From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Sun May 31 19:04:05 EDT 1992
Article 5901 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo
>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Grounding: Real vs. Virtual (formerly "on meaning")
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <ppyky7j.nagle@netcom.com> <1992May23.141738.14114@news.media.mit.edu> <21813@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <1992May25.202001.7388@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: symbol, analog, Turing Test, robotics
Date: Mon, 25 May 1992 20:20:01 GMT

In article <21813@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>
>When proto-humans were subject to fierce evolutionary pressure to become
>smarter -- and the speed with which our large brain evolved suggests
>that this pressure was fierce [...]

This is a very poor evolutionary inference. These sorts of just-so stories
just aren't borne out by much of the paleontological data.  Evidence is that
when "evolutionary pressure" is put on creatures, they almost always die off,
and their niche is filled by another species better suited to the new 
environment. Check outNiles Eldredge's _Time frames_ or Robert Bakker's
_Dinosaur heresies_ for easily digestible accounts.  Look to Eldredge's
_Macroevoutionary dynamics_ for a more sophisticated description.


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------


