Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!grian!steve
From: steve@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Steve Mitchell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Flocking behaviour, collective systems, reasoning
Message-ID: <1990Nov5.210103.8022@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us>
Date: 5 Nov 90 21:01:03 GMT
References: <1990Nov2.124853.22806@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Organization: College Park Software, Altadena, CA
Lines: 28

mccool@dgp.toronto.edu (Michael McCool) writes:

>kpc00@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (kpc) writes:

>> 2  birds have these desires or analogues or homologues of these
>>    desires

>I have used the word _want_ for lack of a better term; substitute tropism.

Just to inject a bit of natural history into this discussion, for
several years I lived with an English (house) sparrow.  In my
extensive observations of her I was forced to the conclusion that she
did indeed "want" various things.  As an example, I kept a variety of
treat foods on hand.  These included lettuce, jerusalem artichoke,
cashew nuts, steamed rice, etc.  When she wanted one of these things
she would fly to the room I was in, give a particular call, and fly
back to her usual feeding station.  I would go there, and start naming
the various treat foods currently on hand.  When I got to the one she
wanted, she'd start wiping her beak on her perch, staring at me, and
wiping her beak.  I would then get what she wanted and feed it to her.
On occasion when I brought something she had not selected, she would
reject it and go back to the staring-and-beak-wiping routine.  She
knew what she wanted!
-- 
		-  Steve Mitchell	steve@cps.altadena.ca.us
					grian!steve@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov
					ames!elroy!grian!steve
"God is licht, an in him there is nae mirkness ava." -- 1 John 1:5