From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon 09 Dec 2002 - 16:25:17 GMT
>
>Snip:..........Jeremy's rave
> >>All I'm saying is that some societies placed themselves as a part of
>nature
> >>and some societies thought of themselves as above nature; this is
>evident
> >>from their mythscapes. The societies which lived in harmony with nature
> >>evolved into sustainable societies and those that didn't didn't. It is
>only
> >>my memeset which holds sustainability to be evidence of a culture's
> >>evolutionary success.
> >>I hope this explanation has assuaged your confusion Grant.
> >>;~)
> >>Jeremy
> >>
>
>Grant's reply:
> >It does, partially. There is still a structure within us that guides how
>we
> >create our map of the world and it also influences how we structure our
> >sentences and narratives. What we do with it is influenced by culture.
>But
> >symbols are still totally arbitrary and anything can stand for anything
> >else. Why does each culture always seem to come up with the same
>narrative
> >structure as every other. One light in the bell tower can mean that the
> >British are coming by land and two of them can mean that they are coming
>by
> >sea. The Chinese and Japanese hold up the thumb to represent "one" when
> >counting, while we hold up the index finger. These, however, are just
> >individual symbols and not a part of the symbolic system we call
>narrative.
> >
> >The words we utter are laid out in a pattern that involves only a few of
>the
> >sounds of which we are capable and those sounds are strung together in
>much
> >the same way in every language. Every new way we find to communicate
> >mirrors this underlying structure, from the whistling language of the
> >jungles of South America to the dots and dashes of the Morse code. They
>are
> >all a way of encoding spoken language into a different form but retain
>the
> >same basic format. I can't believe that every culture reinvents the same
> >wheel. I suspect that structure comes from before culture.
> >
> >Grant
> >
>As you know Grant, there are probably as much difference between our
>genetic makeup (yours and mine) as there is between either of us and a
>Kalahari Bushman yet the Bushman's culture 'evolved' differently to ours.
>What I am saying is that cultures evolved out of their environments. I also
>suggest that the place of narrative is to guide and constrain culture in
>its replication. The codes that I speak of, and not the cultures
>themselves, are the arbiters of propriety.
>If you tell your children the story, told to you by your parents, of how
>your pioneer ancestors survived sixty days in the wilderness, what are you
>telling them, and why? IMO you are passing on the memes of Callaghanism, ie
>what it is to be a Callighan, what we do when confronted by hardship, how
>tough and resourceful we are, how we stick together, etc. You are
>programming Callighan 'culture' into them in such a way as to constrain
>them into preserving and replicating Callighanism.
>IMO all cultures, right down to the Grand United Chicken-farmers Bridge
>Club have stories which constrain their culture so that it has a reasonable
>chance to replicate in a recognisable way.
>
I can't contest that.
Excuse me. The bridge club is having a meeting now. ;-)
Grant
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