Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA07995 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 4 Jun 2001 15:50:02 +0100 Message-ID: <004a01c0ed0a$c9f7f3e0$78a1bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Cc: "dinij" <dinij@freemail.absa.co.za> References: <3B150B28.21781.D429A6@localhost> Subject: Re: Quantum questions ! Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 17:26:04 +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 Joe,
It took some time to get my mind back together again,
if you still can spare the time,
You wrote,
It seems to me
> that you are even attempting to go farther than to propose wavicles
> as an analogy, and are even suggesting it as an actuality. This
> simply will not work, due to the substance (for physical entities) vs.
> configuration (for memes) disparity between the two.
<< Do I !? Good for me !
But, in a sense we could easily draw another analogy, to make it clearer.
Although !!
If we presuppose that an individual's idea is a particle ( a spot of water
in the vast ocean) than we can assume that the wave ( the idea 's contai-
gon agents) does not equally wet all the people on the beach_ some will
actualy drown and others will stay dry.
In a way, a ' wave ' is the best possible figure to demonstrate how an
idea propagates throughout a society.
How stronger the contaigon agents are, how higher the wave will be,
but that doesn 't mean that she can wet people in any way.
If you were sitting behind the dunes ( filters) you will be in the clear.
If you dig canals with your kids, in a way you make it then easier for
the water to come to you ( hooks).
The evolutionary characters of the idea would be explained in this
by the everlasting continium of breaking waves upon the beach, which in a
sense is a quantum system, due to the fact that a new wave overlaps and
merges with the one before.
In a way they stay seperate in their particle aspects ( still individual
aspects
are added with their own contaigon agents) where the wave aspect of the
system stays ferm.
But, in a sense, the original indiviual idea will be thrown higher up on the
beach each time a new wave breaks. In a way, here, a particle becomes
a part of the new(er) wave_ and in a sense from our human perspective, it
becomes easy to ' forget ' that the individual idea even existed !
( In a sense that would be a/ the reason why we only can look just at the
particle and not at the wave at the same time).
And in a way, we reduce both parts of the system to only one ( the wave)_
or from a memetisist perspective to the only one meme(plex).
( We investigate IMO, in memetics the particles, and we do not yet know
how/ why those spread ( the wave aspect)).
You wrote,
> The development of memes as a result of their accommodation to
> and assimilation within different cognitive gestalts is adequately
> represented via the analogy to specied confronting new
> environmental ecologies, with the addendum that cognitive
> selection, unlike natural selection, may be intentional. To attempt
> to graft a wavicle model onto this adds nothing, in my opinion, and
> in addition tends to distort the evolutionary process being forced
> into the paradigm.
<< Yes, but we can easily forsee that any wave (or particle) wants to get
more of the beach. And the only possible way to do that is to become
part(icle) of a higher ( evolutionary ?) (wave)- system.
Storms and high winds will throw the waves ( and the particles) higher
up on the beach, they will even reach as far as the dunes.
Not as mush people will stroll down the beach at such times and yes,
you may say that is intentional.
But on the other hand there is the possibility that inbedded urges and
needs will have drawn them to that beach.
And the notion of cognitive intentionally falls then apart and becomes an
aspect of natural selection_ by which we must understand that each indi-
vidual " idea" tends towards succes and that due to its own " natural bias
"
to do so !
And for my attempt " to graft " a wavicle model I wish to add the follo-
wing,
Maybe we can glance this as the place where memeplexes are getting
" born "_ the place upon the beach where water stays behind in pools,
and in addition, the next great wave will disperse its contents all over the
beach.
It will not distort the evolutionary process, it will instead add to the
" context " of evolution. Just a thought !!
You wrote,
> And the basic constitutions of fundamental waves and particles do
> NOT change.
<< Yes ! But we could easily argue that the waves and particles we
see/ experience or whatever are already the determined outcomes of
an event.
What in others words could/ might mean that at the very, still deeper bias
of each fundamental there is some change.
After all, if we look at the theories of Penrose and Hameroff saying that
microtubules provide a safe haven in which quantumevents could multi-
ply until they become powerful enough to make a difference, we could
say that there is change_ that in other words a particle or a wave is not
yet a particle or is not yet a wave as such ( as we know it) until some
later event wherever demands it to become one.
If of course, you argue a particle is a particle and a wave is a wave as
such, no less, no more in order to get some bias to experiment with,
you are right.
But, WE call a particle a particle, and yes, that does not explain what the
phenomenon at issue really is, and moreover, I haven 't the slightest idea
what could exist beyond the subatomic level, what in a sense the above
suggest !
But in a way that have to be not the case, if we count in the controversial
possibility that within each and every cell there might be a miniature
network carrying out its own level of info processing.
And in a way, such an idea becomes very ' handy ' if someone, like me is
trying to figure out how to breach the Weismann's Barrier_ that is to
figure out if memes can be genetical inheritable.
You wrote,
> That is the atomism/holism debate; I happen to believe that either
> approach offers something that the other one doesn't, and that they
> should be employed in a complementary fashion. As far as your
> suggestion is concerned, the particle would be psychology and the
> wave would be sociology, but in the double slit experiment,
> particles and waves do not each change the character of the other
> via interaction between fundamentally different categories of
> entities, but are instead two experimnetal views of the same object,
> while human individuals cannot be equated with human groups.
<< Ok, thanks for this answer !
But, what in fact if not the indivdidual as such in all his aspects is the
object of experiment here !?
And if, the individual is a secluded object in/ of oneself how do/ can
you investigate such an object !?
If in one way you look at the wave you can 't have any full insight into
the indivudual his/ hers behavior ( the particle is a secluded whole) and
in the other way, you can 't grasp to the full extend his/ hers society due
to the fact mentioned as above.
That is what you are saying here !?
And where do you put memetics !? Wave or particle !?
We can at the most observe, interpretate, we can at the most be open
minded for the full " confessions " people give us in analystical-
sessions,
but a full and complete insight isn 't possible !?
In a sense, " lying behind evolutionary, selective, memetical adaptive
" quantum " - variations/ pressures of randomness/ probability/ social-
physical development/ education and social context/ irreversibility/ self-
organisation/ complexity/ propagationbehavior/ adaptability/ change
and necessity are preventing us 1) to get a clear view upon and 2) to
find the cause for the strange and at the same time the catastrofical
functional failure of the by us so well know behavior of kids. "
(From my own writings. Ignore the context.)
In a way_ if you can 't know the particle you can 't know the wave, and
if we, as human individuals reflect upon this, we can come to only one
single conclusion,...we do not know ourselves !
And in addition, I do not ' know ' my relationship with others, I do not
' know ' my relationship to the whole of all relationships ( the wave), and
all of the others are faced with the same problem.
And in the end, can we not equate human individuals with the society
where those live in !?
After all, someone said, we all live in the society we deserve, no !?
Thanks for reading,
Best,
Kenneth
( I am, because we are) a favoured solution
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