Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA10397 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 4 Mar 2000 19:20:47 GMT Message-Id: <200003041921.OAA20485@mail1.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 13:22:45 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya In-reply-to: <B0000501034@htcompmail.htcomp.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya
Date sent: Sat, 4 Mar 00 10:41:35 -0000
From: "Mark M. Mills" <mmills@htcomp.net>
To: "Memetics List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Joe,
>
> >... My position is in many ways a
> >synthesis of Lynch and Gatherer, as I do not see how memes can
> >fulfill their evolutionary and multiplicative functions without both
> >components (within and between) of the single memetic coin.
>
> I doubt the Lynch and Gatherer definitions blend very well.
>
They do not blend, they complement. Each provides what the
other does not. Neither alone can do the job.
>
> We probably all agree that there are 'behaviors' and 'neural foundations'
> for behaviors. It seems unnecessarily confusing to claim both are a
> meme. Gatherer defines meme as the behavior itself. Lynch defines the
> meme as the neural foundation. Both are fairly straight forward and both
> have their own logic, their own model. Determining which model provides
> the most utility seems similar to deciding between Copernican and
> Ptolemaic celestial models. I don't think one can blend Copernican and
> Ptolemy.
>
You are absolutely wrong about this. Without both internal and
external components, memesis quite simply cannot occur. If you
disagree, please enlighten all and sundry as to exactly how
evolution can take place in the absence of either mutation or
selection, or of environmental niches.
>
> >Our conscious awareness is the most concrete of all things we
> >experience, as it is that which contains and makes possible both
> >our experience....
>
> The notion that consciousness 'contains' anything or is a 'thing' is at
> best literary and metaphorical. Scientifically, consciousness contains
> nothing, it has no volume, nor physical boundaries.
>
Phenomenologically, scientific measurement is posterior to and
depends upon perception.
>
> Since Aristophanes lampooned Socrates in 'The Clouds,' we have a
> continuous literary record of debate over how to value conscious
> awareness. The scientific revolution is all about ignoring the illusion
> that metaphorical elements of conscious awareness are 'real' until one
> can replicate experimental results independently. The scientist says
> 'lets adapt our metaphorical models to conform with empirical results of
> experimentation.'
>
And exactly how do those results register, and to who? The
observer cannot be left out of the equation; just ask Heisenberg.
The perspectiveless "god's eye view" is a constructed illusion
having no real referent.
>
> Sure, your 'conscious awareness' is the most concrete of your own
> personal experiental sensations, but it is scientifically the most
> difficult to independently qualify. It is a weak foundation for
> scientific work.
>
If we could not be consciously aware of either experimentation or
results, there could be no science whatsoever; conscious
awareness is the ur-requirement for any such to proceed.
>
> >As to it being, unlike behavior,
> >untestable, if you don't like the cutting-edge cognitive mapping
> >being currently done by those in the forefront of the psychological
> >establishment via PET and fMRI, here's a simple one. Ask a
> >sample population to do something easy for a million dollars, then
> >remove their brains and ask for the same behavior again. I
> >guarantee that the scientifically measurable response will be rather
> >dampened in the second case.
>
> The images recorded by PET and fMRI are behavioral records. A PET scan
> image and a photo of a smile both represent behavioral records. They are
> not records of 'consciousness.' Additionally, almost all mammals display
> the same PET scan artifacts as humans. If PET scan artifacts represent
> consciousness, almost all mammals would be conscious.
>
They do NOT register the same positron emissive differentiations to
semantically differentiated phenomena. Prove me wrong. Show
just ONE peer-reviewed and accepted study that concludes
differently. As to calling the scanning of such differentiations an
observation of behavior, I do not think even the behaviorists would
agree with you. Consciousness is a subjective experience (since it
happens to subjects), but it emerges from the material substrate of
the brain, and differences in the brain correlate with differences in
the consciousness emergent from it. Penrose actually stimulated
neurons of patients and caused them to experience particular
sensations, which could be repeated by stimulation to the same
area. The functioning of self-comscious awareness looks different
depending upon whether your perspective is one of introspectively
witnessing yourself, observing the behavior of another, or watching
on a screen as a person in a PET scan silently thinks of certain
words and seeing repeatably particular areas, which seem to be
common to most subjects, light up as the tracing glucose is
burned to be used for the energy required of increased usage,
releasing the tracer positrons in the process.
>
> As to the experiment proposed, consider performing it with 3
> participants: one dead with brain removed, one dead, brain removed, with
> concealed mechanical arms capable of producing a naturalistic smile
> operated by a man listening to in. The third is a normal, alert
> individual. Put each in an isolation unit and ask them 'Please smile.'
> Test subject #1 (dead, no brain) fails to react. Test subject #2 smiles.
> Test subject #3 smiles.
>
> Using the Gatherer definition, subject #2 and #3 produced identical
> 'smile' memes. Being alive had nothing to do with presence of the meme.
>
Yes it does; the dead person in #2 is being manipulated by a living
other. We are not even talking homunculus here, we are talking
about the behavior of a living person using the body of a dead other
as a tool. Perhaps we could even stick a mike in the cadaver's
mouth so that your alive other can speak through him. It makes no
difference; the behavior is of a living other with a fully present and
working brain.
>
> Using the Lynch definition, only subject #3 displayed evidence of the
> smile meme,since it was the only one with neural tissue capable of
> producing the smile behavior. If there was a meme involved with subject
> #2, it exists in the brain of the operator.
>
The behavior in either case is different; in one case, the living
person smiles, and in the other case, the living person manipulates
a smile upon the face of a corpse he controls. The memes are
different, too; a "smile" meme would of necessity be different from
a "make corpse X smile" meme. Your analogy breaks down upon
sustained perusal, just as sustained perusal would have to discover
the mechanical controls, used in case #2.
>
> I find the Lynch definition the most useful model for evaluation the
> above experimental results.
>
Actually, as I remarked above, both the behavior and the ideas are
different, so both definitions can distinguish if observation is
performed carefully enough.
>
> >If memes just lived
> >within minds they could not replicate,...
>
> As I mentioned in my previous post, the Lynch meme is replicated by a
> feedback process involving action and observation.
>
Which is exactly where the Gatherer definition enters in.
>
>Isomorphism is of
> meme replication is measured at the level of behavioral conformity to
> standards and ability to play role in various Markoff chains of
> replicated behavior. It is not measured at the level of neural
> specifics. Many neural configurations can produce identical behaviors,
> just as many unique DNA sequences can produce identical proteins.
>
The manner in which each mind holds the same meme is different
since the environmental niche it can occupy in differing cognitive
gestalts will differ, but each human body is also different, so that
somatic instantiations of memes in behavior will also differ. In each
case, however, they will be similar enough to each other to be
recognizably members of the same class (either the idea of running
painting a PET screen, or the act of running on a track, for
instance).
>
> Mark
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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