From: William Benzon (bbenzon@mindspring.com)
Date: Wed 19 Mar 2003 - 01:04:41 GMT
on 3/18/03 6:07 PM, Grant Callaghan at grantc4@hotmail.com wrote:
> And each and every performance is just the same- a unique solution to the
> problem of what step to take, or word to use, or turn to take, or smile, or
> frown, or dance, or....
>
> Wade
>
> The following from:
>
> An Exploration In
> Mesoscopic Brain Dynamics
> Professor Walter J Freeman
> University of California, Berkeley, USA
>
> representations - intentional gestures, words, numbers, and constructed
> objects that elicit meaning in the process of communication, but which
> themselves have no meaning
>
> thought - a process by which Neuroactivity constructs meaning, modifies
> intentional structure, and makes representations for purposes of
> communication among humans and animals
>
> -----------------
>
> It would seem that what Wade calls memes Freeman calls "representations."
> What I call memes are what Freeman calls thought. I would suspect that
> Freeman has little or nothing to say on the subject of memes. But at least
> what we are giving names to is common to the lexicons of all of us.
>
> Grant
Except that Freeman would find nonsensical the notion that thoughts (that is
"memes" in your terms) can somehow propagate from one person to another.
Freeman is quite clear in asserting that meaning is constructed in brains
and that each brain does so in a way that is unique to it. For each brain
has a unique history and its meanings reflect the whole of that history.
Meanings do not propagate from one brain to another in the way you want
memes to.
I don't know what Freeman things about memes. I've corresponded with him
quite a bit on his theories about brain activity and music. I know he likes
my views on music -- I have explicitly argued that the memes of music are in
the external world -- but I've never explicitly asked his opinions on my
account of memes.
Bill B
-- Music gives us ontological messages which non-musical criticism is unable to contradict, though it may laugh at our foolishness in minding them. ‹William James William Benzon 708 Jersey Avenue, Apt. 2A Jersey City, NJ 07302 201 217-1010 =============================================================== 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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