Re: I know one when I see one

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon 28 Oct 2002 - 19:35:26 GMT

  • Next message: Van oost Kenneth: "Re: I know one when I see one"

    > > From: joedees@bellsouth.net
    > >
    > > Yep; 'selfishness' is a badly chosen and anthropomorphic metaphor,
    > > not a concrete actuality.
    >
    > A perfect example of how memes can do our thinking for us. This is
    > Cartesian dualism, which restricts qualities such as intelligence,
    > feeling, selfishness, etc., to human beings and relegates the rest of
    > nature (including our own bodies) to blind, mechanical operations. To
    > find intelligence or selfishness in, say, bacteria or genes is
    > therefore to be anthropomorphic. Descartes picked up this meme from
    > Aquinas. God knows where he got it.
    >
    Selfishness cannot exist in the absence of self-consciousness, for one must be conscious of one's self in order to be self-ish. Bacteria, viruses and genes do not possess the prerequisite complexity to allow the emergence of a self-conscious awareness necessary for selfishness. Instead, some of us fallaciously anthropomorphize the replicating products of blind evolutionary processes.
    >
    > Ted
    >
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
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    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >

    =============================================================== 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

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