Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA26364 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 14:35:15 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:07:45 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <20000511113233.AAA12683@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.168]> Message-Id: <00051114201204.00619@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Wade T.Smith wrote:
>Robin Faichney made this comment not too long ago --
>
>>Personally, I think all those who insist on the improbability of things being
>>as they are, are pushing a disguised creationist, or at least vitalist,
>>agenda.
>
>Ain't nothin' personal about it, really. As that great memeticist,
>Sherlock Holmes, was recorded to remark, 'Once you've eliminated the
>impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth', to which
>I attempted to allude previously.
I think Sherlock is better described as a great meme, than a great memeticist.
But in any case, the improbability alluded to there is surely subjective.
I guess I have to come clean here and admit I've always had a problem
understanding the concept of objective (im)probability. To my mind, if we
really knew all the factors involved, then whatever happened was the only thing
that possibly could have happened. I realise this is somewhat Newtonian, but
then that is still the default in the macro realm, is it not? And on this
basis, im/probability is all about ignorance -- an event seems more or less
likely GIVEN what we know, and what we don't know, about it and its precursors.
So to say that anything that actually happened was improbable is, strictly
speaking, meaningless. Or rather it tells us about our own ignorance, and
nothing else. Which is why I think people who say such things must have some
underlying agenda, and as to what that is: why say something is highly
improbable, unless you're trying to imply there's something "special" about it?
(And the Newtonian nature of this doesn't get you off the hook unless there is
something explicitly non-Newtonian in your thinking.)
-- 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
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