Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA28262 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:04:53 +0100 Message-Id: <200006191903.PAA02490@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 14:07:16 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth In-reply-to: <LPBBICPHCJJBPJGHGMCIIEMMCGAA.ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458CD@inchna.stir.ac.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
Date sent: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 05:02:28 +1000
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > Of Vincent Campbell
> > Sent: Monday, 19 June 2000 8:57
> > To: 'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'
> > Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
> >
> >
> > WE're clearly not using truth in the same sense here. I don't agree that
> > the only factor in our perceiving certain information as the truth being
> > ownership.
>
> I think the SOURCE of the feeling is tracable to the method of determining
> ownership through territorial mapping using waypoints marked by us.
>
> For example, my password to get onto my e-mail package is mine
> > but it is not the truth.
>
> to you it is, to all others it isnt since *their* password is 'the truth'.
> Truth is directly tied to the feeling of 'correct' vs 'incorrect', 'right'
> vs 'wrong'.
>
There is what philosophers call a category error here. Truth is
ABOUT a state of affairs, but is not the state of affairs itself. If X is
indeed So-and-so's password, then the statement "X is So-and-so's
password" is true.
>
> Natural selection, on the other hand is a truth,
> > but it doesn't belong to me.
> >
>
> yes it does, as a belief system which you demonstrate with the above
> statement that you feel that it is a fact and outside of you, the point is
> it is a cultural truth and you being part of that culture will share that
> truth; the feeling of 'correctness'.
>
Once again, it is true that you feel natural selection to be an
adequate model, if indeed you do.
>
> > Similarly territory and truth are not the same either.
>
> I emphasised that the sense originated with territorial mappings and as such
> this sense of 'mine vs not-mine' has been abstracted to 'correct/incorrect'
> and eventually into the syntax processes we use in both spoken language and
> written (includes logic, mathematics etc)
>
And again, if X does indeed belong to you, then the statement that
"X belongs to you" is true.
>
> Territories are
> > things to be protected by their owners, truths are things to be passed
> > outside personal territories.
> >
>
> ....and into cultural territories where these truths are protected by the
> owners etc you can scale truths into:
>
> personal
> cultural
> universal
>
> The latter span all cultures giving a universal sense of 'correctness'. I
> think you are being too local, too personal, in dealing with the concept of
> truth.
>
Truths are inductively reached, probable and statistical, and
therefore provisional, and may be corroborated but never absolutely
confirmed, although they may asymptotically approach such
certainty to .999+, for the possibility in principle must be retained
that future data may indeed contradict them, rendering them false
or forcing a modification (science works this way). Or truths are
deductively reached and in the final analysis tautological, being the
entailed consequences of assumed axioms in some logical or
mathematical abstract ideal conceptual microworld. The difference
between truth and belief is the presence or absence of evidence; if
there is evidence for X, then X is (provisionally) a truth; if there is not,
then X is a belief.
>
> > Also, in your final comment- survival for who or what? The meme, or the
> > person?
> >
>
> when it gets down to the nitty-gritty it is the meme that is sacrificed. In
> concentration camps and prison camps high ideals (memes) were the first
> things to go as the battle for survival takes over UNLESS you formed a group
> or else a rigid degree of self-discipline and so some memes acted to keep
> you alive whilst others killed you; context was the determining factor (as
> it always is in evolutionary or devolutionary processes).
>
> 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
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