On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 04:59:05PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 24 Mar 2013, at 22:50, Russell Standish wrote: > > >This is true, however real randomness is aavailable, through the very > >first person ineterminancy phenomenon you mention below, and evolution > >doesn't care, it will exploit whatever is at hand. > > That does not entail evolution will generate wheels, or quantum > brains, or comp-brains (brains exploiting the first person > indeterminacy).
I'm not sure where the examples of wheels in evolution comes from, but I believe there are several examples - tumbleweed being the most prominent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems lists quite a few examples. I think you may be referring to wheel and axle analogues, which is much more difficult, engineering-wise, for which the only know example appears to be the flagellum. As for exploitation of quantum superpositions, it now appears that photosynthesis is an example. More examples may be found. > > That kind of randomness can be used. I don't criticize this. Only > the use of "genuine randomness". > My point is just that free-will, creativity, consciousness does not > need such genuine indeterminacy. We don't need "ontological or > primitive indeterminacy", the one coming from inside (or from self- > reference and self-induction) is enough. We seem to agree, thus. > The FPI is used by "nature", but only with respect of the relative > measure on the consistent histories/computations. > > > > > >But for a simple animal, trying to flee a predator - think > >fish fleeing a shark, for instance - their brains may not be > >sufficiently complex to generate the sort of complex behaviour > >required to outwit the predatit. In which case, evolution will exploit > >the genuine randomness available in the environment. > > Well, the animals will survive on the branch where they make the > right decision, but I think that their brain will use simple > Turing-like complexity, not the FPI, unless they are quantum > computers, or the equivalent comp-computers, which I doubt. It is > conceivable; > As for exploitation of quantum random processes by the brain, that theory makes two specific predictions: 1) a source of quantum randomness must be found - the stochastic thermal behaviour of the synapse fits the bill there, and 2) the system must be able to amplify small perturbations into whole-system changes, ie we must necessarily see the signature of chaotic processes in the brain. Note that our most complex machine avoid chaos like the plague. Nyquist noise is suppressed at each component or wire. When this stuff was looked into (when Chaos theory was young and trendy), that was exactly what was found - brains are wired for chaos. See Walter Freeman, Sci Amer, vol 264, 78-85 (1991). I happen to think this observation is significant. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
