Abstract

“Alan Turing’s work on morphogenesis (see below) explored how micro-interactions in physicochemical structures might account for global transformations from a fertilized egg to an animal or plant, within a single organism.

I’ll outline a rudimentary theory of “meta-morphogenesis” that aims to show how, over generations, interactions between changing environments, changing animal morphology, and previously evolved information-processing capabilities might combine to produce increasingly complex forms of “informed control”, initially just control of physical behaviour, then later also informed control of information-processing. This potentially explains philosophically puzzling features of animal (including human) minds, including the existence of “qualia”. It is also related to the transformation of empirical knowledge into a “generative” or “deductive” form, a process labelled “Representational Redescription” by Annette Karmiloff-Smith[*]. I suspect that such processes provide the foundation for human mathematical competences.”

Admission free to CUCaTS members, £2 otherwise. Membership may also be bought at the door. As usual refreshments will be served 15 minutes before the start of the talk.