Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA01110 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 21 Jul 2000 19:10:33 +0100 Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000721132840.00f617f0@pop3.htcomp.net> X-Sender: mmills@pop3.htcomp.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 14:08:21 -0400 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: "Mark M. Mills" <mmills@htcomp.net> Subject: RE: Was Freud a Minivan or S.U.V. Kind of Guy? Israel and Palesti ne. In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174594A@inchna.stir.ac.uk > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 03:50 PM 7/21/00 +0100, you wrote:
>I'm not a neuro-scientist, so I can't really comment on that aspect of your
>claims, but I'd be incredibly surprised to find that neuroscience in any way
>supports the notion that if we switch one I-ching symbol for another we can
>explain or solve problems in the Middle-East.
If one compares the "- -" and "---" bars of I-ching to computer bits, the
trigram
--- - - ---could be transposed to the binary symbol 101 or the decimal "5". It is a lot less foreign as the symbol "5".
Going through the binary analogy is useful since on-off gates exist at the synapse level. Obviously, the research is only beginning to give us the ability to model cross synapse signals, but binary notation seems a reasonable starting point. Koch does as much in 'Biophysics of Computation.'
Since there are billions and billions of synapses, any binary foundations of cognition are going to be expressed in subtle patterns at the 'behavior level.' Just because it's subtle doesn't make it immaterial. One can invoke the 'butterfly wings that kick off a hurricane' anecdote of chaos theory fame. For loss of the nail, the horse was lost. For loss of the horse, the rider was lost. For loss of the rider, the messages was lost. For loss of the message, the battle was lost. For loss of the battle, the king was lost.
Thus, I can argue that changing a single synapse from 'conducting' to 'not conducting' can produce Middle East peace. It is not going to be easy to determine which synapse has this power, of course.
Since I use a strong meme-gene analogy, patterns of these on-off states are memes, just a base-4 DNA patterns are genes. Calvin uses a hex system in his neurological models, so the use of hex's has precedent. From my perspective, each neural meme could be a six synapse sequence, directly analogous to I-ching's 6 line (bit) hexagram. Chris's recursive binary system is a way of linking vertebrae cognitive behavior to binary synapse states.
Mark
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