Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA00544 (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 11:56:24 +0100 Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 11:47:39 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Purported mystical "knowledge" Message-ID: <20001005114739.A1237@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <3.0.5.32.20000916205156.0081aac0@mailhost.rongenet.sk.ca> <200009142049.QAA28199@mail6.lig.bellsouth.net> <200009161917.PAA18118@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> <39C3DBD9.A6DECE06@fcol.com> <3.0.5.32.20000916205156.0081aac0@mailhost.rongenet.sk.ca> <20000917100006.C957@reborntechnology.co.uk> <3.0.5.32.20001004183717.008376d0@mailhost.rongenet.sk.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20001004183717.008376d0@mailhost.rongenet.sk.ca>; from hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca on Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 06:37:17PM -0600 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 06:37:17PM -0600, Lloyd Robertson wrote:
> 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.
> Not that the memeplexes have any will.
The "will thing" will (!) continue to be a serious obstacle until
subjective and objective aspects of reality are fully understood.
Only then will the full compatibility of free will and determinism be
realised (they, along with all the other subjective/objective dualisms,
are different aspects of one reality). Anyone who wants to get ahead
of the curve should get Thomas Nagel's book Mortal Questions and read
the essay entitled Subjective and Objective -- also What is it Like to
be a Bat, which I think shows how Nagel found his way to the position
described in S&O. Other people are working along vaguely similar lines,
including Varela & assocs and my (not so) humble self. (Probably many
more these days -- I'm out of touch with "the scene", focusing on
developing my own ideas.)
<snip>
> 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.
Gods as memes/memeplexes is spot-on (though not new). While the atheists
(I mean the fundamentalist rationalists) are busy chanting "there are
no gods", the rest of us get on with exploring the fascinations of the
memetic universe.
Some of the cutting-edge thinking in this (vague) area has been done by
the cyberpunk SF writers, notably William Gibson who depicts sort-of
memetic voodoo gods invading the net, in the Neuromancer series.
Neal Stephenson used memetics in Snow Crash, though he took it a bit
too far -- this is a sort of fundamentalist memetics -- but there are
some great ideas in it even so, it's quite mind-expanding, and highly
entertaining. His more recent books The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon
are also about the technological culture thing, and HIGHLY recommended.
-- 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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