From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri 01 Nov 2002 - 23:26:40 GMT
>
> On Friday, November 1, 2002, at 05:49 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > With the difference that, in the case of mental memes, we are able
> > to observe their effects, and are unable to logically, rationally or
> > reasonably attribute them to any other possible causes.
>
> That still sounds like apologia to me- theists tell us the effects of
> their god is everywhere around us, in the very fact we are here.
>
But we are able to rationally attribute such effects to other causes; such
is not the case with multiple performances of similar meaningful actions.
>
> You
> claim the same thing, only your god is the memeinthemind, whose
> supposed effects, you say, are self-evident, and yet, you give up
> nothing of the actual cause but conjecture based upon an
> interpretation of some effects.
>
Actually, tweaking specific neurons causes specific actions. Read your
Penrose. Then check out the PET scan and fMRI studies. They're
getting very specific. The presence of certain actions or perceptions or
conscious modalities such as memory or imagination are always
accompanied by specific activations of differing neuronal circuits.
>
> And where is this inability to
> attribute cultural behavior to anything other than a memeinthemind?
> There are reasonable, logical, and rational explanations that have no
> need of a meme, just as there are rational explanations for the
> universe that have no need of gods, and yet these explanations look at
> the same effects.
>
Neither you nor anyone else has provided one.
>
> Your memeinthemind model is an interpretation, with sketchy (and
> itself interpreted) evidence, from fledgling observations of brains at
> function. We have a long way to go before we can recognize causes in
> the brain, much less find discrete operatives in a mind.
>
In several cases, we have already pretty much done so. Different areas
of the brain light up not only between reading and viewing art, but
between reading poetry and reading prose. Bone up on the research
before you dismiss that of which you are uninformed.
>
> - 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 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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