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* Please note this talk is on a TUESDAY at 5:30PM, unlike most other talks we have held. *
Alan Turing's work on morphogenesis (see below) explored how micro-interactions
in physicochemical structures might account for global transformations from a
fertilized egg to an animal or plant, within a single organism.
I'll outline a rudimentary theory of "meta-morphogenesis" that aims to show how,
over generations, interactions between changing environments, changing animal
morphology, and previously evolved information-processing capabilities might
combine to produce increasingly complex forms of "informed control", initially
just control of physical behaviour, then later also informed control of
information-processing. This potentially explains philosophically puzzling
features of animal (including human) minds, including the existence of "qualia".
It is also related to the transformation of empirical knowledge into a "generative"
or "deductive" form, a process labelled "Representational Redescription" by Annette
Karmiloff-Smith[*]. I suspect that such processes provide the foundation for human
mathematical competences.
Meta-Morphogenesis: Evolution of mechanisms for producing minds * Please note this talk is on a TUESDAY at 5:30PM, unlike most other talks we have held. *
Alan Turing's work on morphogenesis (see below) explored how micro-interactions
in physicochemical structures might account for global transformations from a
fertilized egg to an animal or plant, within a single organism.
I'll outline a rudimentary theory of "meta-morphogenesis" that aims to show how,
over generations, interactions between changing environments, changing animal
morphology, and previously evolved information-processing capabilities might
combine to produce increasingly complex forms of "informed control", initially
just control of physical behaviour, then later also informed control of
information-processing. This potentially explains philosophically puzzling
features of animal (including human) minds, including the existence of "qualia".
It is also related to the transformation of empirical knowledge into a "generative"
or "deductive" form, a process labelled "Representational Redescription" by Annette
Karmiloff-Smith[*]. I suspect that such processes provide the foundation for human
mathematical competences.
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