Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA03977 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 5 Oct 2000 03:03:15 +0100 Message-Id: <200010050200.WAA26905@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 21:05:31 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Purported mystical "knowledge" In-reply-to: <000a01c02e6a$9ea68c60$25d910ac@oemcomputer> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 14:20:55 +1300
From: Brent Silby <phil066@it.canterbury.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: Purported mystical "knowledge"
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >A cognitive ecosystem is quite different from the Gaian ecosystem in the sense that mutation and selection for replication are to some degree a function of conscious decision, will, innovation and experimentation. Most memes 'mean' something to people, rather than just blindly being, as are
flora and fauna for our planet, and are intentionally rather than randomly modified and selected for and/or against by us on the basis of these meanings, and what they mean to and for us.<
>
> Hello, I am new here and hope that I can offer some useful comments (please forgive me if I have misinterpreted the discussion thread).
>
> When I think about memetic evolution, I go all-the-way with the biological analogy. In my way of thinking, "conscious decision" or "intentionality" are just collections of memes. When memes enter our minds, they will either "fit in" with the memetic environment, or they won't. The ones that
don't whither away to nothing. The ones that do sometimes mutate. This mutation might be the result of an encoding error or some accidental blending of ideas. Of course, the mutations might not always yield a successful meme. For every successful meme, there are heaps of unsuccessful ones.
>
This viewpoint, proselytized in Blackmore's "THE MEME
MACHINE", is exactly why her book was widely panned - a book
purportedly ABOUT memes was in fact infected by one (and not
just the 'meme' meme). The Buddhizing of memetics according to
the Zen Doctrine of No-Mind, that is, claiming that all the mind is is
a collection of memes, does not work in memetics, any more than
it worked when it was proposed in semiotics (the mind is just a
collection of signs) and behavioral psychology (the mind is just a
collection of stimulus-response conditionings - refuted by cognitive
science studies of innovation and exploration). Memetic
replication requires self-conscious selection and mutation of
proferred meanings by will and free choice, for memes are not of
the world of being, but of the world of meaning. If individual memes
are not conscious in and of themselves (and they are not), then
they cannot mean anything to each other, and thus there is no
memetic criteria for purposive selection - yet purposively based
selection does happen. One cannot get the inhabitants of the
system confused with the system itself, and while that makes no
difference terrestrially (there is a lack of purpose in genetic
evolution), it makes a huge difference cognitively (in memetic
evolution). Don't forget; we create the memes; if we were created
by them, one reaches the absurd conclusion that we cannot be
here, or have evolved at all to this stage, for the memes that must
have created us could not have appeared from nothing, and would
have required a human brain in which to live. Where did, or could
they, live BEFORE they created us? Simple answer: no place.
Thus the container is prior to the contained, the replicator is prior to
the replicated, the mutator is prior to the mutated, and the selector
is prior to the selected. While it is true that memes and brains
evolutionarily coevolved, this could only have happened after the
advent of conscious self-awareness.
>
> Brent.
> ______________________
> --Brent Silby 2000
>
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>
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> __________________________________________
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Joe E. Dees
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 1:37 PM
> Subject: Re: Purported mystical "knowledge"
>
>
> Date sent: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 18:37:17 -0600
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk, memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> From: Lloyd Robertson <hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca>
> Subject: Re: Purported mystical "knowledge"
> Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> > At 10:00 AM 17/09/00 +0100, Robin Faichney wrote:
> > >
> > >The "non-material reality" consists of information -- though it's very
> > >solidly based on matter. Memes are items of information, encoded in
> > >both neural and behavioural patterns. When someone observes another's
> > >behaviour, the meme travels from behaviour to brain, changing its form
> > >from behavioural to neural encoding. When that person subsequently
> > >performs the same behaviour, the process is reversed. The uncertainty
> > >is that inherent in any en/de/recoding process: the outcome depends not
> > >only on what "went into" the carrier, but also what key is used to get
> > >it out again.
> > >
> > Granted that information (defined broadly to include misinformation) is
> > "non-material". Granted, as well, that all of this information is solidly
> > based on the physical world. If we view this "information" as being made up
> > of memes that may have properties of attraction and repulsion with respect
> > to other memes. And if this means that various "memeplexes" evolve
> > competing for mind-space (perhaps defined by the neural networks of which
> > you refer) then, using Dennett's ecosystem analogy, we have another level
> > or plane of existance which cannot be Lamarkian because, at the mass level,
> > it evolves independently of any "will" the communicative "bags of mostly
> > water" hosts may have.
> >
> Actually, umm, no. A cognitive ecosystem is quite different from
> the Gaian ecosystem in the sense that mutation and selection for
> replication are to some degree a function of conscious decision,
> will, innovation and experimentation. Most memes 'mean'
> something to people, rather than just blindly being, as are flora and
> fauna for our planet, and are intentionally rather than randomly
> modified and selected for and/or against by us on the basis of
> these meanings, and what they mean to and for us.
> >
> > Not that the memeplexes have any will. They merely survive to evolve based
> > on the number of minds they have collected algorythmically. Any benefit
> > accruing to the holders of those minds is incidental - like the benefit
> > cattle have by being protected from wolves. There are plenty of examples,
> > however, where successful memeplexes have produced behaviors detremental to
> > individual well being.
> >
> > In summary the gods do exist. But not as discrete thinking entities. They
> > exist as "body parts" of certain successful (and an even larger number of
> > unsuccessful) memeplexes. Another name for the spiritual world is
> > "memeworld" (perhaps we can get Kevin Costner to star in a movie of that
> > name). And the varios sects of Buddhism also have places in that world as
> > does the secular spirituality of humanism.
> >
> Well, the philosophy of comparative religion, as opposed to any
> religion in particular, has long compared and contrasted faith-based
> systems. The gods do not have to exist in and of themselves for
> the idea of gods to exist in the minds of human beings; the two are
> not identical.
> >
> > Whattya think?
> >
> > Lloyd
> >
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > 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
>
>
===============================================================
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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