Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA13847 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:02:41 GMT Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.0.20020220021533.00a51880@mail.clarityconnect.com> X-Sender: rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 02:55:11 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Ray Recchia <rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com> Subject: Re: ality In-Reply-To: <001b01c1b9ca$3be6d340$2d86b2d1@teddace> References: <B8986660.15D%srdrew_1@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
This is a complete waste of time but what the heck
All right Ted
>From: Scott Chase
>
>
> > > >> Grant,
> > > >>
> > > >> This is getting very complicated. Far simpler if memories aren't
> > > >> stored anywhere but emerge from the act of recollection. Instead of
> > > >> attributing an artificial memory system to the brain, we should be
> > > >> searching for the basis of natural memory, that is, the recall of
>what
> > > >> was once present.
Yes. It would be simpler if the world were just created out of thin air by
God 10,000 years ago too.
Here's a big problem with this. If in fact memory is some sort of time
travel then it shouldn't be possible for people for to be mistaken about
the past. Since they are actually using time travel their recall should be
perfect. In fact mistakes in recall match the model currently proposed by
cognitive scientists which is that memories are not so much recalled as
reconstructed. Instead of keeping an exact picture in our heads we
remember the properties of an event and then piece those properties back
together.
Of course since you have invented your place where the mind exists outside
the brain I have little doubt that you can similarly invent properties for
this place that explain these problems away.
> > > >
> > > > Recall it from where?
> > >
> > > You mean, from when.
> > >
> > > Memory concerns time, not space. Otherwise it's not really memory but
> > > merely the storage and retrieval of information. In our memetically
> > > ingrained, mechanistic worldview, true memory is a thing of the past.
> > > Artificial memory is just that-- artifice.
You are creating your own definition and then insisting that reality match
it. You have absolutely no valid reason for insisting that information
storage and memory must be different.
> >
> > Not tht I've had my nose in the literature enough lately to give it a fair
> > whirl (use it or lose it), but one is tempted to wonder wheter Ted has
>been
> > reading any stuff on the molecular research of memory.
>
>As I pointed out to Keith, who claims we now have a "fairly good idea" of
>memory in sea slugs, the only theory we have is what sea slug *brains* are
>up to when the slugs themselves remember things.
>
>Neuroscientists study the brain and imagine they're studying the mind. No
>different than biochemists who study DNA and think they're perusing the
>secrets of living form. Studying brains produces theories of brains, not
>memory or any other property of mind. No theory of the brain can constitute
>a theory of memory. By definition, memory is the re-presenting of
>experiences now past. The brain, by contrast, is a physical object,
>composed entirely of particles and the physical principles behind their
>behavior. Neither the past nor its representation is to be found among
>these particles and laws. If memory is isolated to the brain, it ceases to
>be memory and becomes data. If we ever found the long-sought "memory
>traces," they would become mirages the moment we came to them. We seek to
>comprehend memory the same way we study an insect, by killing it. But
>memory refuses to get pinned to a wall.
>
>You brain doesn't recollect any more than it experiences. It's an organ on
>top of a stick walled in by skull and skin. It's not you. It doesn't know
>you and doesn't experience or remember your life. It helps *you* experience
>and remember and live.
>
>I do know how to read, by the way. Enough to know that any mechanistic
>theory of memory must get beyond severe obstacles, such as the ability of
>memories to reappear in a different neural region following brain damage and
>the continual disconnecting and reconnecting of neurons that ought to be
>forming static storage receptacles.
Your theory has even larger obstacles. You have yet come with explanation
as to how the neurons in a person's head connect to the 'mind' and allow
for your 'connection to time'. 'The brain facilitates memory' you are so
fond of saying. Well how does that work? How do the neurons in the brain
perform that function? You have offered nothing on this.
> > Sounds quite "material" and "mechanical" to me.
>
>Well, naturally. When you look for mechanical matter, that's what you find.
>
>Ted
>
I'm going to be blunt. I wish you would quit wasting our time here. Your
real interest in not in memes but in 'morphic fields'. Your definition of
memes requires acceptance of those ideas and acceptance of those ideas
requires a different understanding of physics and cognition than are
commonly accepted. No one should base any serious memetic analysis on your
ideas until those ideas are accepted in physics and cognitive science. Go
convince some of those folks and then maybe people interested in memetics
should start listening to you.
Don't think that you have made any converts. No one here accepts your ideas
and after a while people just give up trying to argue with you.
Ray Recchia
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