From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Sun 03 Nov 2002 - 20:29:18 GMT
On Sunday, November 3, 2002, at 03:03 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> I recognize that self-conscious awareness is a special emergent quality
> born of a quantity/complexity quotient, and, though quite common on
> planet Earth (although still comprising only a miniscule percentage of
> the life forms here), is exceedingly rare in the universe at large as
> far as
> we know. It grants us freedom of choice and some degree of
> imaginative awareness of the consequences of our choices, and allows
> us to view our interrelations with each other and with the ecosystem we
> share, and develop sets of rights and responsibilities to allow for both
> our own perpetuation and the perpetuation of our environment (and
> these are intimately connected).
One of the reasons I get up in the morning (besides the promise of
coffee, the insistent bladder pressure and the sun in my eyes), is to
read things like this from Joe, which I immediately store in my own
little head and own getting fuller hard drive. And not one mention of a
meme in all of the above.
Self-conscious awareness answers a lot of the questions about why we do
things. Genetically predisposed behaviors answer lots of others.
Somewhere, though, there is something else around us and behind us,
pushing us forward, or even pulling us back.
Culture is the best word for it I know. But, since it is around and
behind all of us, is it not outside us? And if it is outside us, is not
its quantum unit (the meme) outside of us as well?
These are the axioms of the pemetic model.
- Wade
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