Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA07966 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 28 Feb 2002 06:51:31 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: ality Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 01:46:05 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F161YtpsGqe9cHvKYrY0001079c@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 28 Feb 2002 06:46:05.0498 (UTC) FILETIME=[9851F1A0:01C1C023] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Francesca S. Alcorn" <unicorn@greenepa.net>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: ality
>Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 21:57:31 -0500
>
>>Hi Dace -
>>
>>>Any data storage system ought to have a minimal level of accuracy far
>>>beyond that of human memory.
>>
>>No argument.
>>
>>But, who ever said that memory is a data storage system to bring it into
>>this comparison?
>>
>>- Wade
>
>
>Mightn't it be more a record of lessons learned, rather than actual
>sensory records? Then the learning would be modified, but the
>experiences themselves would be degraded.
>
>Each new experience would be a sort of software upgrade.
>
>
Vernon Lee's introduction to Richard Semon's _Mnemic Psychology_ has got me
ruminating on many things memory related. He uses a web weaving metaphor in
passing which might suffice as a way of looking at memory. He also remarks
that memory (ala engrams) ain't so much about impressions but responses to
which I'd hesitantly add Kant's quote (superior IMO to Wade's categorical
imperative quote) from _Prolegomena_ (1997/1902, trans by Carus, Open Court,
Chicago and LaSalle, Ilinois, p. 82):
(bq) "The understanding does not derive its laws (a priori) from, but
prescribes them to, nature."
Thus, its not so much about us being passive recipients of sense impressions
but about us imposing our laws on nature and this relates to those cognitive
lenses we all wear which could very well influence the way we process and
remember experience.
In _Theoretical Anthropology_ (1967, Scocken Books, New York, p. xxii) David
Bidney says:
(bq) "All human knowledge of nature is a cultural achievement because, as
Kant and Cassirer have demonstrated, man is not the passive recipient of the
data of experience but contributes actively in constructing his own
intelligible world by imposing his own symbolic categories upon the data of
experience." (eq)
BTW Vernon Lee also discusses non other than Bertrand Russell in the context
of mnemic psychology, as if Russell was acquainted with Semon's work (in
_Analysis of Mind_?)
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