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Article 5474 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: brains and information processing
Message-ID: <1992May7.192257.23595@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: 7 May 92 19:22:57 GMT
References: <1992May2.170158.5837@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992May5.201703.17963@psych.toronto.edu> <1992May6.205923.14479@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992May7.164257.17225@psych.toronto.edu>
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Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
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In article <1992May7.164257.17225@psych.toronto.edu> 
christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>
>This sounds pretty teleological to me, but I think you've missed the point.
>The question is why you would characterize information processing as
>the *essential* function of the brain. Even if it is *a* function of
>the brain, why *essential*?
>
  I take it as self-evident that brains have evolved because they
contribute to the survival of organisms.  They contribute to
survival by controlling the actions of muscles and other tissues.
They control tissues by receiving signals from them and from
special sensors, recombining those signals in fabulously intricate
ways, and then sending signals to the tissues.  So the
biological function of brains is to manipulate signals, and
that's what I mean by "processing information."  In contrast,
the function of the liver is to transform chemicals; the function
of the muscles is to generate forces; etc..

  	-- Bill


