Re: Dnosaurs and Cultures

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu 06 Mar 2003 - 04:07:31 GMT

  • Next message: Grant Callaghan: "Re: Dnosaurs and Cultures"

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    > >From: joedees@bellsouth.net
    > >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > >Subject: Dnosaurs and Cultures
    > >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 21:41:24 -0600
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    > >Just because you cannot find all the bones of a dinosaur species does
    > >not mean that it did not walk the earth; you just may not be able to
    > >say exactly how with apodictic certainty. And just because you
    > >cannot completely decipher a dead culture does not mean that it did
    > >not once flourish. It also does not mean that the being of the
    > >dinosaur, or the meaning of the culture, is forever dead. Given time
    > >and technology, the genomes and folkways may yet be reconstructed.
    > >
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    > I'm not saying the cultures of the past didn't flourish, nor that
    > nothing can be learned about them. I'm saying that there's gonna be
    > limits as to what sort of knowledge can be gained.
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    > Wh am I suddenly getting this image of Joe creating a Jurassic Park
    > sort of attraction on a remote island using memes instead of genes...
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    Indeed, ancient cultures might be largely resurrected, given the will, techniques and time. We can never, in principle, absolutely reproduce a vanished culture, but we may be able to asymptotically approach such a reproduction - if not of the people, at least of their worldviews. It cannot logically be ruled out - although I see few, if any, nonanthropological/nonhistorical reasons why we would, or should, commit the effort and resources necessary to arrive at some such reasonable approximation.
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    =============================================================== 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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