Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA09156 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 16 Jun 2000 12:16:18 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458CA@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 12:14:25 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I see what your saying about possessing/owning the truth, but what gives a
piece of information that value? As you said context seems important- does
that information fit into, add to, the existing understanding of 'the truth'
that a person has. You also talk about grammar and syntax that fits in some
kind of way which seems OK, although I'm not enitirely sure I've understood
your meaning there.
As to the second point, are you saying that the desire either to tell others
or to with-hold it is about personal power? But how do we distinguish
between information and 'the truth' in this context? Perhaps it's a
qualitative difference between practically useful information ('there's
sabre tooth tiger otuside the cave'), and social or emotionally useful
'truths' ('god will look after us').
A further question would be- are truths which we are compelled to tell other
people liable to be more successful at getting spread than truths which are
regarded as secrets to share with only a few or no-one else? Following
that, what is it about the characteristics of those truths that make people
want to pass them on?
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Chris Lofting
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 3:25 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > Of Vincent Campbell
> > Sent: Thursday, 15 June 2000 9:47
> > To: 'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'
> > Subject: RE: Cons and Facades
> >
> >
> > I see what you're saying here Lawrence.
> >
> > I suppose partly, what I'm thinking of here is something which I think
> is
> > central to the memetic process, and that is the general desire we all
> have
> > to pass on 'the truth' whenever we think we know what that is. Of
> course,
> > sometimes we don't want to tell people, but to those people we
> > like, or are
> > family we usually have a very strong urge to tell people 'the truth' (I
> > guess this might be an inclusive fitness thing).
>
> ...and so the link of 'truth' to ownership and territory (that includes
> family)..... there is also the 'mine is bigger than yours' exercise.
>
>
> >
> > This applies to all areas of life, so to give jsut two examples, you get
> > religions with their missionaries, and you get evolutionary biology with
> > their multitude of best-sellers. This latter group interest me very
> much.
> > As a non-scientist, my knowledge of evolution comes mainly from
> > the likes of
> > Dawkins and Gould, and other writers, but it's recently struck
> > me, with the
> > success of Stephen Jones 'Almost Like A Whale' (his rewriting of
> > the origin
> > of species, which is called something very different in the US,
> > but I can't
> > remember what), just how many popular science books there are about how
> > wonderful/fantastic/brilliant Darwin's theory of natural selection is.
> >
> > I suppose there are two elements to this. First, what is it about
> certain
> > information that it can induce our notion of it being the truth?
>
> The information has a 'pointedness' about it, a finality. It acts like a
> waypoint marker in that it gives us direction, perspective, we feel we
> know
> where we are. The emotional feeling is linked to correctness and to
> syntax,
> the path is 'right'. The concept of abduction fits in here where, given a
> particular pattern which we assume has meaning., we scan through a list of
> different contexts until we get a match and that feels 'correct'. It may
> not
> be so, go further and you may get similar or better matches - some do go
> on,
> some dont depending on a combination of experience/persona.
>
> > Second,
> > what is it about 'the truth' that we generally feel a strong
> > desire to pass
> > it on to other people?
>
> See earlier, since a truth is linked to ownership and so territory we can
> either (a) show it off or (b) pass it on for the benefit of the group as a
> whole, or (c) withhold it within the group, secret society etc, deny the
> enemy...
>
>
> best,
>
> 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 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 2b29 : Fri Jun 16 2000 - 12:17:15 BST