From: AaronLynch@aol.com
Date: Sun 03 Aug 2003 - 17:14:54 GMT
In a message dated 8/2/2003 8:12:44 PM Central Daylight
Time, Scott Chase ecphoric@hotmail.com writes:
> Would you hold that memory units (engrams, mnemons
> or what have you) replicate?
Hi Scott.
I don't generally use the term "memory units," and if I
did, I would want the term defined more clearly than above,
particularly with clarification of the wild card "or what
have you." I don't rely on the term "engram," and thus take
no position on whether such an entity replicates. My 1991
and 1998 papers did not use the term "mnemon" in the same
sense that Cherkin used that word under prior independent
coinage, and in particular, I did not use it in connection
with "engrams." But with the definition I did use in my
1991 and 1998 papers, the only mnemons I considered as
replicators were ones whose instantiation depended
critically upon prior instantiation of the same mnemon.
Having said that, I can point out that when I say that two
people have "the same" memory item, I am not claiming that
the two people must therefore have within them "the same
structure" corresponding to the memory item. Calling two
memory items "the same" with respect to the abstraction
system or sameness criteria in use does not indicate that
the abstraction system or sameness criteria are based on
"structure" per se. Thus, saying that two people have "the
same" memory item does not, in my terminology, indicate
that the two people have any more "structures" that can be
considered "the same" than if they did not have "the same"
memory item. For example, two people who both know the
telephone number for the UN headquarters can be said to
both have that number as memory items that are "the same"
with respect to an abstraction system about phone numbers.
But saying this does not assert anything about sameness of
structures in their brains.
Furthermore, I do not even say that all memory is stored as
structural variation even apart from the issue of sameness
between individuals. Information can also be stored as
processes that do not qualify as structures. Living systems
contain many processes. A burning candle can be said to
store a binary "1" even if the flame is not a structure. A
current flowing in a solid state device need not be
considered a "structure," either. And a binary bit can be
stored as a spin state of an electron or atom, even though
the spin state is not normally considered a "structure."
Unlike Cloak's 1973 paper on Elementary Self-Replicating
Instructions, I do not define replicating things in terms
of structures (though I don't broadly rule out key roles of
structures either). In this respect, my position also
differs from what Dawkins says about memes having "a
definite structure, realized in whatever physical medium
the brain uses for storing information." (_The Extended
Phenotype_, p. 109) I don't rule out that neurally stored
information (memory) might be based on structure in this
way, but I don't require it or specify it either.
These are just a few clarifications. I don't want to
restate by listserver what things I do consider as
replicators and why -- that would be a long arduous
discussion. My recent papers (past 3 years) give a good
sense of what I say and the terminology I use to say it.
--Aaron Lynch
Thought Contagion Science Page:
http://www.thoughtcontagion.com
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