RE: MD The SOL fallacy was the intelligence fallacy (was Rhetoric)

From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Thu Nov 03 2005 - 13:54:20 GMT

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    [Ian]
    Not really following this thread, but my eye was caught by "fractal bacteria
    colony".
    First off let me just say I'm a bit sceptical about calling this
    "intelligence", but that's more a matter of the ongoing debate of what we
    mean by the word "intelligence".
    [Case]
    I think the overall point I was trying to make is that whatever intelligence
    is, it manifests itself in fairly continuous ways across species, beginning
    with one celled organisms. This is not simply a matter of intellegence
    evolving over time. It is here today.

    [Ian]
    That said, it may nevertheless be a clue as to how intelligence can arise.
    We need to keep in mind he the distinction between Pirsig's "individual
    amoeba" and the "bacteria colony" in this example ...
    [Case]
    The structure does not arise as a result of the organisms having a meeting
    and deciding what to do. It is the result of each member responding to the
    environment around it. As others get near and become part of the environment
    they influence each other. Again this happens to each member of the colony
    on a purely biochemical level. I believe there have been studies done on
    similar phenomona involving the shapes taken by birds in flight and fish
    schooling. These are examples of static patterns emerging dynamically and
    chaotically from the natural environment. This can be seen to occur in a
    purely mathematical way in the Game of Life:
    http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
    http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

    [Ian]
    The "information" to create the pattern must exist in the individuals, but
    the explanation for creation of the pattern must lie in the interactions in
    the whole colony. The pattern in the colony is on a different level to any
    pattern of information in any individual. This is very close to Hofstadter's
    Ant Colony (or population of China) explanation of potential consciousness.
    Though with what looks like relatively immobile bacteria multiplying across
    a 2 dimensional agar dish surface, there must be several orders less
    interactions possible, than in an active 3D ant colony.
    [Case]
    Hmmm, not sure about that having the information of the whole pattern exist
    in each individual. That would be more of a holographic representation. It
    has been suggested that memory (temporal buffering) may work this way. I
    suspect this is more primative than that and can be modeled with fairly
    simple equations. While each individual is part of the pattern each member
    would be interchangable with each other member. Their would be no
    specialization as would be found in an ant colony. I am not familiar with
    what Hofstadter had to say about ant colonies but I have read a bit of
    Wilson and insects are his primary field of study.

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