Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA24906 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:42:12 +0100 Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:36:16 -0400 Subject: Re: Thoughts and Perceptions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <3CBF63C9.AB18ED36@pacbell.net> Message-Id: <D7221820-5335-11D6-AEB0-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.481) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thursday, April 18, 2002, at 08:24 , Bill Spight wrote:
> Or do you think that
> there are true memes? If so, what?
Well, perhaps, but, who cares? As a standee upon the memes are behavior
side of the fence, all memes are true inherently by virtue of having
been performed....
And if one is on the memes as artifact side, artifacts which have strong
representational truth are true, truth being a correspondence sort in
this instance, although, as with behavior, its very existence is a truth.
If one, however, is dedicated to memes as brain/mind items, then, who
cares? Since when does a brain/mind need truth to work?
If one thinks that memes are beliefs, then, one has to decide whether
any belief can be true. (Personally, I view all beliefs as false, but,
that's me.)
In other words, I don't think truth is a necessary quality for a meme to
have, in any of its infestations.
Truth may indeed be material in some aspects of some informational
propagation- in science, in particular, since falsehoods are only
historical curiosities in science- but, in other realms, falsehood is a
necessary and sufficient condition for continuance, as in any theistic
religion.
Now, being strict, there is no such thing as a false fact, and thus no
need for true facts.
- Wade
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 19 2002 - 02:53:43 BST