Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA06829 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:28:19 GMT Message-Id: <200003122226.RAA05006@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 16:30:16 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re:Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya In-reply-to: <000c01bf8c5b$dba06de0$1111bed4@default> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
To: "memetics" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re:Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya
Date sent: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 20:46:45 +0100
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> To Joe Dees,but all members are of course welcome to give comment.
>
> Thanks for yours respons.I don't have the need to join the extropy
> list,though,I like it here.My respons was only an answer to a question raised by
> Richard Brodie.My conception was and is only a mind game_it may be sound
> silly but it is something I like to do for myself.
> But of course,that is no answer to your reply!
> I like,if you wish,to take the game further,just to see what the outcome is,or
> could be!?
>
> You wrote,
>
> <This would lead,if taken to its logical consequences,to the absurd situation where
> the memes could no longer evolve because no further elaborations could fit inside
> our brains.>
>
> Ok,I do agree,that could be one scenario,but I have here another one.
>
> Memes,the ideas we have,have in some future so far outgrowed our brains and
> cognitive oploading is also no more possible that memes can't be no more be con-
> tained by their own container.Memes have now so much feedback,so much more
> knowledge,so far more chance to survive than the 50% which Popperian beings
> have,that the quantity of the right info memes than possess completely exclude
> the outside world and its irregularities in which they strived.
>
> The world in which the memes than live,lets say a conscient memepool,is a si-
> mulation_a copy of the world in which they once lived but without the unexpec-
> ted physical hazzards of a humanoid body.
> That is_forgetting,collective suicide plans,illness,murder,...are then physical not
> existing concepts,but the memes which advocate those things live on.
> But,in some manner is the info about the world in which they can find expression
> so detailed that the memes, " self-conscient " as they are then,' know ' to what they are capable of.
>
> That is,the meme,let's say for example,the suicide-meme is so strong,so full of
> its own " negative nature ",so inbedded with all possible consequences of all
> possible suicides for all the possible reasons they know,that the struggle which
> the meme leads to carry itself out,that is to commit suicide,is one she cannot
> win.
>
> That is,the meme will gyrate itself in its negative nature as long as she finds her-
> self in herself_that is she must understand that her existing,her whole " Sein ",
> depends on her own negative nature_her negative nature is her " Ding an Sich."
> The meme becomes here (a) conscient (being)_memes aren't inflicted to transform
> their own internal strives and actions (suicide/murder/...) into deeds:-they have
> become ' thinkers ' on their own!!
>
> Of course,you will say that's not possible and I would presumebly
> answer that is what memes want us to believe,but either way it is to simple.
> If we wish to take the concept of memetics seriously,and I do believe me,and
> we think the idea to its full extreme,then there is for me only one plausible out-
> come_if memes will propagate themselves through any means possible like R.
> Brodie suggests,they will find a way,some how,to something a I mentioned as
> above.If memes are likely to be what I think they are,at least,will become,then
> they will propagate themselves,vary and thus evolve outside our brains.
>
> What's beyond that I do not know,something analogous to what astro-physics
> call " quantumfoam" perhaps!?
> But,this could also a lucky guess,isn't it!?
> Have fun!!
>
Speculative fiction is a good and entertaining thing, and the source
of many trenchant insights. However, your scenario of a "self-
conscious meme" utopia residing in a "Matrix" movie-esque
simulation built for no apparent reason by no beneficiary in
particular, segue-ing into some sort of quantum foam "bank" (which
as an unchanging characterizing condition of physical spacetime
lacks both the substrative structuration and the capacity to evolve
necessary to furnish a memetic environment) is better suited for a
short story anthology or the sci-fi channel than as a serious
suggestion. It has become a meme for people to attribute anything
for which they lack understanding to "quantum" phenomena; the
term has replaced the term "god" as a facile nonreason for the
nouveau nonreligious credulous and gullible, and the younger set
has lately attempted relate the admittedly engrossing movie "The
Matrix" to practically everything under the sun (the movie allegory
itself has become a pervasive although logically self-contradictory
meme - the scientific underpinnings don't jive, particularly the whole
"coppertop" business and the paranormal ability to see through
terrabytes of streaming code into the perceptual panoramas they
digitally purport to represent). There are still people on this list
stubbornly and self-contradictorally insisting that WE, who are
discussing all this (and discussing our own natures in the process)
have not evolutionarily emerged into self-conscious awareness;
now you want to postulate that memes themselves will? Why not
say that genes will evolve into such a self-conscious status as
well, while you're at it, and rebel against the bodies which contain
them? That idea, like yours, should be amenable to the creation
of a pretty fair sci-fi short story, although it would hardly furnish
fodder for a novel. I find this fantasy mildly entertaining, but entirely
nonserious.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
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