Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA01608 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:45:18 GMT Message-ID: <3A705795.9F77C38D@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:43:02 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en-gb] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: this list & gene/meme References: <f8.6e3a70c.27a1a7e2@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I would rephrase the sentiments about the eureka (or whatever) moment where bits of
an idea coalesce as similar to the (hypothesised) import of an ecosystem (I'm a
biologist so give me a bit of licence to go for the oldest cliches) bit by bit. There
comes a critical point where it could be said to be a connected component, and
functional in its own right. This would be true of the parts of a metabolism - there
comes a point here the metabolism could be said to be competent, and further
additions serve only to shore up the functional skeleton. c.f. Kauffman's coadapted
complexes, or Maynard Smith and Szathmary's hypercycles.
There's another sort of eureka too, where you finally boil out what is generic to a
class of objects by comparison - a sort of averaging, like what you get if you
overload a neural net.
All in all though, this stuff about meaning and reality leads to the 'how do I know
there is anything' dead end. Logical deduction doesn't always work too well. I do
love that feeling though, when an infinite regress flashes through your mind (from
foolish thoughts like "what is 'outside' the universe?" or "why the hell is there
anything at all?").
Chris.
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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