Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA02547 (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 23:28:05 +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 18:21:47 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F2058Oh1pMuBeZVo2d3000032fd@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Apr 2002 22:21:48.0092 (UTC) FILETIME=[C6062FC0:01C1DF4B] 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 14:56:16 -0400
>
>
>On Monday, April 8, 2002, at 02:22 , Scott Chase wrote:
>
>>How can someone make "pure" unfiltered observations when we are
>>beset and preset by biases from the sense organs upward to our
>>conceptual categories?
>
>Of course, we cannot make omni-spectral observations, but we can
>make 'unmemetic' observations, and do.
>
That would be at the conceptual level and memes aside I would still hold
that some sort of conceptualization precedes observation. To observe one
needs an idea of what to focus upon. Prior learning could even *enhance*
one's ability to make critical observations. This is again at the level of
thought processes, but I was also focusing on the level of sensation where
genetic influences help shape our receptors and what they are tuned into.
There's a set of expectations or presuppositions involved in sensation of
what the world is like. These "theories" if you will have been tested over
many generations, sort of a conjecture/refutation process *sensu* Karl
Popper, but he explains things much better. On page 72 of _Objective
Knowledge_* he says (emphasized strongly in italics BTW): "...there is no
sense organ in which anticipatory theories are not genetically
incorporated."
You may have gotten confused by my shift of focus from the level of
*thought* to the level of *sensation*. I was trying to assert that
theory-ladeness of observation applies at both levels, which *if* true
pretty much obliterates an overly empiricist approach, though not quite
embracing the antipodes of hyperationalism, idealism or solipsism.
>
>I fail to see your point here, or see that we are in any state
>of disagreement.
>
>
Maybe not but thought-free observation could be a minor sticking point.
There could be "unconscious" material floating around in your noggin that
may influence observation too. How perfect or unfiltered would observation
be then?
*-my previous quote of Popper in a recent post was from page 259 not page
59; keyboard's not co-operating today ;-)
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