Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA01398 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:40:38 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174590F@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/memetic engineering Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:38:41 +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
Thanks for this Kenneth, I think I followed what you were saying, and
generally agree.
Certainly there is something about sexuality which seems odd in human
society compared to other animals; a degree of self consciousness almost to
the point of neurosis.
I'm not sure that the inclusive fitness argument is necessarily watertight.
After all some behaviours may be tolerated if the people doing it offer some
other attributes which benefit the group, e.g. being a good hunter. After
all, these behaviours have survived, so they can't have been so non-adaptive
to have been wiped out. But the basic point you make seems fine to me.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Kenneth Van Oost
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 9:09 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Cons and Facades/memetic engineering
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 12:39 PM
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades/memetic engineering
>
>
> > Thanks for this.
> >
> > I think you're very right. What's interesting then is whether there is
> a
> > particular point in time at which a community recognises these animal
> > behaviours as inappropriate for that particular kind of community.
>
> If you like, is there a kind of social equivalent of the Adam and Eve
> story?
>
> Vincent, I think I found an answer on this! You let my brain work
> overtime!!
>
> This is based on some ideas I have about why, we humans, have such pro-
> blems with our sexuality and our expression of emotions.
> Vincent, stay with me...it is gonna be not simple to follow...
>
> Freud and Jung said that emotionality and affectivity are the bias for the
> human mind. In both their theories sexuality, its concealing and its
> repressing
> is the major fact.
> Freud says that people made memories unconscient because they are all
> connected with sexual desires and Jung let everything begin out of the
> sexual drift, out of our libido.
>
> In my point of view, we are trapped between the Darwinian-stance (the
> collective) and the Lamarckian-stance (individuality). In a community we
> have
> to act according the Darwinian-stance_that is following rules etc.
> Our personal needs, our sexual drift is/ was controlled by those Darwinan-
> rules.
> That is gone so far that we, now, (socially/ cultural/ political/
> religiously...)
> are concealing and repressing the sexuality.
>
> Schopenhauer once said [sexuality] " is the notion which provokes directly
> a(n) (re)action, by which the notion is chased away ".
> And why, now I ask myself, do we chase away images of sexuality and not
> images of food, functionality, colour, association, etc?
> What did the sexuality do, (the emotion/ the strife/ the need towards to
> have children) to be hidden away, to be concealed and to be repressed !?
>
> Vincent, are you still with me !?
>
> Now, we go back to my earlier post about Girards view on the scapegoat-
> principle. I said that I don't like very much a biblical stance in stuff
> like that,
> and that is still very true. Concerning this however, I think the
> biblical-stance
> about murder, sex etc is from a far more later date.
> We have to focus ourselves on the time of the early human-like primates.
>
> I think and I did posted this argument before that our ancestors were quit
> viviant aware of the consequences of incest, sodomie, perversities, '
> sexual
> abuse ', rape etc.
> How !? Due to the fact of our most early survival-memes, incest etc
> jeapar-
> dized the survival of man,species and meme.
> Don 't forget, sick and disabled animals were left behind by the group or
> eaten by lions!!
>
> With less food, no place to hide, no function for that of this tool the
> early
> human-primates would had survived, there is no question about that !
> Not all, I suppose, but quit enough.
> But with incest, sodomie etc the species would had collapse easily and
> fast.
> You may have all the food in the world, places to hide, but with no hands
> to
> feed yourself, with no legs to walk towards safety, due to the fact that
> you
> are a disabled person due to the fact of incest, you gonna die !!
>
> I think with that complex idea in mind, sexuality has become troughout
> history our (biological) cultural scapegoat.
> In memetic sense_the biological analogy of the in the culture inbedded
> scape-
> goat-principle found its origin in the first meme about that subject.
> There before there was nothing by which the early humanoids could compare
> such behaviour.
> In the understanding that the first sexual act was probably brutal an
> vicious, the first birth messy and bloody and probably deathly for mother
> and child_
> you could suppose that ' sexuality ' was hidden away, concealed and re-
> pressed.
> If you like you can say the fact as mentioned above is our social
> equivalent
> of the Adam and Eve story !!
> It all started with a devious sexual act !
>
> Of course, I could be wrong, but anyway without being modest, I think
> it is still a great idea !!
>
> PS_Wes, be welcome, enjoy the ride !!
>
> The answers to your post will follow
> Oh, yeah, with a loose meme I mean a meme which has escaped our human
> control, like ' the arms race' could be one.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
> (I am, because we are) three now
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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