Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA23835 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 7 Feb 2001 23:14:17 GMT From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 17:17:34 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution Message-ID: <3A81832E.24753.499A9B@localhost> In-reply-to: <000501c0909a$bb5be8e0$4f1ec6cf@oemcomputer> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 6 Feb 2001, at 19:12, Ray Recchia wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>
> > On 5 Feb 2001, at 20:02, Ray Recchia wrote:
>
> > (otherwise people would be left with too many for some traits and
> > not enough for others). This is a further constriction, as is the
> > fact that these changes have to occur between generations, not
> > within them.
> > >
> I guess we are saying the same thing, Brains are better at solving
> problems than the evolutionary processes of DNA reproduction. I'm
> just not adding in self-awareness. I don't think you need
> consciousness to get more fit memes or genes. You just need a good
> searching algorithm. Maybe self-awareness necessarily means better
> searching techniques but you haven't shown me that.
>
The point is that you get such an algorithm from experience, and
refine it there, and have to remember your history of successes
and failures in order to modify well; also, innovation is a result of
having one's schemas stumped, and being forced to puzzle things
out and innovate (Piatet, THE GRASP OF CONSCIOUSNESS).
Otherwise, we could never advance beyond primitive algorithms to
greater ones that subsume their predecessors as special cases.
>
> Both genetic reproduction and our thought processes have limitations
> or constrictions as you phrase it. People who are red-green color
> blind can't see in their minds color distinctions they've never seen
> in reality even though they possess the neural machinery to do so. I
> do agree though agree that thinking processes can be much more
> efficient than the crude recombination of DNA.
>
And we have a hard time seeing unaided in the ultraviolet and
infrared spectrums.
>
> > > The whole free will argument is a bit of loser I think. Many
> > > people have trouble accepting it, but we are in fact controlled by
> > > the orbits of electrons, the laws of physics, and the diffusion of
> > > neutrotransmitters across synapses. I thought we got past this
> > > stuff in the first couple centuries after Newton.
> > >
> > This position flies in the face of quantum indeterminacy and the
> > further argument that the scales of atoms and of cortical
> > microtubules are too widely disparate for cause-and-effect
> > relationships to translate lockstep between their levels, as well as
> > the work being done in complexity theory and fuzzy logic.
> >In fact, a major focus of Roger Sperry's work was how recursion in
> > systems possessing the prerequisite complexity, such as our
> > cerebral cortexes, were capable of, and indeed utilized, top-down
> > control (in addition to the bottom-up control which remains).
> > >
> > >
> If you are looking for your soul in 6.6 X 10^-34 J s I wish you good
> luck but that's not what I am addressing. I should have been more
> clear earlier. I am not talking about causation, I'm talking about
> composition. The uncertainty principle doesn't change the fact that we
> are composed of atoms, molecules, cells, and at least partially of
> memes. No one talks with any dismay about our minds being made up of
> atoms or neurons, and it doesn't get us any where to worry about being
> made up of memes either. They don't cause us, they are us.
>
I'm not loooking for my soul; I do not subscribe to supernatural
phantasms. I AM interested in the process by means of which our
self-conscious awareness emerges from the complex configuration
of neurons, axons and synapses we possess, when this
configuration is subjected to interrelation with experience.
>
> Your citing to Sperry without explaining his theories in more detail
> doesn't provide with me any use insights. It would help if you could
> explain in a bit more detail using plain English. I really don't have
> time to read everything and would greatly appreciate it. I am aware
> of how recursion is used in developmental processes with chemical
> diffusion gradients but I've not heard of it in the context of neural
> activity.
>
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and must also
include their plethora of interrelations, which is why the atomistic
approach fails; it is simplistic and incomplete. You won't find the
totality of one of Georges Seurat's pointillist paintings in any one of
their points, or in all of them, if they are simply taken one by one.
>
> Raymond O. Recchia
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>
>
===============================================================
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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