Re: Replicator article

From: Liane Gabora (liane@berkeley.edu)
Date: Fri 07 May 2004 - 01:42:57 GMT

  • Next message: John Wilkins: "Re: Replicator article"

    If there was no unity --- or a better word, 'integration' --- we wouldn't be able to merge two concepts or ideas together to form a new concept or idea, adapt old solutions to new situations, think in terms of metaphors and analogies, or even put words together in new ways to express new thoughts or experiences. In fact, if if they weren't integrated, one thought wouldn't be able to evoke another abstractly related thought, which evokes another and so forth to refine an idea or perspective in a 'stream of thought'. Actually, I am at this moment preparing a talk on the archaeological evidence for when and how this kind of unified or integrated cognitive structure came about. It is a fascinating story!

    I disagree with you about selection. (The arguments are kind of technical, but I've written a paper on this with Diederik Aerts titled 'Creative thought as a non-Darwinian evolutionary process' which is forthcoming in Journal of Creative Behavior. If you are interested I could send it to you.)

    Liane

    At 11:09 7/05/2004 +1000, you wrote:

    >On 07/05/2004, at 11:02 AM, Liane Gabora wrote:
    >
    >> Hi John,
    >>
    >> Thanks for your message! I remember reading and enjoying some of your work.
    >>
    >> I'm not sure what you mean by the 'traditional sense' of worldviews. I
    >> just mean someone's inner conception of the world they live in. In other
    >> words, not just their memories, but how they've made sense of their memories.
    >Hmm. I mean an elaborated system of beliefs that is reflectively maximally
    >coherent, and rationally reviseable.
    >
    >Your inner world (or model?) conception still implies to me a unity that I
    >think we do not have (and would be paralysed by if we had it). I think
    >Minsky had it right - we are each a community, a population of ideas and
    >propensities. In *that* sense, we are a deme of memes, and there is a
    >selection process going on within our heads as well as between our heads.
    >
    >--
    >Dr John S Wilkins
    >Head, Communication Services
    >The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
    >Parkville, Victoria, Australia
    >
    >
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    Liane Gabora liane@berkeley.edu
    <http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane>http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, VUB, Brussels Ph:
    (32)2.644.26.77 Psychology Department, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 Ph: 510-642-1080

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