Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA22560 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:14:45 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745938@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Was Freud a Minivan or S.U.V. Kind of Guy? Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:12:55 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I just realised the post I sent just before this one was perhaps a bit
absolutist; my apologies.
On the point of this post though, I still don't get this sameness/difference
thing at all.
Humans perceive the world as flat- our sensory experience makes it appear
that way, yet for some time now we have known the world to be a sphere.
Now, what is 'valid' and what is 'true' here? Surely the Earth being a
sphere is a fact independent of whether or not we believe it, and our
perception of the Earth as flat is factually wrong no matter how 'real' it
seems?
Surely then the question is what is the process/method by which we can come
to distinguish between phenomena that are factually correct independent of
our perception of them, and those that only 'seem' correct because of the
nature of our perception?
After all even if we all reflect a species-level bias in meaning, so what?
What can we do about this- ask the dolphins what they think about Darwinism?
I just don't see how this approach enables us to better evaluate the
appropriateness of theories, whether it be memetics or anything else. It
may tell us how we process theories we encounter, but so what? It doesn't
tell us whether the theory is appropriate in terms of explaining external
phenomena. What's the application of such an approach?
[If this is all just the gibbering idiocy of a social scientist, then I
apologise unreservedly.]
Post-modernism.... hmm... a big can of worms this one, but then hey it's a
very 1980s term, superceeded by globalisation in the 1990s.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Wade T.Smith
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 1:11 pm
> To: Memetics Discussion List
> Subject: RE: Was Freud a Minivan or S.U.V. Kind of Guy?
>
> Vincent Campbell made this comment not too long ago --
>
> >I thought these Freudian categories of mind had long since been junked by
> >most psychologists?
>
> Well, if anything has SAMENESS/DIFFERENCE it's valid by point of it's
> being the way we see things....
>
> Did anyone hear the pin drop of post-modernism?
>
> - Wade
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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