From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Mon 03 Mar 2003 - 12:44:00 GMT
On Sunday, March 2, 2003, at 11:06 PM, memetics-digest wrote:
> This is true as I have stated and utterly inconsequential to memetics
> where
> human brains are properly modeled as black boxes.
But again, the memeinthemind model has not, in any way, verified or
properly explained the validity of the black box.
> If you asked a large number of American boys how many strikes it takes
> to
> get you out in baseball do you have *any* doubt that the vast majority
> (99%
> plus) would answer 3? How much more identical can you get?
I believe there was a donkey called Hans who could answer that question
as well. An elicited standard response is not a unique behavior of
sports-indoctrinated usanian boys. Indeed, behavioral studies of many
species has shown a wide variety of conditioned behaviors.
The startling probability that culture is also an emergent phenomenon
would seem to me to be the more valid model. It does not require some
new and unexplained 'black box' to be inserted within the operations of
the brain, a 'black box' which, in the memeinmind model, has not been
shown, as of yet, to be necessary, although a lot of huffing and
puffing is going on, not to mention hand-waving, to claim it is.
Culture is a behavior. It is also part of the response to an
environment that is unique among humans, filled with varieties of
artifacts that are not part of nature in several ways.
But, of course, I must, as is my wont in furthering the
memeinperformance model, pursue all and any objections to the
memeinthemind model. I am aware I have not convinced too many people,
if any, that the memeinperformance is the valid one, but, to me, it is
the one that survives after Occam's cuts.
I can show you the brain, and I can show you varieties of behaviors
from this brain in a wide range of creatures. You try to tell me
there's some black box inside it that I don't need.
I ain't buyin' it.
- Wade
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