Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA28942 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 19 Nov 2001 17:55:09 GMT Message-ID: <3BF9466B.1050508@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 17:50:35 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011019 Netscape6/6.2 X-Accept-Language: en-gb To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Study shows brain can learn without really trying References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D133@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Habit, in nature, is based upon the accumulation of adaptive
> behaviours over time. Corals on the Great Barrier Reef all release eggs and
> sperm at the same time within a 3-4 day period at the same time each year-
> millions and millions of coral all within the same period of time, clear
> evidence of the millions of years corals have been evolving, and the
> adaptive benefits of doing this at the same time as other corals so your
> eggs don't all get eaten. Do corals have memories, or are they merely
> following an encoded programme in their neural tissue (I don't even know if
> corals have brains, so to speak) itself a product of evolution?
And at the risk off nicking your ball and running far too far with it; I
have no problem with the idea that 'lower' animals can have classically
evolved, hard-wired 'memes' (but then I abuse that term horribly because
I can't think of a more appropriate one). ICU is the term for going
'Squawk!' when you see a predator (not to alert mates - that would be
true altruism, of which there is none in the world - it's to let the
*predator* know that *you've* seen it [I see you] so please attack
someone else - entirely selfish, like flocking, but I digress) - that is
a complex behavioural response to a very complex stimulus - what is the
difference whether this is hard wired or learned (apart from timescale
and some minor system details)?
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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