> >between things that survive by being parational, and those
> >that survive because their doing so does not conflict
> >with any law of nature? (The implication of the second
> >question being, of course, that parationality, if it reduces
> >to "in accordance with the laws of nature", doesn't add
> >anything to our understanding.)
>
> I think it is a difference of levels of description. All of
> biology is "in accordance with the laws of nature" yet it
> adds to our understanding above and beyond physics. (Right?)
>
> At the logical level I'm thinking of things that somehow
> embody information about the external word (internal patterns
> that represent external patterns), and use that information
> to make choices to further their endogenously defined goals.
>
Agreed, biology goes further than physics. And information
processing, as a concept, offers insights too. But what does
parationality offer us that biology, info processing, memetics,
etc, do not?
I guess my conclusion (for now) is that info processing
covers the same ground as parationality, and does it
better.
Robin