Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Science explaining the battle of sexes?

R. Dawkins takes notice of the comment made in a scientific paper written by  Schuster and Sigmund:

Briefly, then, we can draw two conclusions: (a) that the battle of sexes has much in common with predation; and (b) that the behavior of lovers is oscillating like the moon, and unpredictable as the weather. Of course, people didn't need differential equations to notice this before.
Schuster and Sigmund (1981), Coyness, philandering and stable strategies, in Animal Behavior, 29, 186-92. Quoted by R. Dawkins in the note of p. 153 in his 30th anniversary paperback edition of The Selfish Gene.




Monday, November 28, 2011

Self-reference, once again, once again

Another comment, this time from the biologist Richard Dawkins, that shows that importance of self-reference:

"Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself."
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Chapter 4, The gene machine.

See this post and this one on self-reference. See also the last line of G. Chaitin quoted in this post.