Re: There is never pure perception or pure action

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Sun 03 Nov 2002 - 04:44:23 GMT

  • Next message: Wade T.Smith: "Re: electric meme bombs"

    On Saturday, November 2, 2002, at 05:41 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:

    > it is ideation itself which you reject

    I assume you're talking to me.

    But, no, no, and no, ideation I do not reject. The self I do not reject. Both sides of the coin I do not reject.

    And I can't begin to see why you think I do. At first, I thought you were disturbed to the point of fixation about the word 'behavior', in that I thought you thought this had some conspiratorial connection with behaviorism, but, I had hoped I'd shown you that was an erroneous reading.

    And then, I thought you were using your own model to criticize mine- and I used the example of someone who would condemn a painting because the canvas was only used on one side. I still think your criticism of the pemetic model is misaligned in this fashion- since the pemetic model is one that _does not_ have memes in the mind, it is specious to use a model that _does_ to criticize one that doesn't.

    And then, I asked you if anyone else in cognitive theory (since your memesinthemind conjecture is dependent upon a deep understanding of cognition) had any use for a meme. No answer yet on that one.

    But, again, and again, and again, and yet again, the pemetic model does
    _not_ use memes in the mind. Instead (instead!), it locates the meme, the unit of cultural transmission, in performance.

    And performance is a product of the individual human (body, mind, self), and of the observing humans (bodies, minds, selves), and of the cultural environment (things, places, times). All coins, all sides. I can't explain it much better at this point, but I hope you see that the things
    _you say_ I am denying, I am _not_ denying.

    And, in many and perhaps all ways, your subject line answers Kenneth's question about creativity.

    > Action and perception both proceed from the interface between self and
    > world

    Actions are part of all life, movement, (if not all matter in the universe propelled by the first instant). Perceptions are part of all life, even the simplest, since bacteria sense chemically. Self is, however, only a result of the way the human mind works (as your own definition so brilliantly explains).

    - 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 2.1.5 : Sun 03 Nov 2002 - 04:48:32 GMT