Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA10960 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 24 Mar 2000 09:10:56 GMT Message-ID: <A4400389479FD3118C9400508B0FF230040BD7@DELTA.newhouse.akzonobel.nl> From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: objections to "memes" Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 10:07:38 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Richard:
No one is talking about explaining memetics at a neurobiological level.
Derek:
Maybe not you or I, but quite a lot of people have pretensions in this
direction, or at least claim that they will be eventually vindicated by
neurobiology.
Richard:
If
you collapse "internal" memetics with operational explanations at the
neurobiological level you miss entirely what people are excited about. The
idea is that the contents of people's minds affects their behavior.
Derek:
Of course, but what's new about that? Isn't that just folk psychology?
Surely some of the most interesting aspects of human behaviour are those
where people act against rationality, against their own better judgement,
and so on.
Richard:
If you
refuse to examine the contents of people's minds because you don't have an
instrument that does it with precision, you miss out on the heart of
memetics.
Derek:
Surely the 'heart' of any science, the beauty of any science is the way that
patterns emerge from data, and the more unsuspected the pattern the greater
the feeling of discovery? And that requires precision of measurement. I
think we're probably looking for heart in different places.
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