Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA27732 (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 19:21:39 +0100 Message-ID: <391AB494.5E9C7246@mediaone.net> Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:24:36 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? References: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJGEMKEMAA.richard@brodietech.com> 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
Richard Brodie wrote:
> Chuck wrote:
>
> <<Nevertheless, religion enters where we cannot go. They can say that god
> created the
> normal curve and controls what will go where on it, and, of course, we can't
> disprove that - or prove it. Three cheers for religion.>>
>
> Religion is not about what is true. Religion is about what beliefs are
> likely to yield a desirable life.
>
"True?" -- in what sense. I would say that religious beliefs are very true in
the sense that they result in the formation of groups that successfully exploit
the environment and therefore survive. If you mean by true the hacknied notion
that God does not exist, I don't think you have noticed what religion actually
does.
"Desirable"?? What a word. Sufficiently vague to include a lot. So according to
my definition of desirable, I will agree with you. Something is really desirable
that leads to survival. Religions have come and gone, and you find that those
that don't answer to the very real need to encode and encourage the kinds of
laws that make cooperation possible disappear pretty fast. See Karen Armstrong's
"The History of God" that shows how Christianity morphed into different
religions as the times demanded. You may not agree with the kind of cooperation
the Catholic church codified, but you can't argue with a 2000 year success
story. Nor can you argue with the fact that the story may be coming to an end
because it finds it very difficult to codify new laws that are more appropriate
to modern conditions.
>
> Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Chuck Palson
> Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 2:36 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa?
>
> Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > 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 can see where this kind of reasoning is going, and it could get to the
> atomic
> level and merge memetics with physics. Think of it: Is Sherlock a memeticist
> or a
> meme himself? Well, it's hard to say, but the prevailing theory is that all
> memeticists are really just a general form of meme creating other memes. Are
> there
> memes within memes within memes.. etc etc. etc.? The inevitable answer will
> be
> always, Yes, Yes, Yes! And THEN, at a deep atomic level, memetics will
> indeed be a
> science of sciences that provides the unified field theory for all
> existence. We
> will at that point figure out the most urgent of all questions facing
> memetics: how
> many memes fit on the head of a pin!
>
> >
> > 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.)
>
> Actually, from a statistical point of view, you can't say that one event has
> X
> probability of happening because you couldn't no the characteristics of the
> relevant universe.
>
> Nevertheless, religion enters where we cannot go. They can say that god
> created the
> normal curve and controls what will go where on it, and, of course, we can't
> disprove that - or prove it. Three cheers for religion.
>
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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