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Article 2275 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Scaled up slug brains
Message-ID: <12788@pitt.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 91 15:14:00 GMT
References: <45031@mimsy.umd.edu> <330@tdatirv.UUCP> <45102@mimsy.umd.edu>
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Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
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In article <45102@mimsy.umd.edu> harwood@umiacs.umd.edu (David Harwood) writes:
>	Virii? Do they have nervous systems?
No, viruses do not have nervous systems.  Neither do primitive
one celled or even multicellular organisms.

>anatomical and physiological variation. Chimps may be 99+% like us,
>but their brains do not have specialized language-processing areas,
>and do not show related, major lateralization of function. A variation of

Chimps do have major lateralization of function, as do most higher mammals.
One of our biologists here is an expert on that.  He has studied it 
extensively in voles (a rodent).  There are species of voles that are
very lateralized and some that are not.  Both types live here in
Pennsylvania.  As it turns out, the main distinguishing feature between
the two species are that the lateralized ones are very territorial.
His theory is that the lateralization occurred to provide specialization
of spatial functions.  It just so happens that the right hemisphere is
the one that does that in humans.  So I guess language just by
default ended up in the left hemisphere where it had more "growing
room".  Obviously things weren't that simple, but it's interesting
to think about.  At any rate, lateralization is not a recent development
keyed to language.



-- 
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
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