[arthur]

Originally Posted by Graybeard

Good post Arthur.

Hmmmmm .... A minor difference. I don't know that I would go so far as to say all creatures, or attribute memory to microbes, fruit flys or maggots.

My experience is that these critters have such a short lifespan that an investment in the expensive resource of memory would be counter productive.

I think they just respond to surrounding stimuli.

No amount of getting its wings burnt prevents a moth from flying into the light. No memory = no experience gained. This is a successful evolutionary strategy for short term life spans ... a few days or weeks.

All creatures experience, but some have no memory of that experience. Creatures with short term lifespans usually breed in hundreds or thousands per mating. They can afford for some, or even many, to perish thru no memory.

Creatures with long gestation periods and few or one offspring have placed a HUGE investment in a single roll of the dice. Therefore memory, though an expensive resource, is worthwhile having. As they will live a long time they will come across many dangerous situations where memory will pay off.

But I do agree that we have no claim to superiority over any other creature.

cool bananas ... greg

Hi Greg,and Graham,
I don't want to appear as giving a lecture but I would like to comment using my Universal Law.

The only access to 'the recording of experience' (memory) part of a brain is via its extensions i.e. its Environmental Monitoring System, the senses. Memory and knowledge per se are not relative, the quantity and quality etc. are relative.
Any one who understands microbes, fruit flies and maggots recognises and understands that they do have memory and that they use that memory in their endeavours to maintain their integrity's.

'Short', as in life span is relative, the skill they use in relationship to the success they achieve in their endeavours whilst responding to surrounding stimuli is a measure of intelligence. Of course, to be able to grade the intelligence one must understand, from the creatures point of view, what its endeavour is and why it is endeavouring.
When all creatures experience, the magnitude of it will be interpreted by its brain, if what appears to be an experience is not registered by its brain it will not, to it, be an experience.
Many of the creatures which breed in hundreds or thousands do so as an Evolutionary response to mass predation or because the opportunity to do so is there. I suggest that few will die as a direct result of no memory of experience, but many will die as a result of no experience. This applied and applies to N.A bison, one calf, caribou, one calf, the passenger pigeon, two egg, the wildebeest, one calf etc etc.
The only way that knowledge can be manifested is in physical activity whether it be in the activating of the muscles to vibrate the vocal cords or the finger to tap the keys or the act of just doing, that is the way it is done.
Greg, your, rationale re. 'moth burning its wings' is analogues to humans, No matter how many time they suffer the carnage of war etc, but does it mean, no memory=no experience?
Finally, I also agree that we have no claim to superiority over any other creature, and I also feel that we have no right to have a sense of superiority per se.

regards arthur