On Tue, 26 Oct 2004, Scott Schultz wrote: > > The difference is qualitative, not quantitative. No other > > animal creates tools to create tools. And the difference > > between a spider's web or a beaver's dam on the one hand and > > the Hoover dam on the other is significant. > > That's an interesting distinction to make, but it's not really any different > than saying that "dinosaurs were the only animals in the eco-system that > grew to such massive size". It's simply the trait that makes us the dominant > species. One might argue that there is a sort of phase transition which occurs when enough computing power is assembled (with appropriate code). In fact, physicists have discussed measuring neural activity in infants in order to look for such a phase change associated with consciousness. Anyway, the point is that sometimes variation in a trait can have enormous non-linear consequences.