Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA21020 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 15 Sep 2000 10:01:28 +0100 Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 09:28:57 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: solipsistic view on memetics Message-ID: <20000915092857.A1311@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <PEHNGGOPFAGBDAAA@my-deja.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Mutt/1.0.1i In-Reply-To: <PEHNGGOPFAGBDAAA@my-deja.com>; from hemidactylus@my-Deja.com on Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 02:06:37PM -0700 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 02:06:37PM -0700, Scott Chase wrote:
>
> >
> I've been reading Lucien Levy_Bruhl's _Primitive Mentality_. I think he was an ethnographer. I'm not sure how accurate the information he presents in that book is, but he gives an interesting overview of various ways in which some groups of people, say indigenous to Africa or Australia, interpret data via the filter of mystic collective representations (if I'm using this term correctly). He contrasts this mystic interpretation with that of cause and effect found in say science or some formal philosophy.
The "operational mode" you describe here is more commonly, and in my view more
usefully, termed "magical" rather than "mystical". Of course, people can use
words any way they want. But as I said before, to confuse mysticism with
mystification (or with magical thinking) is mystification.
-- Robin Faichney=============================================================== 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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