From: Chris Taylor (Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 28 Apr 2003 - 10:25:23 GMT
> What I found most interesting about the article was
> the adverts that appeared alongside it.
Yeah. A nice spread :)
On a tangent from one of those ads: I'm sick of the physicists
simultaneously courting the media, and trying to come to terms with
their own cognitive closure about the (really) big questions, by saying
"Well, it could've been some sort of god y'know."
Without a trace of irony they pull the ripcord. And of course there's
nothing the faith-based agenda people like more from the rest of us than
a senior (often _emeritus_) scientist 'leaving the door open'. Lots of
things are _possible_ but you have to draw a line.
The memetic point I suppose, is that no matter how hostile the
environment, if you're the only option, your fitness is by definition
the highest and you may well succeed eventually.
Interesting similar example: A semi-hypnotised guy was told to put a
vase on the floor and wrap a piece of material around it. He was then
brought round and asked why he had done it and he claimed that the vase
was cold so he was trying to keep it warm. Best explanation available.
Sorry no hope of putting a source to that.
I think this is an important feature of the way we are (I remember
seeing nasty faces in textured walls or trees, as a child, for example)
and I think it points up the granularity of the stuff in us that we
continually pattern match to the world - it fits less well with the idea
of mechanistic processing.
Cheers, Chris.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon 28 Apr 2003 - 10:34:26 GMT