From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon 02 Jun 2003 - 19:56:22 GMT
From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: New Scientist on memory
Date sent: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 17:36:59 -0700
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > From: joedees@bellsouth.net
> > >
> > > The brain does not contain records of memories but mere "traces"
> > > that point us to them. A trace can be wiped clean at the moment
> > > we remember it because, now that we recall it, we don't need the
> > > trace anymore. But we'll need it the next time we want to recall
> > > it. So the trace is re-fixed. But if the fix isn't carried out,
> > > there's nothing left, no "dynamized" or "fluidified" or "unmoored"
> > > relic. Simply nothing.
> > >
> > No, a memory that has been accessed is still in the brain, it is
> > just in
> the
> > realm of attention rather than being stored. If it is not
> > chemically blocked from doing so, the very act of reaccessing it
> > causes the axons, dendrites and synapses, through the
> > electrical-stimulation-induced production of the MAP-2 protein, to
> > strengthen their myelin sheaths, increasing the fixation of the
> > memory pattern and therefor reinforcing the memory.
>
> Rather than answer my point directly, you seem to be rehearsing your
> neurology jargon.
>
I know you have a problem with facts, but this is the electrochemical
WAY IT WORKS. It is how repetition of access more firmly fixes a
memory in the brain.
>
> > > > Lawrence:
> > > >
> > > > Dace, '"reconstituted" from scratch' sounds like an unmitigated
> > > > contradiction in terms to me. Can you explain how it isn't?
> > >
> > > Ted:
> > > It is a contradiction, Lawry. You can't reconstitute something
> > > from nothing, and there's nothing in the brain that could provide
> > > the model for reconstituting a memory trace once the memory is
> > > recalled. Therefore reconstitution of the memory trace proceeds
> > > through active recollection of the past. Without true memory, a
> > > trace would indeed have to be reconstituted from scratch-- an
> > > impossibility.
> > >
> > Joe:
> > Once again, Dace attempts to sneak his pet Sheldrakean 'morphic
> > resonance' magickal mystical Einsteinian-spacetime-denying woo-woo
> > in through yet another back door he mistakenly thinks he has
> > discovered. But doors leading the serious and ungullible to such
> > pseudoscientific and nonsensical absurdities just ain't there.
>
> Once again you reveal your tendency, when you can't refute a point, to
> go for the jugular.
>
The point is not only refuted, but your memebotic agenda is once again
starkly exposed; you have, and will, attempt to twist anything you
encounter in a futile attempt to furnish any conceiveable shred of
justification for your obsession with reifying your acolytic Sheldrakean
fixations.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
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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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