On 24/01/2008, Robert Wensman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes, but no one has ever argued that a flier is a stateless machine. It > seems like their argument ignores the concept of internal state. If they > went through all this trouble just to prove that the brain of the flies has > an internal state, it seems they wasted a lot of time on something trivial. > > I cannot see how the concept of "free will" has got anything to do with > this.
I don't think anyone with knowledge of insect nervous systems would argue that they're stateless machines. Even simple invertebrates such as slugs can exhibit classical condition effects which means that at least some minimal state is retained. To me the idea of free will suggests that a number of possible behaviors can be triggered at any moment in time and that the system in some way "chooses" between those possibilities. The system can only move easily from one state to another if its dynamics are perched on an edge between pure randomness and determinism. If any one behavior is too strong an attractor then the system overall may become dysfunctional. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=89406705-085fd7
