"

This post is asking the question, what is it to "know" something? What is the foundation, or basis, for "knowledge" that allows for behavior or action based from said "knowledge?" How do we know when we "know" something, and how do we know when another being "knows" something? 

Generally, we infer that something or somebody "knows" something by observing their behavior. I "know" the stove is hot, so I don't touch it. The dog "knows" humans throw stones, so it runs away. The mosquito "knows" where we are, and buzzes in to bite us. The plant "knows" where the sunlight is, and which direction to grow. The amoeba "knows" where the acid is, and moves to the opposite end of the petri dish. 

Now, regarding inanimate objects, there seems to also be forms of this kind of “knowing.” The earth seems to “know” where the sun is (and vice versa), and continues to revolve around it. Some continuous process of exchange between them “communicates” the information that we would call mass, speed, and distance. A magnet seems to “know” where the refrigerator is, and, before it is ON the fridge, it is drawn towards it, and not in some other direction. 

So, we can talk about the Abhidharmic “eye consciousness,” or how light reflects off the rods and cones of the retina. This is the natural process that creates a moment of perception, a moment of “knowing” the object the eye sees. Now, beyond the human mind being a specialized structure that is then imprinted by this information, and stores it, and analyzes it, and re-organizes it in relation to other perceptions (in what many theories of mind call a “representational” system, Buddhism maybe calls it a “conceptual” system), the actual act or moment of “knowing” doesn't seem (to me) to involve anything more than when the earth knows where the sun is, or the plant knows where the sunlight is, or the amoeba knows where the acid is. It is simply a natural process that occurs because of the causes and conditions of the environment, and the particular way the human perceptual system is built up or organized.

Certainly this isn't the sort of "knowing" that denotes sentience. Without a phenomenological process of knowing, without the experience of knowing it, that cannot be what we mean by "consciousness" or "sentience." There is some higher-order experience that manifests itself, a qualia experience, that is beyond the reaction, interaction, stimulus-response continuum. Merely observing this sort of stimulus-response behavior cannot qualify, unless we wish to grant sentience to inanimate objects as well. It cannot grant an internal observational experience, or possession of the knowledge. That is, there seems to be a difference between a process of "knowing," like the amoeba in the petri dish, and the having of the knowing, actually possessing the knowledge. So does sentience also follow the rule that says possession is 9/10s of the law? 

In the mind, it's the building up of the representation that seems to form the “having” of the “knowing.” That is, the earth never has the knowledge of where the sun is, but is some how in the continual process of give-and-take, of information exchange. The human brain, on the other hand, encodes various “patterns” it perceives, and represents them neurally, re-presenting the reality into a format it finds useful. Thus, in some way, the brain “has” the information in a way that an asteroid drawn to the earth does not, or, I would probably argue, the amoeba does not, and the plant does not. These systems may react and interact with their environments, but again, stimulus-response doesn't seem to be an identifying characteristic of sentience.

Now, one of the other differences between the animate and inanimate forms of “knowing” seems to be one of self “benefit,” where the animate have the capacity to use the “knowledge” (information), which influences whether they are attracted or repelled by a certain stimulus. When an amoeba “knows” where the acid is, it is repelled by it (to its own benefit), whereas when an asteroid “knows” where the earth is, it is pulled in to its own destruction. So animate systems are kind of programmed with this natural tendency for self-benefit, whereas inanimate systems are not. But does this sort of "self" benefit, in and of itself, the quality that grants sentience? Knowledge? Wisdom? Or is it the "having" of the knowledge, in and of itself, that is key? From the Buddhist perspective, it seems neither one of these is the quality of "mind."

If Buddhist practice is one of trying to remove the representations and concepts (meaning that it is NOT the having that's the distinguishing characteristic of wisdom [also, it would be odd that a system of non-self that says there IS no having to have having as a distinguishing characteristic]), and trying to purify ourselves from this myopic sense of self-reference or ego or self-benefit is also NOT the distinguishing characteristic of a Buddha's wisdom (certainly a bodhisattva is NOT taught that self-benefit is the distinguishing characteristic of wisdom), is there something ELSE to mind that is over and above the kind of natural “knowing” that occurs within inanimate objects? If so, what is this extra ingredient? Is this the type of “knowing” what we are cultivating in Buddhism? One that is free from both self-benefit, and free from the “having” of representational qualities?

Naturally arising volition seems to be of the self-beneficial type. Unnatural volition seems to be of the having/planning type. Is there a third kind of volition? Or, in mind of enlightenment (byang chub sems), is volition still a characteristic? Or do acts of enlightened beings simply arise spontaneously and naturally? Is the boddhisattva just drawn to them like a magnet? That is, at a certain point, is there no need to cultivate the will or volition to act? And is this “mind” then still really a consciousness, a “knower,” or really something else, a force that's more like gravity or magnetism?

What's the difference between “knowing” and “sensing”? “Being conscious of it”, KNOWING that you're SENSING it... This is some higher level of being aware that you're sensing or knowing something. So this awareness... The objective awareness faculty... What is THAT?