Re: RS

From: Jerry Bryson (jbryson@infionline.net)
Date: Tue 16 May 2006 - 15:57:10 GMT

  • Next message: Chris Lofting: "RE: RS"

    On May 16, 2006, at 10:40 AM, Chris Lofting wrote:

    > Mimicry is built-in to the neurology that we share with other life
    > forms,
    > but a major difference between us and our monkey cousins is they cannot
    > detect MIME - we can where that detection reflects the development of
    > our
    > imagination from our complex neurology.

    How do we know they can't?
    >
    > Thus there is a scale of development of 'mirror neurons' that
    > ultimately
    > transcend all life forms bar us.

    So, how do we do it?
    >
    > That takes us into the IMAGINATION of meaning; we see more than is
    > there in
    > the first place.

    Imagination allows us to "fill in the gaps, and to remove the graininess of the image from our irises. Seems reasonable that other animals do it, too.
    >
    > The set of basic behaviours such as mimicry is 'built in' to our
    > general
    > methodology of meaning derivation/communication. What makes a
    > difference is
    > the development of sense of self where that development follows on from
    > birth and is detectable through identification of the development of
    > emotions that need a sense of self to be 'meaningful'.

    Animals look like they do that, too. a bug demonstrates fear.
    >
    >> -----Original Message-----
    >> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk] On
    >> Behalf
    >> Of Robin Faichney
    >> Sent: Tuesday, 16 May 2006 11:09 PM
    >> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >> Subject: Re: RS
    >>
    >> Tuesday, May 16, 2006, 10:13:35 AM, Kate wrote:
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>>
    >>
    >> So long as the letters exist on a page or screen, and there are
    >> people who
    >> can understand them, why doesn't it make sense to say that these
    >> letters
    >> represent information? Of course they lose that meaning when there
    >> are no
    >> human minds to interact with them, but that doesn't mean that they are
    >> 'meaningless' in the sense that an undiscovered boulder is
    >> meaningless.
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >> What's the difference between letters on a page where there are no
    >> minds
    >> whatsoever, and an undiscovered boulder?
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>>
    >>
    >> I think that it is very easy to imitate a tune, without any conceptual
    >> apparatus. Just as it is easy for children to imitate our hand
    >> movements
    >> or facial gestures. But I'd agree that there are different levels of
    >> imitation. At one level we just imitate the details, without any
    >> proper
    >> understanding of what's going on, and at another level we imitate the
    >> functional structure of the behaviour, and may even vary the
    >> intermediate
    >> details. And, as you say, it's the addition of this context, this
    >> understanding (metarepresenting what's going on: seeing it *as*
    >> something
    >> that has a context) which lifts things to the memetic level.
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >> Just imitating the details, without any proper understanding, will
    >> often
    >> get the job done, and isn't that what matters? A proto-human sees
    >> another
    >> doing something and later does something very similar, with the same
    >> result. It was learned not by individual trial-and-error, but by
    >> imitation. A way of making pots, for instance. Why shouldn't that
    >> count as
    >> a meme?
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >> --
    >>
    >> Best regards,
    >>
    >> Robin mailto:robin@mmmi.org
    >>
    >> ===================== 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
    >

    =============================================================== 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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