 Humans who are alive and awake have a capacity or resource (cái 材) called “the knowing” (zhī 知) (A3, A22), roughly akin to the capacity or disposition to have conscious states and perform cognitive functions. (“The knowing” is thus comparable in different respects to our notions of consciousness and of “the understanding.”) “The knowing” is inactive in dreamless sleep (A23), and it is what has desires and aversions (A25). It is the capacity by which we are aware and have knowledge of things, and, provided we are awake, it cannot fail to be aware of something. The text compares it to eyesight: sighted people who open their eyes always see something, in the sense of having some visual experience, even if what they see is only pitch black darkness or their perception is mistaken. The functions the Mohists ascribe to “the knowing” overlap with those other early texts ascribe to the heart-mind (xīn 心), a concept that plays no role in later Mohist thought. 