Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,bionet.neuroscience,comp.ai.philosophy
From: ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver Sparrow)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!demon!chatham.demon.co.uk!ohgs
Subject: RE: Turtles all the way down?
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Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 15:47:56 +0000
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.cognitive:5291 comp.ai.philosophy:20825

A reductionist would say that a turtle is elementary particles all the
way up. A biologist, by contrast, would probably prefer the quote the way 
that it is written: that to understand the system, you have to understand its 
high level functionality and, at best, the dynamics which this imposes meets 
the substrate related stuff half way a hierarchy of ordering. An evolutionary 
dynamicists (if such a job title exists) would be concerned with the involute 
complexity which led this actual hunk of matter to be where it is at this 
particular moment, seeking the most parsimonious solution and falling closer to 
the biologist that the reductionist. More "Turtles is where it's at, right now, 
man, but all is flux; like, wow, man. Deep."

_________________________________________________

  Oliver Sparrow
  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk
