Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA00420 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 1 Mar 2000 10:26:18 GMT Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 05:24:40 -0500 From: Robert Logan <logan@physics.utoronto.ca> To: "Robert G. Grimes" <grimes@fcol.com> cc: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya In-Reply-To: <38B70970.900534A2@fcol.com> Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.4.10.10003010519250.6222784-100000@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Robert and list members I do not believe my response to Robert's posting
which is enclosed below ever made it to the list as I never saw it there
my self and I received a message form the postmaster saying it was
undeliverable. If you folks have already seen this my apologies
Hi Robert - I am new to the list and this is my maiden posting so if I do
not follow the netiquette of this group please forgive me. I have been
lurking for about a week and something you said provoked a challenge to
your tacit claim that animals have "consciousness":
> Anyway, this stuff sure continues to break down those folks
> who deny animal "consciousness," etc. Of course, my doggie, Taffy, disproves
I mean no offense to you or to Taffy and I realize that you did surround
consciousness with quotation marks nevertheless I feel the need to argue
against the proposition. The central thesis of a paper I have written
which deals with the origin of language and human consciousness is the
idea that before hominids achieved verbal language their thought was
purely perceptual. It is only with verbal language that our hominid
ancestors became homo sapien sapiens and were capable of conceptual
thought and hence consciousness. One must have the concept of "I" before
one is truly conscious. I go on in my paper The Extended Mind to argue
that:
"The origins of speech and the human mind are shown to have emerged
simultaneously as the bifurcation from percepts to concepts and a
response to the chaos associated with the information overload that
resulted from the increased complexity in hominid life. As our ancestors
developed toolmaking, controlled fire, lived in larger social groups and
engaged in large scale co-ordinated hunting their minds could no longer
cope with the richness of life solely on the basis of their perceptual
sensorium and as a result a new level of order emerged in the form of
conceptualization and speech. Speech arose primarily as a way to control
information and then was used as a tool for communication contrary to
popular beliefs and inherited wisdom. Thought is not silent speech but
rather speech is vocalized thought.
The mechanism that allowed the transition from percept to concept was the
emergence of speech. The words of spoken language are the actual medium
or mechanism by which concepts are expressed or represented. Word are
both metaphors and strange attractors uniting many perceptual experiences
in terms of a single concept. Spoken language and abstract conceptual
thinking emerged together at exactly the same point of time as a
bifurcation from the concrete percept based thinking of pre-lingual
hominids. This transition was the defining moment for the emergence of
the fully human species Homo sapiens sapiens."
The above quote is from the paper:
The Extended Mind: Understanding Language and Thought in Terms of
Complexity and Chaos Theory
This paper can be accessed at
http://physics.utoronto.ca/undergraduate/JPU_200Y/EM_Front_page.html
I would appreciate your reaction to these points and my argument that
Taffy and other "dumb" (as in non-speaking not stupid) animals are not
capable of the kind of consciousness that humans experience becasue of
their lack of speech and hence a system for conceptualizing. For me
language is both a medium of communication and a system of
conceptualization and information processing.
I extend my invitation to react to my position to all members of this
list.
By way of introduction I am a physics prof at the U of Toronto. I have had
the good fortune of working with and collaborating with Marshall McLuhan.
My principle research interests are applying chaos theory to understand
the nature of language including speech, writing, math, science, computing
and the Interent which I consider to be part of an evolutionary chain of
languages. I believe I have developed a model for the evolution of
language which can be found in my book The Fifth Language, 1995, Toronto,
Stoddart. I would be happy to send the first chapter of this book by email
to any member of the list who emails me a request.
I recently read an article by Richard Dawkins in a collection of essays
entitled The Third Culture which reignited my interest in his work on
memes. I have come to the conclusion that language and in particular
speech, writing, math, science, computing and the Internet are the sources
of memes. A science theory is a meme and Thomas Kuhn theory of scientific
revolution is about the creation and propogation of memes. I would love to
explore these ideas with anyone on the list.
Many thanks for your attention if you have read this far in my first
posting. I hope to hear from those whose interest I might have piqued.
I am rather new at the meme game but believe I have something to share
vis-a-vis language, communications and chaos/complexity theory.
Hoping to hear from some of you.
Bob Logan
****************************************************************************
* Robert K. Logan - Assoc. Prof. of Physics - University of Toronto *
* 60 St. George Street - Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7 - Canada *
* e-mail: logan@physics.utoronto.ca *
* phone: (416)978-8632 or 652-2570 or 927-9200 fax: (416)927-7077 *
* Author of: The Fifth Language: Learning a Living in the Computer Age *
* and The Alphabet Effect *
****************************************************************************
On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Robert G. Grimes wrote:
> Very interesting news and here is another URL for an article for those of you
> who don't get the Nature announcements.
>
> http://www.inquizitive.com/SiteList/Words/Words.htm
>
> This synchronicity relationship is probably closely associated with some
> contagious meme function that we may discover (if Richard or Aaron haven't
> already...) soon. Anyway, this stuff sure continues to break down those folks
> who deny animal "consciousness," etc. Of course, my doggie, Taffy, disproves
> that stuff daily for me.
>
> Thanks, Mark, for alerting us...
>
> Cordially,
>
> Bob
>
> "Mark M. Mills" wrote:
>
> > For those interested in primate memetics, there is an interesting AP
> > newstory today titled 'Report: thirsty Monkeys Stone Herder to Death in
> > Kenya.'
> >
> > http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGI4A1PH25C.html
> >
>
> Snipped for brevity
>
>
> --
> Bob Grimes
>
> http://members.aol.com/bob5266/
> http://pages.hotbot.com/edu/bobinjax/
> http://www.phonefree.com/Scripts/cgiParse.exe?sID=28788
> Jacksonville, Florida
> Bob5266@aol.com robert.grimes@excite.com bobinjax@hotbot.com
>
> Bobgrimes@zdnetonebox.com
>
> Man is not in control, but the man who knows he is not in control is more
> in control...
>
> Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore....."
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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