If symbols systems are discrete, how would human evolution have produced a useful symbol system?

The Physical Symbol System hypothesis is that human intelligence implements a natural form of a symbolic logic.

But if symbols systems are discrete, how would human evolution have produced a useful symbol system?



The classic claim against evolution is that many organs or biological components have no partial fitness value, such as the eye, (e.g. what good is half an eye?).

The argument is such that species adapt by the accrual of beneficial mutations, and eyes and some other features of biology represent Irreducible complexity, and that evolution does not evolve whole eyes.

It is said that Evolution cannot explain these phenomena, therefore evolution is false.

Richards Dawkins goes to great lengths to elucidate the underlying mechanism and blows this claim out of the water in fine style. However it reaffirms the incremental and continuous nature of evolution.

However formal systems and symbol systems incorporate the idea of Irreducible complexity in their very definition.

The notion of a discrete, positive and reliable systems in nature is antithetical to one of the most powerful theories in science.


Notes: Am revising for an AI exam, so am just rehashing some of my thoughts while reading the notes.


----****----