Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA04539 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 3 Feb 2000 00:48:15 GMT Message-Id: <200002030046.TAA02735@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 18:50:01 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #119 In-reply-to: <00020211052200.00359@faichney> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Reborn Technology
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #119
Date sent: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 11:02:24 +0000
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> This is cut down so drastically only because I honestly believe what remains
> to be the crux of this issue between Joe and myself.
>
> On Wed, 02 Feb 2000, Joe E. Dees wrote:
> >What is passed via memes is signification - meaning
>
> Sez who?
>
Sez anybody with half a cerebrum who is capable of grokking
meaning. Flatworms are conscious of their surroundings and can
be trained to jump when a signal tells them an electrical shock is
immediately to follow (operant behavioral conditioning); this does
not make them capable of the complex and interwoven
interrelations which comprise culture. Meaning is what happens in
the human brain (that does not happen in computers) between
input and output, because we have an existential stake in our
relationship with our social and physical environment (our bodies
are mortal and vulnerable to them), and our choices decide our
consequences, and we KNOW these things (self-awareness). This
is why those choices MEAN something to us. Animals who are
incapable of self-awareness are also incapable of multiple arbitrary
(english, chinese, urdu) languages rather than single species-
specific instinctual ones, and are incapable of developing multiple
or composite technologies (not to even mention their fusion in text).
If you are satisfied with flatworm memetics, be my guest;
otherwise, you'll have to take humans into account, for the
character of any memetic trajectory (or even its existence) is
dependent upon those engaging in it. You cannot have a path
bereft of either source or goal.
> --
> Robin Faichney
>
>
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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