Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA18083 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 16 Nov 2000 16:16:44 GMT Message-ID: <A4400389479FD3118C9400508B0FF2300410E2@DELTA.newhouse.akzonobel.nl> From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 17:12:08 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Mark:
Cast in memetic terms, perhaps the
genetic difference (between chimp and human neural systems) is only a
change in the length of development. The additional cognitive abilities
are additional neural memes stuffed into the brain.
Derek:
But this can't be so. There is more to cognitive abilities than just
storage of some inner somethings. That, as I have pointed out before, is a
pre-Chomskian view of the mind that went out in the mid-50s. I do apologise
to be so boring about this, but I just don't seem to be able to get the
point across. We would need to have infinite-sized brains 'to stuff in' all
the inner memes for our infinitely variable linguistic capabilities.
Mind-as-storage models (call the thing that's stored a mnemon, a meme or
whatever) just won't work and no serious cog psych or neurobiologist has
believed this for the last 45-odd years at least.
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