Only humans need to augment their information processing

All Beings increase their information processing simply through the fact of their existence, with every passing moment that they (continue to) live in the analogue and/or digital worlds. They have no specific need to increase their information processing, rather it is the serving of their many needs (to survive, to communicate etc.) that creates in them the will to process information. Only humans among all Beings have the specific need to augment their information processing, to increase it qualitatively and not just quantitatively, to constantly process new information. Mere information processing, for example, to serve their need to communicate, is not enough for humans: they need to augment their communication-relevant processing, to constantly find new ways (or words, tools etc.) to communicate among themselves. It is to this end, meaning to augment their information processing (or because of this natural trait), that humans developed elaborate communication systems (and created artificial Beings) in the first place. (The debate whether an innate need to augment led to language, or whether language, as an innate capacity that existed only in humans, led to the need to augment through it (language), is not only unanswerable but also unnecessary - the latter because, as seen, what needs Beings have are set by their nature, which is in turn evolutionary co-shaped by these needs, in an unbreakable, and inseparable, bond.) It is therefore because of language and writing, and because it is natural for humans to compare their information processing to that of others, either actual or imagined, that this augmentation builds on what other humans have already attained or aspired to each time, in an apparently never-ending virtuous circle, and is thus the cause of human history and culture (see, however, §05.01.05: augmentation towards an imagined but not a real end is the cause of Lucretius’ ‘discontent’).

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