Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA04357 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 10 Sep 2000 08:23:47 +0100 Message-ID: <000e01c01afc$14a65620$3e00bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: "memetics" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Article, A Solipsistic View On memetics Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 09:51:47 +0200 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0009_01C01B0C.BBFF4480" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Part 3
Descartes held, in the concept ' I think therefor I am ' a solitairy consciousness
which can be assured of its own existence exclusively as " one " conscious
mind. This view is simple to understand.
In Descartes' view, God bridged the gap between me and the world of other
humanoid objects, giving me the innate knowledge assuming the existence of
an outside world.
That is too is simple to understand, but it cannot be the bias where upon I can$
place a theory like memetics.
It would be too simple pr supposing that f. e God has giving me the urge to
investigate Richard Dawkins ' famous words.
" I " know for sure I did subscribe myself to this list in order to access know-
ledge about the subject. And in the view of the matter, I I am the only mind known
to myself to exist, how is it possible that I can talk to you all !?
How is it possible that you all are part of my joy and my sarrow, of my sense
of personality and identity !?
Such a simple conclusion is nimical to this solipsistic view. There can be
neither collectiviness or sameness nor a concept individual, because on the
one hand the thoughts, effects of behaviour, emotions, desires, humour,
love and ambition are anyhow known to me as the only consciousness
known to me to exists and on the other hand the basic concept of an individual implies more than one direct involved subject, what accordingly the tenet of
solipsism is not recognized at all.
But that in a sense can be a memeplex, a chemical process...in my brain.
If this is so, everything ends here. Thus it follows, in that case, that I too
don ' t exist, but I would be in some sense the only thing ' alive ' in order
to notice that and to think memetically about it.
Such prperty would then give rise to the supposition that we are some part
of some kind of collective mind_in the sense that then each other individual
has an unique and priveleged access to the part of that collective mind which
he/ she calls then his/ hers own mind.
This view makes it clear that there is no collectiviness, not even Behind the
Difference ( Idit Chris Lofting ) because 1. we all have priveleged psycholo-
gical concepts/ memeplexes which are denied to everyone else and 2. this
kind of thinking don 't allow the unique, but illusive existence of another in-
dividual anyhow.
We are truly, each one of us, i n d i v i d u a l s .
The notion that there can be a collective mind can 't be prooven neither as
Behind/ Sameness nor as Behind/ Difference. That is, because in this view
each pattern of thought/ each meme and each memeplex is fundamental
solipsistic in its development_it starts up from its own case and in its essentials
we can 't know if such a thing like a memeplex have its genesis in the
Sameness or the in Difference.
According to the philosophical content of this article and due to the philo-
sophy of solipsism_each memeplex have invented its own piece of notion
of the world and then stuck it ' out there ' as something real and apart from
itself ( I am for all i know its host to do so) all the while denying that it have
done so ( Idit Looking Award)
Nothing is simply ' there ' , it has to be constructed inside the brain. Our
brain takes photographs of each aspect/ of each argument/ of each image/
takes notion of each meme/ every sent/ every signal and processes it into
one ' moving ' vision of the outside world. What the brain does is building up
each layer of the us surrounding outside world ans shape those as an ' as-
pect ' of what is really out there.
We can 't comprehend all what is happening around us, our eyes take up
fractions of that info, send it to the brain where the brain processes the info
along existing pathways of recognition into images which are then projected
back in the outside world.
In that way, we don 't have to see ( our brain saves energy) it all, our brain
' guesses ' what is out there along subways of recognition; what it remerbers
of previous times and of past experiences.
What is ' really ' out there is highly a projection of our personal innerworld.
(Some part, idit Brain Story, by Susan Greenfield)
Thus " I " am in that respect therby only something conscient where through
solipsistic patterns propagate themselves_and that is analogous to what we
know of the nature of memes.
End of part Three
===============================================================
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 2b29 : Sun Sep 10 2000 - 08:24:50 BST