Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA03570 (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 19:37:32 +0100 Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 18:55:26 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme Message-ID: <20010326185526.B835@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D17@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D17@inchna.stir.ac.uk>; from v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk on Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 04:42:53PM +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 04:42:53PM +0100, Vincent Campbell wrote:
>
> In the sense that science is constructed culturally as a series of
> narratives (scientists as heroes- and villains), it is clearly memetic-
Yes, but science is also memetic in the sense that it's a body of theories
and theories are nothing but memes.
> I must concur with Wade on
> what science can do and religious belief cannot.
Seems very clear to me, everything science is good at, religion is no
good at. And vice versa.
> 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.
I don't recall saying anything about revelation.
> 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,
You mean like people experiencing scientific understanding for themselves?
> but in attempting to do so they undoubtedly will experience
> something idiosyncratic.
What precisely does "idiosyncratic" mean there?
> Where's the equivalence to science as a method of
> knowledge acquisition in that?
Who ever said Buddhism or any other religion could be equivalent to
science as a method of knowledge acquisition?
> 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...]
Conceptual emptiness can be a good thing! I aim to experience it
every day. And show me a scientific paper that doesn't borrow from
earlier sources. Might I remind you of a quote that contains the phrase
"the shoulders of giants"?
-- Robin Faichney Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)=============================================================== 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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