Re: I know one when I see one

From: Wade Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 31 Oct 2002 - 20:30:11 GMT

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    On Thursday, October 31, 2002, at 12:53 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:

    > But do we know NOTHING of what we are going to do before we do it?
    > This is what the behavior-*only* stance requires.

    Does it? I don't see that it does. I don't see that at all. Of course we know a great deal about what we are _planning_ to do. We might even prepare every square inch of surface we are about to act upon, much like a stuntman will do before a fall. No good driver enters a race without driving, or even walking, the course prior to getting the first flag. Actors block out every step in rehearsal. But, even the best laid plans....

    > If what you say is true, language - as a system that is learned and
    > competence in which is internally retained beween performances -
    > would be an impossibility.

    Hmm. I don't see that as a conclusion the bemetic model demands, either. But, are you saying that this internal retention is, by definition, memetic? Why do you call a spade a shovel? We know language is a human possibility.

    There is nothing in the bemetic model which denies memory or learned and retained skills. Nothing.

    But, there is also nothing in the bemetic model that wants to call memory or retained skills anything else, or compand them into another structure called 'meme-ory' or anything else.

    My point about spoonerisms was that, if one could perform with perfect utility all that one developed in thought inside one's head, (which I do see as a demand of your model- that we think and then manifest, in toto), then no-one would make an unintentional mistake.

    And even if your model allows for error in manifestation, it still demands this intact 'res' inside a brain and some improbable means of getting it into another. And I still fail to see any reason to put it there, or try to get it out and into something else.

    - Wade

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