Re: Heed Clarification on MW

From: Fred Chen <flipsu5.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 21:21:33 -0800

 Niclas Thisell wrote:

> Why do I not find myself to be an ant?
> The number of ants vastly outnumbers the number of humans. So I should
> be suprised to find myself human. (We could put it like this; assuming
> ignorance on the ratio ants/human, and given the fact that I'm human,
> a guess would be that the number of ants is not vastly greater than
> the number of humans.)
>
> A reasonable explanation for this is that ants have a lower degree of
> consciousness.
> So, this may be taken to say that we are more likely to find ourselves
> in a world where we have a greater degree of consciousness.

If consciousness were the same for all SAS's including ants and humans,
ant consciousness must be very low indeed, so that even their higher
numbers don't improve the odds of being an ant. Your argument can also
be inverted to state why can't we be more highly evolved beings with
higher consciousness, so to speak.

It is probably impossible to measure degree of consciousness like a
physical quantity. Ant consciousness can be something totally different
from human consciousness. It is tempting to project human consciousness
into other consciousness. This may or may not be justified. We don't
know.

We also have to keep in mind, ants and humans possibly maintain their
large number population ratios as part of the ecological balance of our
plant, so this is a constraint from the laws of our universe.

Fred
Received on Wed Dec 15 1999 - 21:31:37 PST