Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA22216 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 22 Apr 2001 16:10:15 +0100 Message-ID: <004301c0cb43$4db181e0$2201bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <20010419141340.AAA10385%camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Subject: Re: The Status of Memetics as a Science Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 17:45:13 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Wade, Lawrence and all,
> On 04/19/01 09:25, Lawrence DeBivort said this-
> >it might give rise to an engineering
> >application that might be misused ethically or socially.
Wade said,
So, yes, there is a large body of validity to the claim that such ethical
> and social abuse is well-established and ongoing and perhaps, intrinsic.
Memetics would be well-applied if it endeavored to correct these
> situations.
For what it is worth here are my comments for this thread,
<< IMO memetics would be well- applied if it were endeavored to correct
that kind of situations. As a matter of fact, from my point of view meme-
tics would be the only social appplication to do that.
Like Lawrence, the memetic concept works for me as applied as the bias
for what I concern as individuality, and in that respect memetics can
thrown a light upon why people abuse, ethically and socially, or why
they misuse ethically and socially their by nature given behavioral charac-
teristics. I think I shared this with you several times.
And does memetics seem useful !?
Yes, and once again in the context as mentioned above. Memetics is and
would be extremely useful to understand the why of people's behavior.
And secondly, memetics as I see and use it, give rise to a completely
new view of what man really is. JR Molloy said that a constructive use
of memetics lies in the study of memes which result in harmful behavior,
and I do agree with this, but than and only from an ethical point of view.
Correcting harmful behavior as a result of the study of what kind of memes
were involved must not mean that we desrespect the human being.
We have to have respect for people's their memes, harmful or not and
by doing so we must pursuing ways which lead up to a redefinition of
our ethical standards.
Memetics and ethics are profoundly intermixed and IMO you can 't have
the one without the other. And, the main objection nowadays towards
memetics is that it have not given enough facts to go in the mainstream
of society.
In a way, we must have a massive problem where we as memetisists
would bring the solution....
And what memetic engineering is concerned, I had several particular
interesting understandings with Lawrence about this subject.
A subject which I still find is worthwile to investigate, but again and
still with the ethical notion not isolated from the mechanism.
Memetic engineering should be applied to beginning to learn how to
create a healthy and desirable society.
And there IMO, you already see the problem, define healthy and desire-
ble, and in what way does this count for everybody !?
IMO, we have to start from the very memetic bias; the memetic fundament
where upon we all stand ( a memetic philosophy).
If we fully understand ourselves memetically, than we can begin to prospect
the beginnings of learning how to create a society...
And in order to do just that, memetics nowadays holds in itself the ethical
framework where upon research in those matters can be eloborated.
Best,
Kenneth
( I am, because we are) more than ever
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