Re: _Religion Explained_ by Pascal Boyer

From: Chris Taylor (Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 06 Jun 2003 - 14:36:41 GMT

  • Next message: Dace: "Re: _Religion Explained_ by Pascal Boyer"

    <snipped in a few places...>

    > The
    > simplist, very simple simplest, particle of the cultural process is the
    > performance, which is the observed action of at least one human in a
    > space which has to contain at least one observer.

    So what is an internal dialogue under that model?

    > As Lawry said, what about _influence_? Even the influence of the chair
    > you are sitting in and the color of the walls around you, and the brand
    > name on the PC you use, and the socks you wear, or don't wear? The
    > cultural venue is the sum of all these influences, plus the actions of
    > the performers, plus the state and perception of your observations.

    All true, but why can these not just be the subtle components of the selective forces (collected by my senses, processed by my lower brain structures, and fed into the mix) that determine which memes will exhibit themselves?

    > In order to play baseball,
    > there is still a ball, and a bat, and a field, required.

    So again, what about imagining a game of baseball - all nine innings if you like, with historical all star squads - does that informational pattern have no existence in reality?

    Cheers, Chris.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
      http://pedro.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 : Fri 06 Jun 2003 - 14:41:44 GMT