Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA16476 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 14 Sep 2000 02:58:39 +0100 Message-Id: <200009140156.VAA17012@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 21:00:53 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: solipsistic view on memetics In-reply-to: <E13Z7ZW-0003O7-00@gaea.uk.clara.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: solipsistic view on memetics
From: Douglas Brooker <dbrooker@clara.co.uk>
Date sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 09:07:10 +0100
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> > >>>That's like invoking God or different
> > >>>dimensions to foreclose further questioning; a mystical and anti-
> > >>>intellectual response, indeed.
>
> Mysticism as it is used in the western 'intellectual' tradition
> functions as kind of "cooties" - a dismissive mostly rhetorical term
> to be applied to arguments outside of a set of very rigid and
> formalistic discourse requirements.
>
> This use of 'mystic' is sort of the scholarly equivalent of 'nigger' or
> 'faggot' and has little to do with the mystic tradition, whether it is
> western, eastern or islamic. Most unbecoming behaviour!
>
> I like Clifford Geertz's comment (quoting someone else I think) that
> western 'philosophy is a cultural disease - it can be cured.'
>
Religions, on the other hand, prove to be both more virulent and
more resistent to antimemetics than philosophies. When you are
ablde to show that a philosophical point is logically self-
contradictory, that its empirical consequences do not in fact follow,
or that it is inconsistent with contiguous truths, the holder of it will
generally concede, and even thank you for helping him/her
understand and grow, if (s)he is the sort of logical, rational,
reasonable, coherent and cogent person who prefers philosophical
discourse to religious proselytization, and is a genuine seeker of
understanding and its evolution. On the other hand, when you
demonstrate that a religious tenet is bereft of insight or veracity,
the holders of some religions will try to kill you, the holders of
others will attempt to wear you down with reams of infantile,
emotional and logicless rhetoric, and the holders of still others will
smile enigmatically (they hope) and revel in how the self-
contradictory nature of what they are asserting means that it must
contain a deeper, more profound truth, which they attempt to
masturbatorially embrace between sonic stopthinks known as
chants, in a love of and delight in the experience of dwelling in the
condition of not understanding.
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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