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To: gore3000
Thank you so much for your post!

Whereas I readily agree with you that the process is accomplished by the information comprising its formulation - I also am amazed that the process itself is able to symbolize information at the genetic level.

For instance, data can be acquired through a physical process - such as sensing a body. But to operate on that information conditionally requires symbolizing, e.g. "If the body [acquired data] is Doe [symbol] then..."

And of course that implies learning, databasing.

Fascinating...

1,204 posted on 12/07/2002 10:57:55 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
For instance, data can be acquired through a physical process - such as sensing a body. But to operate on that information conditionally requires symbolizing, e.g. "If the body [acquired data] is Doe [symbol] then..."

Yes, I think Plato was correct in his concept of the idea. Clearly we use symbols in order to function. We cannot fit in our brains all the things we see in a single day so we must somehow abstract and symbolize that information in order to make it useful. We do not need to see every car to know a car when we see one. We clearly do not check our 'database' of cars to see if what we are seeing is in the 'car' section of the database. We just recognize that it is a car because it fits the concept we consider car.

Another example would be when a wife changes her hair color and hairstyle. The husband (and most people) will still recognize her right off even though she does not look exactly as she did the last time he saw her. We are not checking in other words the concordance of every single bit we saw the last time, we are just making a comparison to some significant data which we ourselves are not even completely aware of what it is. Not only that, husbands being husbands, will often not even notice the change in hairstyle and hair color!

1,218 posted on 12/07/2002 8:38:23 PM PST by gore3000
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