From: Chris Taylor (chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 06 Feb 2006 - 15:15:08 GMT
I think using MRI to look at memes would be a lot like using an
atom smasher to look at organisms...
Although clearly there will be correlates of things at that
level. Maybe these will be moods and modes rather then
meme-specific things though (i.e. the kind of 'pedal notes' of
cousciousness).
I can't place the quote for Churchland but it rang so true for
me that there will be several levels of patterns, each composed
of pieces from the next level 'down', like subatomic particles
make atoms, making molecules, making complexes, making cells,
making organisms, making various nested levels of ecosystems
(which is approximately where I'd place 'us'). All
MRI/PET/...-like methods can see are the local electrical
activity or the local metabolic rate; obviously strongly
correlated with the supported activity, but with such huge
information loss that it is little help.
Cheers, Chris.
P.S. Incidentally, when Hebb (not sure it was him now actually)
was sticking electrodes onto exposed cortex and sparking
memories and sensations, did he do any pre-frontal bits?
Jerry Bryson wrote:
> On Feb 6, 2006, at 3:46 AM, Derek Gatherer wrote:
>
>>> If I want to know whether someone has a particular meme then I can
>>> ask them or, less directly, observe their behaviour. Behavioural
>>> observation is as you say not ideal; but if you include what they
>>> write/say as part of that behaviour then things become more manageable.
>>
>>
>> Yes, I think that statistics like membership of political parties, can
>> give us a clue to what might be happening internally. There are also
>> opinion polls, but these are perhaps less reliable in terms of their
>> truth value.
>>
>> > and maybe this means that the whole concept of frequencies in
>> populations is too static as a means of studying memes, and we need to
>> find something >more dynamic?
>>
>> Absolutely. But what would it be?
>>
>
> Half the world is using MRI lately. What would a meme look like in a
> brain scan?
>
> 'Mother, may I go maffick,
> Tear around and hinder traffic?
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
>
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk http://psidev.sf.net/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =============================================================== 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 archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon 06 Feb 2006 - 15:37:01 GMT