Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA02737 (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 16:45:56 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D17@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: The Demise of a Meme Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 16:42:53 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi everyone,
I'm going to synthesize my comments in response to the 40 odd posts over the
weekend. If you haven't got a clue what I'm on about, feel free to ignore.
If you do know what I'm going on about and want to take issue... well feel
free :-)
The interesting thing about Hawking's book, that Chris mentions, was that it
was equation free (hence, perhaps the novel feel). Some of my work, which
I'm only really just beginning, is interested in the problems of mediating
science- that is trying to make science comprehendable, even enjoyable (re:
National Science Week here in the UK), and how in doing so the essence of
the science becomes lost in the grey areas of story-telling. (For example,
the BBC's flagship science documentary strand, Horizon, now carries the
tagline 'Pure Science, Sheer Drama'.)
In the sense that science is constructed culturally as a series of
narratives (scientists as heroes- and villains), it is clearly memetic- to
bring us back to the thread that began this interesting discussion. as I
said a while back, though I do think there's a distinction between science
the institution and scientific ways of thinking- although I accept I
f*cked-up in trying to explain that.
Again, to me what matters is what underlies the different cultural
institutions, and memeplexes of religion and science. I can't agree with
Scott's moderate position in this regard, although it's better than trying
to have your cake and eat it too which I feel some here appear they want to
do, whether that's seeking non-illegal ways to find altered states, or to
pick and choose from whatever faiths they like. I must concur with Wade on
what science can do and religious belief cannot.
Where Robin and I clashed over buddhism as a faith, I think we were actually
retreading old ground but which was explored more clearly in recent posts
between Robin and Joe. To my mind, Buddhism, however Robin conceives it as
being beyond or distinct from the many traditional buddhist movements that
quite clearly retain the trappings of faiths (as Wade indicated), remains a
faith because of his stated belief in revelation through meditation. This
is a faith, because such revelation is idiosyncratic and non-transferable-
you can't teach that "insight" to anyone, they must experience it for
themselves, but in attempting to do so they undoubtedly will experience
something idiosyncratic. Where's the equivalence to science as a method of
knowledge acquisition in that?
Re- Derek's remark, if science is theatre I think it's more like Strindberg
or Ibsen, whilst religion is like.... Andrew Lloyd Webber- full of glitzy
costumes and catchy tunes, but conceptually empty and rather too much
borrowing from earlier sources :-) [incidentally, lest anyone should take
offence, I actually quite like some lloyd webber musicals...]
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Chris Lofting
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 8:31 am
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: The Demise of a Meme
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > Of Gatherer, D. (Derek)
> > Sent: Monday, 26 March 2001 4:48
> > To: 'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'
> > Subject: RE: The Demise of a Meme
> >
> >
> > >Science, however, is not theatrical
> >
> > Oh, it is, I'm afraid. There are some great performers out
> > there, and also
> > some great producers who are not performers but direct expertly
> > from behind
> > the scenes. There are Oscars (Nobels), auditions, something very like a
> > studio system (Oxbridge, Stanford etc) and even on occasion, gulp,
> casting
> > couches.....
> >
>
> yes .. heard a comment from someone re Hawking and his book re time.
> Comment
> was that the book was not science .. it was a romance novel describing
> Hawking's relationship with the universe...
>
> Any form of distortion/exageration has theatrical tones. Theatre is
> usually
> more about people than objects and as such emphasises emotion, refined
> feelings, subtle nuances, but substitution is possible...
>
> >From a neurological/cognitive perspective the emphasis is on cardinality
> over ordinality where cardinality is linked to topology, twisting, turning
> etc more 'right' brained, precision is 'approximate' and pattern detection
> favoured. Ordinality is more 'left' brained. The interaction allows the
> cardinality bias to be zoomed-in upon to get details and out of that
> emerges
> discreteness that can then be used as feedback to 'refine' the cardinal
> perspective. The topological emphasis allows for the brain to adapt to any
> 'extremes', it is extremely flexible at birth. 'Left' thinking develops as
> we develop language and a sense of self and so ordinality takes over and
> the
> cardinal 'side' is specialised into context relationships, metaphor
> encode/decoding etc and that is where theatre comes in in the form of
> *implicit* social comments etc and there is a social emphasis in Science
> expressed in the institutions of science. Academia politics could do well
> as
> a daytime TV soap!
>
> In the sense of social interactions we are 'talking' topological processes
> where a specific culture goes through twists and turns, stretching and
> shrinking, but underneath the 'same'. Thus topological processes reflect
> 'wholes' at work, dynamic processes working within but the distinction is
> not broken, the linkage of 'everthing is linked together' is maintained,
> the
> links get distorted/exagerated etc. It takes the ordinal to 'cut',
> implying
> that the ordinal is derived from the cardinal, particular from general,
> and
> when you look at development of species that seems to be supported with
> only
> us being the 'super-ordinals' :-)
>
> Wasnt 'cold fusion' theatre?... that said isnt the intent of Science to
> identify the formulas and algorithms behind expressions, to get the STEPS
> that lead to the expression? The problem is the theatrical elements --
> russian genetics suffered due to theatre, and that was theatre where the
> stars were scientists (or one in particular and the rest tried to avoid
> being shot? -- more theatre).
>
> Show biz - what fun!
>
> Chris.
> ------------------
> Chris Lofting
> websites:
> http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting
> http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
> List Owner: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/semiosis
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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> 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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