Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Prelude . . . Ant Fugue 187intricate organization that had been so finely built up over decades all went down the drain ina matter of minutes. It was tragic.ACHILLES: Do you mean that all the ants drowned, which obvious would spell the end ofpoor J. S. F.?ANTEATER. Actually, no. The ants managed to survive, every last one them, by crawlingonto various sticks and logs that floated above tl raging torrents. But when the waters recededand left the ants back on their home grounds, there was no organization left. The casdistribution was utterly destroyed, and the ants themselves had r ability to reconstruct whathad once before been such a finely tune organization. They were as helpless as the pieces ofHumpty Dump in putting themselves back together again. I myself tried, like all ti king'shorses and all the king's men, to put poor Fermant together again. I faithfully put out sugarand cheese, hoping against hope that somehow Fermant would reappear . . . (Pulls out ahandkerchief and wipes his eyes.)ACHILLES: How valiant of you! I never knew Anteaters had such bi hearts.ANTEATER: But it was all to no avail. He was gone, beyond reconstitution. However,something very strange then began to take place, over the next few months, the ants that hadbeen components of, S. F. slowly regrouped, and built up a new organization. And thus wasAunt Hillary born.CRAB: Remarkable! Aunt Hillary is composed of the very same ants Fermant was?ANTEATER: Well, originally she was, yes. By now, some of the older an have died, andbeen replaced. But there are still many holdover from the J. S. F.-days.CRAB: And can't you recognize some of J. S. F.'s old traits coming to the fore, from time totime, in Aunt Hillary?ANTEATER: Not a one. They have nothing in common. And there is n reason they should,as I see it. There are, after all, often sever distinct ways to rearrange a group of parts to forma "sum." An Aunt Hillary was just a new "sum" of the old parts. Not more tha the sum, mindyou just that particular kind of sum.TORTOISE: Speaking of sums, I am reminded of number theory, where occasionally, onewill be able to take apart a theorem into its component symbols, rearrange them in a neworder, and come up with a new theorem.