Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA00639 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 26 Mar 2001 08:21:11 +0100 Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 23:17:38 -0800 Message-Id: <200103260717.XAA03668@mail4.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [216.76.248.14] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
On 25 Mar 2001, at 23:45, Scott Chase wrote:
>From:
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme
>Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 11:16:51 -0600
>
>On 25 Mar 2001, at 10:48, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Mar 24, 2001 at 03:41:03PM -0600, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > > On 24 Mar 2001, at 15:04, Robin Faichney wrote: > > > Your idea of
> > the self is quite well-defined, Joe -- as well-defined as > > it can
> > be, I think. But do you think that, when they use the word, > >
> > everyone else always means the same by it? > > > I can't think of a
> > single word that means the exact same thing to all > who use it.
> >
> > And you don't think you should allow for such equivocation when you
> > make statements about "the self"? If the word has different meanings,
> > surely statements made using it have variable truth values?
> >
>Given the meaning which I explicitly and definitionally attached to
>the word "self", the truth value of my statements concening same
>is a matter of scientific verification. There IS voluminous and
>comprehensive PET-scan verified evidence of top-down control, and
>there ARE measureable long-term changes engendered by
>education or conditioning, via the myelinization of neural pathways
>stimulated by the MAP-2 protein which is produced when a
>pathway is continuously used, as a result of the increased
>electrical stimulation of it. The self, and self-conscious awareness
>of it, as defined by me, indubitably DOES exist, and anyone who
>disputes same is by necessity being self-contradictory, in both
>senses of the term. Your pitiful and pathetic attempt at linguistic
>sophistry receives from me the attention it deserves, which is not
>much.
>
1. Though P.E.T. is somewhat of a top-down approach (excepting that one is focusing on the metabolism of a molecule in isotopic form,such as glucose, allowing for its detection and indexing of activity), how does P.E.T. slend support to a holistic or top-down or emergent model of mindbrain action? Any journal articles?Would one be able to read one of these articles and see a statement like: "Ladies and gentlemen...we have demonstrated existence of the self."? Or would it merely be grokked from the overall jist?
The fact that subjects are asked to remember, imagine, perceive music or spoken discourse, view text or pictures, etc., and the relevant components of the brain responsible for processing such stimuli light up on the scan as the glucose is metabolized is the evidence, and it is pervasive and overwhelming. If top-down processing were not the case, then the entire foundation of these experiments would be in question without cortroboration, but we have such corroboration, in that people with damage to these same areas lose the correlative capacities which PET scans associate with them. The brain maps that have been built over the last 15+ years with PET's, CAT's and MRI's are voluminously verified, and the fact that they could be made at all is a monumental testimony to the fact that people's minds can tell their brains what to do.
>
2. Is MAP-2 solely involved in myelinization?
>
Of course not, but myelinization does not occur in the absence of the catalyzing MAP-2 protein.
>
3. What's the operational definition of the self used and how does this putative entity explicitly relate to P.E.T. methodology and/or myelinization? How does P.E.T. evidence lend support to the self concept and what are the molecular mechanims in myelinization which supposedly link up to conditioning and education (involving MAP-2 or other components)?
>
The self, as I laid out in a previous email which I guess you did not read, is a dynamically recursive emergent pattern- configuration flow which depends upon its physical substrate, the brain, for it's existence, yet can decide what part of that substrate is used. If it could not, PET methodology could not work, for subjects could not direct their minds to one kind of task rather than another and have the physical substrate brain obey, as it indubitably does. The very fact that PET methodology works is massive and incontrovertible evidence supporting such a concept of self. When neural pathways are used frequently for extended periods of time as happens in focused conditioning and education, the electrical impulses travelling along those pathways stimulate the production of the MAP-2 protein, which then catalyzes myelinization of those pathways.
>
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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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