Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA00597 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 29 Mar 2001 12:01:04 +0100 Message-ID: <3AC31511.ED22A7C2@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:57:21 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D2B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> <20010329110130.B535@reborntechnology.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> If you want to know why people are susceptible to irrational beliefs, on
> the other hand, the answer lies in psychology, not memetics.
Uh-uh. Can't agree. You need the total memetic perspective. There is no
'you', there is just another island of memes in the global archipeligo.
These islands sometimes prove viable habitats for 'irrational beliefs'
(i.e. not validated by testing) because the nature of the other
inhabitants cause them to be so.
Bugger psychology - a shitload of black box storytelling quite frankly.
The only useful role for psychology is akin to that of alchemy, as a
forerunner of chemistry, or natural philosophy as a forerunner of
biology [inter alia] where it obviously has a use as a first
approximation.
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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