On 28 February 2014 15:22, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thursday, February 27, 2014 8:03:15 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: > >> On 28 February 2014 03:02, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> In other words, why, in a functionalist/materialist world would we need >>> a breakable program to keep telling us that our hand is not Alien? >>> >>> Or contrariwise, why do you need a breakable programme to tell you that >> it's your hand? >> > > Sure, that too. It doesn't make sense functionally. What difference does > it make 'who' the hand 'belongs' to, as long as it performs as a hand. > It's important for an animal to be able to distinguish self from non-self, as can be seen if two animals are locked in combat - one that can't tell its own limb from its opponent's is just as likely to bite itself as its prey. Repeat that often enough and you have a strong evolutionary pressure to distinguish self from non-self. I would imagine alien hand syndrome is a breakdown of this system. -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
