The Evolution

The Evolution

7

The simplest way to see what this means in practice is to imagine
a world in which there are insects that are either red or green, and
either long or short. Now if it conveniently turned out that all
those insects which were red were edible, and all those green were
not, then an animal trying to decide which to eat would be able to
make up its mind knowing color alone. Shape would be irrelevant.

But what if it turned out that those which were red and long
were edible, while those which were red and short were not, and in
addition that those which were green and short were edible, while
those which were green and long were not? Obviously, consulting
shape or color alone would tell memory nothing about edibility.
Instead memory would have to make use of the procedure outlined
above. Memory would have to combine color with shape in order to
establish new entities capable of forming links distinct from the
links of their parts. Thus, four new entities or wholes would be
established in memory: "red-long" and "green-short" (each linked
to the concept edible), and "red-short" and "green-long" (each linked
to the concept inedible).

This procedure is, of course, exactly how memory operates. Thus
the strongest associations that emanate from the concept "cross" are
religious associations. Once it is joined with the concept "red"
forming "red cross," however, new associations emerge, in this case
medical associations, while at the same time the former religious
associations disappear. In other words, when "red" and "cross" are

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