Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA06442 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:45:20 +0100 Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:24:56 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme Message-ID: <20010327122456.C1417@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D1E@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D1E@inchna.stir.ac.uk>; from v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk on Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 11:01:31AM +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 11:01:31AM +0100, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> <Yes, but science is also memetic in the sense that it's a body of
> theories
> > and theories are nothing but memes.>
> >
> Well, that indeed is the contention isn't it.
So where do you stand on it?
> <Seems very clear to me, everything science is good at, religion is
> no
> > good at. And vice versa.>
> >
> Well its pretty obvious I think religion's good for nothing.
That statement would carry more weight if you didn't seem to think that
religion is supposed to be good for gathering facts.
> <I don't recall saying anything about revelation.>
>
> You believe that through meditation, you will achieve some kind of
> altered state (conceptual emptiness you say below) in which one better
> perceives/understands life the universe and everything, right?
I never used the word "revelation", and I was wary about what you
meant by it. First, in meditation, nothing is perceived other than the
contents of your own mind. However, in various ways, just that can help
us understand all kinds of stuff. Mainly, it can help you understand
yourself. But, to the extent other people are like you, it can help
you understand them too. And then, regarding the rest of the world,
a quiet mind can allow stuff that's "bubbling under" to come fully into
consciousness. Of course, that's still just thought *about* the world,
theory rather than observation, but it often seems that a reduction in
quantity of conscious activity leads to an improvement in quality.
Ie, that we often seem to have a lot of good stuff "bubbling under".
Of course there's only one way to find out!
> It matters not that the guy who saw the structure
> of benzene in a dream, got his inspiration that way, the only reasons people
> remember that is because empirical work backed that idea up.
And if he hadn't had the dream, or some other equivalent insight, there
would have been no idea to test.
Nobody is saying religion or meditation is any use for testing empirical
hypotheses, for gawd sake! Only that testing empirical hypotheses is
not the only game in town.
> Meditation, and the sensations it produces are specific to the
> individual, and the same sensations are not reproducable in others. If
> Buddha did indeed say 'find your own way' isn't this what he meant?
The same sensations are reproducible where people are willing to perform
the experiment. (Of course that can't be directly observed, but the
circumstantial evidence is extremely strong.) What the Buddha said was,
we all need to be actual experimenters, not just camp followers. Seems
like a good idea to me.
> >> 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?>
> >
> Then, assuming pursuit of knowledge is the goal, why bother to use
> anything other than science?
The methods of science are far too indirect to compete with meditation
as a way of finding out about yourself (which is not to say that they
have nothing to offer there). They also fail to generate values, and
are inadequate for the generation of testable hypotheses, for which
imagination/creativity/reverie/etc is required. Regarding empirical
testing of testable hypotheses, of course, science is infinitely superior.
Saying you prefer science to religion because it involves empirical
testing, is like saying you prefer hammers to screwdrivers because
they're much better for hammering things.
-- 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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