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- From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
- Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
- Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
- Message-ID: <BILL.93Jan26231648@cortex.nsma.arizona.edu>
- Date: 27 Jan 93 06:16:48 GMT
- References: <dpn2.232.727891709@po.CWRU.Edu> <24JAN199317172344@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu>
- <1993Jan25.005814.12035@psych.toronto.edu>
- <1993Jan25.061353.4583@news.media.mit.edu>
- Sender: news@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu
- Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
- Arizona
- Lines: 24
- In-Reply-To: minsky@media.mit.edu's message of 25 Jan 93 06: 13:53 GMT
-
- diwadkva@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu (Vaibhav A. Diwadkar) writes:
- >>
- >> - On an added note, if evolution is indeed a continuous process,
- >> I wonder why it would give rise to discontinuous phenomenon like
- >> consciousness etc. By discontinuous I mean a case where only
- >> one species has it and noone else on the evolutionary continuum
- >> does.
- >>
-
- The first point is that evolution is actually *not* a continuous
- process, it's a discrete process.
-
- Of course it can often be approximated as a continuous process. But
- then the second point is that it is perfectly possible for continuous
- processes to give rise to discontinuous phenomena. For example, there
- exist systems of partial differential equations having continuous
- coefficients which, when started from a continuous initial condition,
- give rise in finite time to discontinuous "shock fronts".
-
- The mechanism of speciation is capable of amplifying small differences
- into larger differences: this is the main requirement for turning
- continuous initial states into discontinuous final states.
-
- -- Bill
-