Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA13358 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 5 Mar 2000 20:56:26 GMT Message-Id: <200003052054.PAA29751@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 14:58:26 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: new line: what's the point? In-reply-to: <00030515230703.00439@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: new line: what's the point?
Date sent: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 15:19:00 +0000
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> On Sun, 05 Mar 2000, Joe E. Dees wrote:
> >From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
> >Organization: Reborn Technology
> >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >Subject: Re: new line: what's the point?
> >Date sent: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 05:13:14 +0000
> >Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >
> >> On Fri, 03 Mar 2000, Joe E. Dees wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>...do you or don't you deny the possibility of
> >> >> mechanistic memetic explanations?
> >> >>
> >> >Not if it involves the excision of meaning (semantics), intention or
> >> >selfawareness, but I do not believe it does.
> >>
> >> You have said that meme selection occurs only via conscious choice. Do you
> >> think that is compatable with mechanistic memetic explanation?
> >>
> >I believe that there can be accidentally or inadvertantly
> >communicated (on either or both the transmission and the
> >reception end) memes, but the very distinction exists only given
> >the prior existence of conscious choice, with which the accidental
> >and inadvertant can be compared and contrasted. Most memes,
> >and especially successfully selected ones, are transmitted and
> >attended to by choice, because to choose to transmit and/or
> >receive them is believed to hold some positive value for the
> >transmitter/receiver, or to choose to forbear from such memetic
> >transmission/reception is believed to hold some negative value for
> >the transmitter/receiver, or both.
>
> Please answer the question: is your story compatable with mechanistic memetic
> explanation, or not?
>
Not if the brain is not a machine, and it is not in the sense of
being a tv, clock, radio or computer. The complex electrochemical
processes happening there are not atomizable while preserving the
emergent properties resulting from the interrelation of the
components. WE are not mere machines, at least not like any we
have been able to build, for none of the machines we have built
seem to know or care that they exist, they don't want to do
anything on their own, and nothing means anything to them.
Blackmore is wrong about labelling us meme machines.
Look Robin, let's take a relatively simple (yeah, right!) meme,
"bell". Well, we put someone under a PET scan with the sugar
juice in their veins and say, "think of a bell", and part of their brain
lights up the screen. Then we say, "read this word" and show
them the word "bell", and a similar but differentiable part of their
brain lights up. Then we say, "imagine seeing a bell", or "imagine
hearing a bell", or "remember the last bell you saw or heard", or
"say the word 'bell' ", or "draw me a bell" , or "imagine picking up a
bell", and each time a simialr but differentiable portion of the brain
lights up. Some components are shared, some are not, and this
isn't even getting into the issue of the microcoding within these
macro areas, and ALL of them (and a myriad of others I haven't
even mentioned) are part and parcel of the meme "bell". This isn't
levers and pulleys and j-k flip flops, Robin, this consciousness for
which the brain serves as a physical substrate is a dancing
tapestry woven (and self-weaving) like a dynamic fishbasket that
picks its fish, not only changing in response to experience but also
selecting the subsequent experiences it will have on the basis of
the past ones, and moving at the speed of thought. THAT the
meme "bell" is internally encoded is without doubt; HOW it is
coded is a horse of a different choler, which would have to be
teased out of every one of the six billion people on this planet
individually, because we are NOT stamped from common molds
and blueprints like mass-produced machines.
>
> As a corollary, or even a prequel, you might consider whether all conscious
> activity is accompanied by corresponding neural activity. I'm sure you'll see
> the relevance.
>
Not only is it, but we can consciously top-down control our neural
activity (see Roger Sperry); we can choose to "change our minds".
The same prayer would have a different meaning and occupy a
different cognitive niche for a person before and after they converted
to atheism from theism, or vice-versa. The "corresponding" neural
activity will NOT be the same, as the same request from computer
memory for a printout of the stored prayer will proceed through the
same channels each time. Your implied "material therefore
machine" analogy is bad reductionism, ignoring necessary
components of the picture, one of which is human becoming.
> --
> 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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