Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA14409 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:43:04 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 15:47:00 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Logic + universal evolution Message-ID: <3B7401F4.29588.1201585@localhost> In-reply-to: <004a01c121cb$97351280$da86b2d1@teddace> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 10 Aug 2001, at 11:38, Dace wrote:
> From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>
> > > To my knowledge Wilson has never responded to Sheldrake's thesis
> > > that termite mounds are governed by morphic fields, with the
> > > termites occupying a similar role to cells within animal bodies.
> > > Wilson has never responded to this suggestion because he has no
> > > alternative. It's just up in the air. He doesn't like the field
> > > explanation, but he can't offer anything better.
> > >
> > > Here's a quote from The Social Insects (1971):
> > >
> > > "It is all but impossible to conceive how one colony member can
> > > oversee more than a minute fraction of the work or envision in its
> > > entirety the plan of such a finished product. Some of these nests
> > > require many worker lifetimes to complete, and each new addition
> > > must somehow be brought into a proper relaitonship with the
> > > previous parts.
> > > The existence of such nests leads inevitably to the conclusion
> > > that
> > > the workers interact in a very orderly and predictable manner.
> > > But how can the workers communicate so effictively over such long
> > > period time? Also, who has the blueprint of the nest?"
> > >
> > > It's just like in the body. There seems to be no reason why
> > > everything works the way it does. We just assume there must be a
> > > control mechanism somewhere in there, which is based on a
> > > blueprint of some kind. So where are the chromosomes of termite
> > > mounds? And if termite mounds don't need a design of some kind
> > > buried deep within it, then how can we simply *assume* that the
> > > body requires any such thing?
> > > The regular forms of these mounds is a perplexing question for
> > > which
> > > there's no answer outside of field theory, whether the static,
> > > mathematical idealism of Goodwin or the evolutionary, memory-based
> > > model of Sheldrake.
> > >
> > Simple rules can have complex consequences. The apparently
> > choreographed movements of schools of fish or flocks of birds are
> > explained by each individual bird's tendency to keep its neighbor
> > within X and Y distance of itself;
>
> Obviously. The question is how the birds manage to maintain the right
> distance, particularly when the whole flock turns on a dime. Either
> the brain is running an incredbly elaborate motion program or the
> flock is a morphic field in which the birds are "particles." While
> the latter possibility might strike you as being "weird," the former
> possibility would require neural computing processes unimaginably more
> powerful and rapid than anything humans have ever devised.
>
No, just rapid reaction time, and the reaction times of birds, like
their heartbeats, are a lot faster than ours, crerating the illusion
that they are all changing direction at the same time when actually
there is a small reaction time involved.
>
> > the building of beaver dams is
> > explained by the rule that branches and mud are to be moved
> > towards the sound of running water. I'm sure that there is a
> > similar rule or small group of rules, probably connected with
> > pheromonic chemical marking, that will suffice to explain termite
> > mound construction.
>
> But of course.
>
> > > Ted
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 10 2001 - 22:06:35 BST