From: headbands@webtv.net (James Veverka) Date sent: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 20:43:18 -0400 (EDT) To: virus@lucifer.com Subject: Re: virus: Re: Technology (was manifest science) Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> Joe, Since Chimps are able to recognize themselves in the mirror are
> they showing this recursivity and self/other conciousness in their
> society in a similar way as we do?....jim
>
>
They are showing the ability to both recognize themselves as
themselves, and to distinguish themselves from others of the same
species, and this requires a notion of themselves as separable and
distinct; however, whether this rises to the level of explicit and
abstract self-reference (whether they possess anything rersembling
a concept of "self" in general, of which they would be a personal
particular) is highly doubtful.