Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA01752 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 17 Feb 2002 23:53:46 GMT X-Originating-IP: [137.110.248.206] From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: ality Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 15:48:13 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <LAW2-F90HhmvOsVc5vU0000f631@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Feb 2002 23:48:13.0201 (UTC) FILETIME=[8FEF8810:01C1B80D] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: ality
>Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 13:25:17 -0800
>
>
> > >So it makes no sense to assume that memories
> > >are contained in the brain. The brain is precisely that aspect of mind
> > >that cannot retain the past. The only other option is to assume that
> > >there's no such thing as memory, that no one actually recalls the past.
> > >Instead the brain, by amazing coincidence, happened to evolve into
> > >an information-storage device, similar to our computers. This view
> > >appears to be driven by memes that exploit our desire to project
> > >ourselves (and our technology) onto nature. No different than the
> > >anthropomorphic meme behind "God."
> >
> > Well, we pull the bits and pieces out of somewhere to recreate what we
> > remember. If not from the brain, where? The bits may not all be stored
> > in the same place within the brain, but even if they're scattered about,
> > it must be within that repository of past experience where we watch
> > dreams and memories flash across the backs of our eyes as if our eyes
> > were seeing them. At least that's how it seems to me.
> >
> > Grant
>
>If memory involves storage of information, it's not memory. To remember
>is to recall the past, not to look up information about it. The concept of
>memory implies that the past is in some way present. If reality is
>reducible
>to matter, then memory is impossible. To accept memory on its own terms,
>we must find a ground of material existence. We must find something that
>*precedes* matter and the space it occupies. That thing can only be
>time. If time is intrinsically real, then it doesn't need matter to exist.
> In
>other words, the past still exists. That it takes up neither space nor
>matter
>has no bearing one way or the other. This is why the mind can perceive the
>past but the eye sees only the present. The mind is made of time, while
>the
>eye is made of atoms. What we call the brain is the moment-to-moment
>spatiomaterial manifestation of the mind. What we call the universe is the
>moment-to-moment spatiomaterial manifestation of time. Time is universal
>life (animation) while life is local time (anima).
>
>It's because organisms are intrinsically temporal beings that their
>activities are habitual rather than automatic. While a machine is
>motivated
>entirely by deterministic processes, a body functions according to
>ingrained
>memory. An organ remembers how to function based on the functioning of
>similar organs before it. An embryo develops properly because it follows
>the developmental pathway established by its predecessors. There's no set
>of instructions or mechanical constraints that guides it automatically on
>its
>route. Organisms are animated, not automated.
>
>Mechanistic ideology eliminates far more than just habit. You can't just
>pull one thread out and expect the remaining fabric to hold itself in
>place.
>Mechanism eliminates time, memory, novelty, self, subject, mind, will,
>freedom, creativity, representation, feeling, quality... in short,
>everything that
>comprises human existence. Is it any wonder that a society that produces
>this lunatic science manufactures fusion bombs by the thousands, destroys
>soil and clean water across continents, plows over whole ecosystems, and
>tampers with the chemistry of our atmosphere? It's as if a vast, inhuman
>evil were out to eradicate us, and we're helplessly disoriented because
>it's
>coming at us from within as well as without.
>
>Of course, the impersonal evil is our own progeny, our cultural offspring,
>the memes that propagate by exploiting our egoistic fear and powerlust.
>
>Memes are the memories that got away.
>
>Ted
>
That's a interesting way of looking at it, but incompatible with the way I
experience it. Labeling things good and evil tells us more about how you
feel about them than it does about the things themselves. Emotions are an
intrinsic prt of our experience, but the way the affect our perceptions are
not universally alike. The same people who say they hate killing are known
to vote for the death penalty. The law says you can't kill people at
random, but it's OK to kill in self defense or to save others. So is
killing good or evil? I'd have to say society makes that decision based on
circumstances and how close they are to the killer or the killed. John
Walker Lind's parents see him as misguided. Michael Spann's parents see
John as one of the evil doers and now they want him killed. Neither side,
in my opinion, is more right or wrong than the other. They are just people
caught up in the consdquences of war.
Grant
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