Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA10329 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 23 Nov 2000 10:14:21 GMT From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 21:18:28 +1100 Message-ID: <LPBBICPHCJJBPJGHGMCIIEBGCLAA.ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <200011230310.WAA03742@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Joe E. Dees
> Sent: Thursday, 23 November 2000 2:14
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp
>
>
> Date sent: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 09:42:10 -0600
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> From: Mark Mills <mmills@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp
> Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> > Wade,
> >
> > Interesting stuff.
> >
> > At 09:26 AM 11/16/00 -0500, you wrote:
> >
> > >After
> > >all, he concludes, "In every critical juncture, after the chimp has
> > >learned something and we gave him the option to tell us, 'are
> you really
> > >reasoning about seeing or are you using some surface behavior cue?', at
> > >every case, they have consistently said, 'What are you talking
> about? We
> > >are using what is there. We're using what is in the world.'"
> >
> > I wonder what would happen if you asked a 3 year old human the same
> > question. Considering conversations with my 3 year old
> grandson, I think
> > he would tell me the same thing. I doubt I could distinguish
> 'reasoning
> > about seeing' for him.
> >
> > Perhaps human and chimp neurology is the same, but the longer human
> > development period extends abilities. 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.
> >
> An increase in quantity of nodes and interconnections, and thus
> complexity, leads to the emergence of new qualities and
> capacities, such as explicit self- and other-reference and
> spatiotemporal self- and other-situation (past(then)-present(now)-
> future, here-there) and self- and other-consciousness, when
> recursion happens (breaching the Godelian threshhold), as I've
> maintained all along.
yes Joe ... but then *you* also maintain the concepts of fundamental
trichotomies refusing to look at anything that threatens your concepts and
so you are 'stuck' :-)
BTW since you have not responded to previous emails (both off memetics and
on) I suppose I will have to point you in the 'right' direction: the
*fourth* concept that enables the encapsulation of the idea of a wave is
SPEED, something you leave out so as to retain your trichotomy... As usual
all those who favour trichotomies fail to differentiate relational
processes, they lump them all together, Freud did, Popper did, and Peirce
did. An education based on these sorts of works prior to analysis of the
neurology clouds your thinking...
From out of the MANY come MANY modes of interpretation and this includes
'false' ones where you span a boundary and so confuse levels of analysis.
The core processing is in the form of bifurcations...self/other as well as
self/others... there are subtle distinctions here that you seem to miss..
As to thinking like chimps note carefully that the thinking processes of
autistics seem to reflect the thinking processes of chicks, IOW there is
only one object and MANY things happen to it. There is a STRONG sense of
SELF but NOT of other minds. To develop a theory of mind requires the one to
become at least two... this seems to be what splits us from all other
lifeforms where many relationships of ONE are extended to many relationships
of MANY...
Lets look at this from an information theory angle:
If information is deemed as being a decrease in uncertainty and uncertainty
is where all possible symbols have an equal chance of expression then
uncertainty reflects what could be and so falls into the realm of the
general; a particular expression acts to 'collapse' the uncertainty into
certainty -- collapsing the wave function is part of our thinking. This
process reflects a 1:many methodology where uncertainty is the in realm of
the MANY.
For primitive lifeforms the ONE is 'me' and the MANY are aspects of 'me' and
that includes 'out there' (territory behaviours reflect this 'ownership' and
also include the development of the concept of NOT me).
Development causes 'me' to bifurcate into MANY and these can be
externalised, projected onto others as well as 'me' adopting characteristics
of others...
All of this points to the 'ONE' being 'true', being 'certain', so the 'MANY'
is biased to uncertainty and so includes negation.
The general left/right brain distinctions favour this bifurcation and the
these distinctions identify sets of general behaviours where the feedback
within the MANY is applied to itself and out pops dichotomies, trichotomies
etc and this includes exagerations etc, 'lies' if you like, that act to try
and emphasis, + or -, a particular aspect or set of aspects of the MANY that
we can collapse into a ONE. (I think you can see the emergence from this of
the concept of Metonymy and Metaphor as well as analogy etc)
The dichotomies, trichotomies etc etc reflect harmonics analysis but
fundamental to this is the emergence of the distinctions of objects and
relationships (the ONE and the MANY), even talking waves forces the
identification of 'a wave' and so an object. In its purest form the SUM of
MANY = ONE but the MANY is always IMPLICIT when compared to the EXPLICIT
ONE.
The metonomy angle comes in when object is differentiated into a whole (a
'stand alone' object) and parts (an object in a relationship to another,
'bigger' object) and parts acts to communicate the whole, here we see the
beginnings of sameness/difference entanglements to aid in communications (in
linguistic disorders it is metonomy that is linked to similarity disorders
and metaphor to contiguity disorders).
The establishment of 'clarity' is a very 'ONE' perspective and despite all
of the complexity that happens in the development of a human so this
perspective still shines through reflecting a rigid 1:many development at
all levels of development and analysis.
This will 'naturally' lead to confusions in levels of understanding. :-)
best,
Chris.
------------------
Chris Lofting
websites:
http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
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