Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA02126 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 8 Apr 2002 19:28:50 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #1011 Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 14:22:40 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F287GIUUJlNK9W1IpMK00004752@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Apr 2002 18:22:40.0788 (UTC) FILETIME=[5E5D5540:01C1DF2A] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: Wade Smith <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #1011
>Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 13:47:55 -0400
>
>
>On Monday, April 8, 2002, at 12:43 , Scott Chase wrote:
>
>>Kant's assertion that we impose our own laws upon nature
>
>Man is the measure of all things. But, what is being _measured_
>can be _observed_ without these laws.
>
>(I think all this piffle about observational filters stems from
>the measuring tools, not the perceptions.)
>
>Observation is a multifold process, and, condemning it to
>filters at all times is, IMHO, wrong.
>
>The creative process requires observation, and preconceptions,
>and it also requires being outside of these.
>
>I prefer to separate the processes of observation, behavior, and
>intention, as well as never denying the problems inherent in
>_all_ perceptive mechanisms.
>
>I ain't a blank slater, and I don't hold any buckets. I'm not
>even possessed of a socio-biologic bias. I'm a skeptic. Make
>your point, I'll share its argument, until something better
>comes along.
>
>(Admittedly, at the moment, I think sociobiology makes better points.)
>
>
What part of the electromagnetic spectrum can you see? Compare this to a bee
or some pollinator. When you look at a flower are you see the same
attributes of the flower that the bee does? Even our senses (or the sense
organs themselves) have preset biases based on a theory of the world tuned
by a long running process of evolution via selection. Can you hear the same
range of sounds as a dog? Can you smell everything a dog does?
Even before we form our first words, which will serve as conceptually
categorical filters themselves, we are being tuned with innate biasings.
Then the things we inherit socially, like language, customs, belief systems
etc... add different sets of biases. How can someone make "pure" unfiltered
observations when we are beset and preset by biases from the sense organs
upward to our conceptual categories?
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