> Animals can display signs of self-awareness and consciousness. They do not
> possess all the mental faculties that humans have that we may take for
> granted. For example, as mentioned by Bruno, introspection and
> inquisitiveness. But the hard evidence for being human lies in written and
> symbolic language and the ability to generate permanent records using this
> language. Most animals are physically incapable of writing, e.g.,
> quadrupeds. A substitute for written language could be a very good memory
> capacity for communication by sound (oral language). The limitation of oral
> language is that it is inherently one-dimensional, while written or
> symbolic language is two-dimensional. Both written language and sufficient
> memory capacity for oral language probably require highly evolved brains.
> Written language also leads to the concept of laws.
>
> An appreciation of the Anthropic Principle by an SAS requires the SAS
> possesses, in addition to introspection and inquisitiveness, a sense of
> laws governing the world. This would entail that the SAS should have
> something equivalent to written language ability. With these abilities, it
> would be natural for the SAS to ask why the laws are the way they are, etc.
>
> Fred
>
>
Yes - but why is an appreciation of the Anthropic Principle a
requirement for observing the Universe? Most applications of the AP do
not in fact need this requirement - eg my Occam paper does not depend
on it - however it is still a mystery that we're capable of
appreciating the AP.
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Wed Jan 12 2000 - 20:39:55 PST