Here is one take. The Abrahamic texts are rather insistent on this: Genesis 1:4. (The Qur'anic input is far too inaccessible, but these two books complement one another.) The act of 'creation' -- what we are talking about -- is defined as the sequence { Say, See, Divide/cleave}. "God Said", "God Saw", "God Divided". We (subject) sentients have 'cleaving' at our disposal. {0, 1}, if you will. Our cognition is based on differentiation, our sensory apparatus measure deltas. Per promises made (e.g. "If you say to this mountain 'move!' ..", the subject sentient will progress up that creative sequence as it desolves the 'ego'/'self' in the "Divine One". Then you get to 'say, see, and divide' and it will be. > That and trees falling alone in the woods. :) Been looking for that paper. Pretty sure it was PhysOrg but google is failing me :)