Re: Aunger vs. Pinker on Galton

From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat 23 Apr 2005 - 18:27:22 GMT

  • Next message: Kate Distin: "Re: reading a book"

    --- Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> wrote:

    > Dear Scott,
    >
    > >>> Hebb's work still stands up. It's classic.
    > >>>
    > >
    > > He talks about reading books too. He was saying
    > that
    > > one might read something like a mysstery novel
    > once.
    > > But after finishing it how likely are you to want
    > to
    > > go and re-read it again?
    >
    > Well, did Chesterton or Sayers write it? :-)
    >
    This also impacts my likelihood of rewatching my DVd's of previous 24 seasons. I rewatched the first two seasons with a friend, but haven't yet rewatched the third. After knowing the outcome the suspense dissipates. But I think Hebb said that one might revisit stuff previously exposed to after the lapse of some time. I rematched _Space:1999_ on DVD and videotapes checked out from a library a couple years ago and was amazed that I couldn't remember much of what I worshipped as a kid. I rewatched the original
    _Battlestar Galactica_ and think I remembered more of this one. I've got mixed feelings on the new version, but think the new Starbuck is much easier on the eyes
    :-)

    I read the book _Logan's Run_ as a kid. On a recent re-read only one scene was memorable I think and it had sexual content. Go figure.
    >
    > >
    > > More germane to hat I posted in reply to Kate, if
    > you
    > > do only read it once and aren't motivated to
    > re-read
    > > it and you tell a friend about it, have you
    > replicated
    > > its content or have you transformed and/or
    > re-created
    > > it? From what I vaguely recall of Bartlett people
    > tend
    > > to mess upp the story a tad here and there in the
    > > retelling and when the story gts passed down a
    > line of
    > > people who haven't read it first hand what will
    > > happen? At the end of say 10 people in succession,
    > > could we say that the content has been replicated
    > or
    > > transformed? Maybe vivid sexual element might
    > attract
    > > to our innate erotic modular stuff and get passed
    > on
    > > with more fidelity.
    > >
    >
    > If I were designing an introductory undergraduate
    > memetics course,
    > Bartlett would be one of the texts. The fact that
    > declarative memory is
    > reconstruction does not bother me. After all,
    > variation is one of the
    > pillars of evolution.
    >
    But so is fidelity...
    >
    > Fun quiz: Fill in the blank.
    >
    > Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him _____
    >
    > (For answers, see the P. S.)
    >
    > > Lashley torpedoes the idea of a homunculus too,
    > but
    > > not in the same way Blackmore did. I think he goes
    > > back to something William James had said. He even
    > said
    > > something about ideas thinking themselves.
    > >
    >
    > That was Nietzsche's reply to Descartes' "cogito
    > ergo sum". The Dinka
    > people, who live at the headlands of the Nile,
    > attribute agency to the
    > thought, rather than the individual. See Lienhardt,
    > "Divinity and
    > Experience: The Religion of the Dinka" (Oxford
    > Clarendon Press, London,
    > 1976).
    >
    It's amazing what the poor little guy had anticipated. The id. I think I found a parallel to Jung's anima somewhere in his works. Gould credits him with delineation between historic origin and current utility.
    >
    > Best,
    >
    > Bill
    >
    > P. S. Quiz answers.
    >
    > 1) Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well.
    >
    > I think that this is what most people would
    > remember.
    >
    > 2) Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio:
    >
    > What Shakespeare wrote. Extra credit for the colon.
    >
    > Hamlet goes on to describe Yorick. He indeed knew
    > him well. ;-)
    >
    > #1 seems to be the predominant variant. (Are these
    > the same meme? I
    > would say yes. Others, I'm sure, disagree. ;-) ) #1
    > is fitter. How come?
    >
    Not big on Shakespeare here. Good example though.

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