Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA04265 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 22 Mar 2000 04:16:44 GMT Message-ID: <38D848D2.57487AE5@fcol.com> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:15:15 -0500 From: "Robert G. Grimes" <grimes@fcol.com> Organization: Grimes & Grimes, Consulting X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: objections to "memes" References: <Pine.SGI.4.10.10003211653230.4742176-100000@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Robert Logan really reminds me of Alan Sokal in his theoretical approach. Popperians
sometimes take "falsifiability" too far as they forget that it is falsifiable only
within the limited construct of the theory. If we say "There is a God" or, as a
contrarian, say "There is no God," neither statement is falsifiable, as we have not
defined the construct within which either statement would be true. But if I say that
within the following theoretical construct, i.e., if there is a God his/her existence
is demonstrable by a simple appeal to God in vocal prayer and it will be answered
immediately to the satisfaction of everyone here, then we know that it is certainly
falsifiable, and I suspect that we will come to the conclusion, within the construct
of our theory, that there is no God. We may also be astounded and come to some
similar conclusions that, since different folks speak in different languages, God
"understands" all languages or, if the response is as we agreed, God senses our
meaning without speaking the language, intuits it, etc. Well, you all know well what
I'm getting at, there is no need at all to have to be able to define the manner in
which a meme resides in the brain (or where ever), if it uses neurotransmitters to
"do its thing," etc., although we all wish that we could prove or disprove such
things. All we have to do is formulate a satisfactory construct, to which "most of
us agree," that serves to predict future behavior after "exposure" to the meme seed,
that is acceptable to most of us in a statistical fashion. Within our construct, if
the meme resided internally, then the aforementioned tests would tend to make us
think that the meme is unique "in situ," but similar (close enough for government
work) in the production of behavioral consequences.
We may decide to use fMRI or PET scans to help us decide if the hippocampus is the
area of the activity after exposure to the meme, or we may find that it occurs in the
frontal lobes, or maybe in the pyramidal cells in the somatosensory cortex, whatever,
we would then modify our theory about "where 'what' occurred."
Robert's use of the terminology is like my own, it is extremely handy as a modality
for prediction when certain things are said to certain people, statistically. When
some of us say that the meme exists only within the brain and that the renditions
without the brain are simply "seeds" (because of the tremendous difference between
the meme and the myriad of different associations with each individual, it does not
mean that we know what is "in the brain," or even that it is there. We do know by
the use of word association tests or thematic apperception tests that each person's
"associative network" is unique and that each person's responses to words or sentence
structures are unique individually because their responses are different (as would be
expected with experiential differences). Similar, perhaps, but different and, in the
case of some memes, I say that the meme internally, in many individuals, is "close
enough for government work." That means , that even though I know their associative
network is unique and their total response individually different, a statistically
large number of them will respond in a similar manner. Not alike, similar - close
enough for government work. But we do know that something internally, whether it be
the "power of the meme" or whether it be simply the result of similar associative
neural constructs, results in subsequent behavior that we recognize and that we agree
is associated with and, apparently, initiated by the original external stimulus,
i.e., the meme seed.
The simple expedient of our reading ideas and then responding to them, statistically,
in a similar manner would appear to demonstrate those associations and stimulated
behaviors which, in similar cultures, will tend to be related. Thus, even if our
words are temporary labels that don't represent the "real" areas, etc., if we can
predict better with our suppositions, all the better.
Well, I'm sure that this is entirely too elemental for most of you but it did me some
good to reiterate those thoughts as it reinforced, again, my personal concepts about
the memetic activity/nomenclature and it may have done the same for you, perhaps
about something entirely different. Only our continued discussion, notes, and
subsequent agreement on terminology and theory would determine if we had made any
progress toward a disciplinary agreement.
Thanks for your patience in the scientific method elementalized...
Cordially,
Bob
-- Bob Grimeshttp://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
Man is not in control, but the man who knows he is not in control is more in control...
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore....."
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