Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA13893 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 16 Mar 2002 04:34:34 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Cultural traits and vulnerability to memes Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:28:38 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F192ouEJLD62g2Af0Gh0000276f@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Mar 2002 04:28:38.0921 (UTC) FILETIME=[0B962790:01C1CCA3] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: Re: Cultural traits and vulnerability to memes
>Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 17:49:18 -0800
>
> > >This was actually Descartes' insight, not Einstein's. Descartes
>invented
> > >the graph bearing three axes, one for each physical dimension. Then he
> > >realized time would simply be the fourth axis. In fact, the
>spatialization
> > >of time goes deeper still, right to the core of the human intellect.
> > >Julian Jaynes discusses this in *The Origin of Consciousness in the
> > >Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.* We think of everything spatially,
> > >even time. That's because the intellect operates visually, and you
>can't
> > >visualize time. You can only visualize it in terms of clock-faces or
> > >calendars, etc. Vision is inherently spatial. That's the basic
>problem.
> > >That's why we try to make time into a kind of space. We don't like
> > >mystery; we prefer certainty. Time is the very essence of mystery.
> > >Without time, all would be perfectly transparent to the rational
>intellect.
> > >
> > >Ted
> > >
> >
> > You've probably read my theory on dimensions in earlier posts. They are
> > merely ways of dividing up an unidivded universe within our minds in an
> > attempt to understand what our senses are reporting to us. Time is not
>a
> > mystery, it's a measurement of motion.
>
>And where do we find this motion? Is it a property of space? All the
>space in the universe can't make motion. Take away time, and everything
>freezes.
>Time isn't just the measurement of motion. It's what motion is made of.
>
>Mystery is a product of time, which is why positivistic science wants to
>eliminate it. >
I thought mystery is a product of writers like Agatha Christie and Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. Why would science, positivistic or some such, want to
eliminate that? Mysteries are made to be solved or at least a good attempt
at solution made.
>
>That the future is fundamentally different from the past means there are
>things we don't know, things that can't ever be dug up.
>
And yet the future *will* probably be fundamentally the same as the past
*was* in other respects. Yes we can't foresee the future, but we might
predict some features of it. This prediction business sometimes falls flat,
as with that show Space:1999. Where's Moon Base Alpha?
Some experiments have results that a repeatable. Historical processes
generate results that can be quite unique and thus study becomes more
difficult and prediction falls by the wayside. I think this is what they
call the difference between nomothetic and idiographic science.
>
> > Time is relative because all measurements are taken from the point of
> > view of the measurer and no two measurers can occupy the same point in
> > the universe at the same time.
>
>You're assuming the existence of time here. If it were an illusion, there
>would be no such thing as "at the same time." Past, present, and future
>would collapse into a fourth dimension of space. The "present" would then
>be arbitrary, and "past" and "future" would be symmetrical.
>
>
I'm really starting to wonder where in the world this digression is leading.
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