On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 10:17:46PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > I do have a precise > theory, (not in my thesis, though) and free-will begins with > Löbianity. From this I infer that very plausibly, worms and ants > (and perhaps communists) have no free-will, but that spiders, > octopus, mice, dogs and humans have it. I thought only homeotermic > animals were self-conscious free animals. They can dream and can > have empathy, but since recently I accumulate evidence that > Löbianity occurs already with many invertebrates. Notably the > spider: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VakdmcbHuCA >
This is an interesting variation from you earlier claims, where you were claiming that consciousness was very primitive. Assuming you're identifying free will (or Loebianity) with consciousness, then only selectively granting species might get around the anthropic ant argument. Mind you, there are an awful lot of spiders - on my suburban block, I would estimate a population of several thousand individuals, making up perhaps 30-50 species, living on an area of land containing 4 humans (and not many more mammals, I might add). You might need to limit it to just some spider species - after all, I would expect a great variation in spider intelligence. One thing I would like to ask is how you would objectively infer Loebianity in a non-communicative species? That would indeed be a step forward if we could do this arthropods. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
