X-Message-Number: 14274 Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 07:10:21 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: more on memory And for those interested, a bit more about awareness: There's evidence that animals quite low on the scale still have some kind of awareness. When we get up as high as dogs, cats, or horses the evidence becomes even stronger. I will point out that in every case this awareness is accompanied by some level of memory. Sure, a dog or cat cannot remember or understand the level of concepts and history of which we human beings are used to... so used to that we use it constantly. But that does not mean that they totally lack awareness or memories, theirs just aren't as elaborate and extensive as ours. When we go as low as earthworms, it's not clear that they have either. Some insects do show some signs of memory ie. they can remember some things and in the case of bees, actually communicate some things. At this level it's hard to argue that they have more than awareness at a very low level, and there's even a long tradition that they totally lack awareness. So we just might have here cases of memory without awareness. As for awareness without memory, I do not know of ANY animal (or if we go so far, plant) that could be said to be aware on a low level but totally lack memories. Best and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14274