Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA21218 (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 10:52:34 +0100 Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 10:49:17 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: memetics and knowledge Message-ID: <20000915104917.A1648@reborntechnology.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Mutt/1.0.1i Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
In a message I've deleted, Joe said something like:
If you can't say it, you don't know it.
This is simply wrong, but it opens up an interesting topic: the distinction
between memetic and non-memetic knowledge.
Intellectual knowledge is not the only sort -- there is also experiential
knowledge, that gained through experience, rather than verbally or via
other media, from books, parents, teachers and friends.
Now, there is obviously a large overlap between intellectual and
experiential knowledge, in that much of what we learn through direct
experience we can verbalise and pass on to others, and much of what we
learn from others, we could have learned through experience.
But there remains a residue of experiential knowledge that is not
communicable. Can you ride a bicycle? Could you teach someone else
to do so using only words, so that the first time they mounted one,
they could display the same level of skill as yourself?
Obviously not. We are talking about motor skills here, which can be
learned only through experience. And to say that this is not knowledge
is mere semantic quibbling. If I can swing an axe through, say, 135
degrees, the head travelling perhaps a couple of metres, to split a log,
hitting it within a centimetre of the point I was aiming at, then I know
how to use that axe! (At least, in the log-splitting context. I could
actually do that, a few years ago, but I'm sadly out of practice now.)
Mystical "knowledge" (and here we are reaching the limits of usefulness
of that word) is of the experiential sort, and it lies beyond the overlap
with intellectual knowledge, being largely non-communicable. Of course,
just as we can teach someone who is willing to do so to ride a bike, by
being with them as they practice and sharing the snippets we can find
a way to verbalise, with many hints and some actual physical support,
so mysticism can be taught, to those who are willing to learn, the first
several lessons usually being concerned with meditation.
But, to sum up, some knowledge is non-intellectual, and non-memetic,
and our memetic theorising, and general intellectualization as well,
will be sadly lacking, if we forget that. I'd go so far as to say that
it's the ground upon which everything else is built. Unless it's based
upon, and ultimately returns to, actual experience, it's sheer hot air.
-- 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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