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To: Junior
When computers start having little baby computers (the pitter-pat of tiny keyboards ...) then you'll have an analogy.

Oh, I have an analogy NOW. You simply don't agree that it is one, and, so, are reduced to setting arbitrary conditions as to what constitutes a viable analogy. Fortunately, you are not the arbiter of these things.

P.S. Reproduction (i.e. the pitter-pat of tiny ...) is simply an automated production process where the intelligence needed to drive the process is encoded in the product.

185 posted on 01/29/2002 7:23:08 AM PST by Quester
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To: Quester
There is such a thing as a bad analogy.

From a web page on logical fallacies:

Bad Analogy:

Claiming that two situations are highly similar, when they aren't. For example, "The solar system reminds me of an atom, with planets orbiting the sun like electrons orbiting the nucleus. We know that electrons can jump from orbit to orbit; so we must look to ancient records for sightings of planets jumping from orbit to orbit also."

Or, "Minds, like rivers, can be broad. The broader the river, the shallower it is. Therefore, the broader the mind, the shallower it is."

Comparing man-made machines with animals is definitely a bad analogy.

187 posted on 01/29/2002 7:42:05 AM PST by Gladwin
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To: Quester
P.S. Reproduction (i.e. the pitter-pat of tiny ...) is simply an automated production process where the intelligence needed to drive the process is encoded in the product.

The computers in question are built from scratch by a third party. Organisms are not built from scratch but rather come from earlier organisms (their parents). No third party is involved. Your analogy would be correct if every time two people wanted to have a baby they went down to the baby factory and picked one out from a catalog.

188 posted on 01/29/2002 8:03:45 AM PST by Junior
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