Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA08293 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 18 May 2000 14:30:58 +0100 Message-ID: <3923AAE1.E1C2FFAA@mediaone.net> Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 09:33:38 +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: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB1A8@inchna.stir.ac.uk> 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
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> Thanks for the response, you don't answer my question about the process of
> cultural change.
>
> See my points elsewhere on this list regarding suicide cults as 'failures'.
>
> Sorry, more questions for you-
>
> You say acts require beliefs. How do animals 'act' when, as far as we know,
> they don't have beliefs? I suppose what I'm aksing is what do you mean by
> 'act'?
I would think you are asking what do I mean by belief because that's the
important question. What is human belief? Pinker makes the good point that most
of our mental processes don't have a linguistic expression; it's only when it
gets into immediate memory - what we often call consciousness - that most of can
access beliefs in linguistic form. I can say to myself, "I believe that God
might punish me today if I don't go to church" or "My boss will fire me if I am
late one more time." And we can write in books about our beliefs for everyone to
see. But does that mean that beliefs need language and humans are the only ones
who can have beliefs? Pinker says we have to put this "mentalese," as he calls
it, into words to discuss the processes publically, but that is only a
convention.
So, what ARE beliefs? Aren't they really just a strong disposition to act under
certain circumstances? The difference with humans is perhaps only that we can
plan into the future more, so we use language to communicate complex planning to
others who may have to know our plans.
There are experiments that show quite definitively that at the moment they feel
they have made a conscious choice based on their beliefs, brain senseing
technology indicates that the decision has been already been made up to 1 second
previously -- a long time in terms of how fast nerve impulses travel -- in the
lymbic system. I would have to say that animals must have some kind of belief
structure; it's just basic to any life that must rely on complex learning --
which many animals must have.
>
>
> You use the term 'economic consequences', but what do you mean by this?
>
First "economic." It should be a term that emerges from evolutionary theory, not
modern economic theory. The economy of a group is by this way of thinking is all
the exchanges of goods and services. That includes all the favors, the
"insurance" we give each other in the form of "you do this for very big thing
for me, and I will be there for any catastrophe for you, even if it's more than
the approximate value it now has for me," the barter, etc. etc. Much of the
economy of a group is never registered in the official paper economy if the
group has such. That is the only evolutionary definition of economy that makes
sense.
So, can you see from this how anything you do will have economic consequences?
Your beliefs will have direct economic consequences because it will determine
how you act in various economic transactions.
I understand that this definition is difficult because it's not as neat as any
traditional definition. But the problem with the traditional definitions is that
if you can't put an immediate number on it, it simply doesn't exist. With my
evolutionary definition (which, by the way, some anthropologists thought of and
worked with a bit many years ago) you don't have the luxury of leaving any of
the economy out for narrow purposes. Instead, you have to figure out some
creative ways to study it that don't necessarily involve precise numbers of all
transactions.
>
> Vincent
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