Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA07183 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Feb 2002 19:16:07 GMT Message-ID: <00a301c1b8b7$e3289c60$5e2ffea9@oemcomputer> From: "Philip Jonkers" <philipjonkers@prodigy.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <ECF260DF-248C-11D6-88A5-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Words and memes: criteria for acceptance of new belief or meme Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 11:07:25 -0900 Organization: Prodigy Internet Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Richard:
> > Wade, for instance,
> > has supreme faith in empiricism and is unwilling to consider models that
> > lack empirical testability. I would guess he is happy with his faith
> > and the
> > results it produces in his life.
Wade:
> Indeed....
>
> Nice to know.
>
> However, I'm more than willing to consider all sorts of things. As a
> result, I haven't settled upon any faith that produces results in my
> life. Then again, I really don't think there are any models (qua models)
> that can't be tested empirically. Supernatural things don't model.
Oh yes there are, string theorists do it all the time!
In general you can model (a theoretical process)
some phenonemon, be it natural or unnatural, supernatural, until you drop.
One has all the liberty one
has to use their fantasy in any which way to create and formulate their
model. Religion, cults
and other pathological idealogies are founded on
fantasy. But it's ultimately experiment that decides whether or not a model
is plausible or tenable.
Philip.
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