Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA03635 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:59:38 GMT Message-Id: <200101191157.GAA03604@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 05:40:42 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: DNA Culture .... Trivia? In-reply-to: <20010119104109.E509@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <200101182005.PAA02168@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 02:11:16PM -0600 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:41:09 +0000
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: DNA Culture .... Trivia?
From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk>
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> On Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 02:11:16PM -0600, Joe E. Dees wrote:
> > >
> > All I have seen you do is deny - deny that people possess selves,
> > or that memes possess meaning.
>
> I have explained to you several times that I only deny the self when
> arguing with anyone who insists that the term has a concrete, unequivocal
> referent. Otherwise, I say the concept is useful in some contexts and
> not in others. I have also explained to you, very recently, in this
> thread, that our disagreement on the meaningfulness of memes was about
> the use of the word "meme", ie semantics. I have ALSO gone as far as to
> admit, since that disagreement, that for a while I did over-emphasise
> the objective aspects of memetics and memes and neglect the subjective
> and intersubjective aspects. Will you EVER admit ANY of your mistakes?
> Or isn't your sense of self strong enough?
>
It's gratifying to see that you are coming to see the light that
eastern sages saw long before you; that when they said that the
self was nothing, they meant no-thing, i.e. not a fixed and static
being or thing, like a rock or a tree, but rather a dynamically and
complexly recursive becoming.
>
> > > > There should be no confusion between the molecular
> > > > significance we can grant to the structure of a material (or an
> > > > energy) and the communicational significance we impose upon
> > > > certain configurations or patterns of one substance or another.
> > > > There isn't with me.
> > >
> > > Nor with me. Why do you think there is?
> > >
> > The answer was in reference to the second quote, which you
> > snipped, about the difference between the information contained in
> > the writing on the paper and the information contained in the
> > structure of the paper, which Dennett urged his colleagues not to
> > consider at that time.
>
> Why do you think that to consider the relationship between these two
> types of information is to confuse them?
>
I'm glad to hear you don't. They also are not the same type of
information; we purposefully encode one with arbitrary meaning
agreed upon by mutual convention; the other is linked irrevocably to
its material substrate. the structure of carbon atoms will be what it
is no matter what we do to the carbon, short of changing it into
another element, but we can adjust the configuration in which we
arrange it with our pencil to mean whatever we choose.
>
> > > Your problem, Joe, is that you're so busy arguing, you don't get around to
> > > listening. The best possible encapsulation, or least lossy compression,
> > > of my work is "to prove Dennett's supposition correct". Now tell me
> > > either why you object to _that_, or what more you would need to know
> > > before formulating your objections.
> > >
> > Mind is composed of matter/energy configured in sufficiently
> > complex, dynamic and recursive patterns to permit it to breach the
> > Godelian barrier and impose meaning. There; I've done it for you.
>
> I'm sorry. Maybe I'm too stupid to understand, but I'm sure someone
> around would benefit, if you just say a little more about how that
> statement proves correct the supposition "that some concept of
> _information_ could serve eventually to unify mind, matter, and meaning
> in a single theory."
>
What is critical is the complexity of the patterning of the
matter/energy substrate; when the number of components and their
interconnections achieve sufficient interrelational complexity to
permit self-reference, mind emerges. A sufficient quantity does
lead to the emergence of new qualities. A single grain of sand, or
ten, possesses no tipping plane, but millions of grains in a pile will
form an angle from the horizontal of no more than 43 1/2 degrees
(the angle of the pyramids, BTW). If more sand is added to the
top, avalanches widen the base to re-establish the angle. This
property is only possessed by a sufficiently large aggregate. Mind
is like that. A single neuron cannot be self-aware, or a million of
them apparently, but equally apparently three trillion of them can
be and are in each human case (except perhaps in Chris Lofting's
:).
> --
> Robin Faichney
> robin@reborntechnology.co.uk
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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