Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA09011 (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 15:37:16 +0100 Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 07:35:12 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Technology vs. culture To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3923FFA0.9F7BE009@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en]C-PBI-NC404 (Win95; I) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: ja,en References: <20000518113212.AAA26584%camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.100]> <3923AC5C.4E46EDF@mediaone.net> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Chuck,
> We have, for example, a set of
> beliefs about how the world works that we call intuitive physics. Cultures
> automatically conform to these beliefs for obvious reasons.
Yes and no.
> That is, we
> don't build bridges with the belief that gravity doesn't exist. And we
> don't have cultural beliefs that defy these beliefs because they would not
> be workable. Sometimes we have blind spots becasue all systems are
> compromises. But the system as a whole has so far worked reasonably for
> perhaps a million years -- or we wouldn't still exist.
Intuitive physics is only a starting point. We are not born
tabulae rasae. But learning builds on intuitive physics and
replaces it. For instance, part of intuitive physics is the idea
that an object falls straight down. If you have a young enough
child run by a series of boxes and try to drop a ball in each
box, the child releases the ball over the box. OC, the momentum
of the run means that the balls miss the boxes. But the child
learns to adjust for that momentum. She does *not* continue to
utilize intuitive physics for that task. By the time we are
talking about modern bridges, intuitive physics has been left far
behind.
Best,
Bill
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