Re: Central questions of memetics

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Tue May 16 2000 - 04:33:42 BST

  • Next message: Lawrence H. de Bivort: "Re: Central questions of memetics" 

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Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics
Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 23:33:42 -0400
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    Chuck Palson made this comment not too long ago --

    >a brain has to register the bat as part of a game
    >if the bat is a bat; otherwise it could be a generic club.

    But is that really the order? Or is the game itself the first thought,
    and the tool to perform it an emergent quality of the game itself?

    When we think of getting a ball _over there_, don't we first see the ball
    flying away from us, and then think about how it could get there?

    Or, do we see first see a bat and wonder what it could be for?

    Personally, I think one forms a bat out of the need for a bat, and the
    need for a bat is the emergent cultural force, (yes, "an abstraction of
    the aggregate behavior of a group of individuals....") produced by
    wanting to play ball.

    - Wade

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