Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA00748 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 17 May 2000 15:10:08 +0100 Message-ID: <392143F1.781A67EC@mediaone.net> Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 13:49:53 +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: Central questions of memetics References: <20000516033342.AAA1116@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.182]> 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
"Wade T.Smith" wrote:
> 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?
The brain has modules that constantly inform itself of context. That's how we
are usually pretty sure of which meaning of a word is being used. I should
add that there are people who have a great deal of difficulty with knowing
the context of events. I know a person like that, and I have to be very
patient. So if I see a bat lying on the street, my mind automatically
supplies some context. MOST of the time its correct, but sometimes there is
no way to choose definitely among alternatives. That's why I have repeated a
few times on this site that memes cannot be studied in isolation - they are
always part of a context.
>
>
> 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?
>
I don't know - what kind of ball. Is it at a baseball game? Is it just some
ball you suddenly see flying out of nowhere?
>
> Or, do we see first see a bat and wonder what it could be for?
>
Most of these commonly used objects don't involve any such wondering. The
shape of a baseball bat is quite distinctive. You would have to perceive that
FIRST, but the rest is a no brainer. The wondering comes in with ambiguous
objects - say a 6' 1x1 in the street. I'm sure there are other contexts for
wondering, but certainly not a baseball bat.
>
> 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.
>
I don't know how this is related to the rest of what you say. Need? It seems
to me that you just know in this culture about a baseball bat because it's a
popular sport and the object is well known.
>
> - Wade
>
> ===============================================================
> 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 archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 17 2000 - 16:08:47 BST