Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA06387 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 22 Jul 2001 22:07:39 +0100 Message-ID: <004101c112f3$09e15600$44c2fac1@necdirect> From: "Pascal Jouxtel" <pascal@contagions.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <Pine.WNT.4.33.0107201051360.51-100000@C157775-A.frndl1.wa.home.com> <995818721.3b5afce1c20c5@rugth1.phys.rug.nl> Subject: Re: Logic Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 23:12:38 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Bonsoir, TJ and Philip
Same answer for me.
Logic is one of those memeplexes so powerful that they have become
absolutely dominant; dominant to such an extent that the very stuff of our
thoughts relies on it, and that we don't even see them anymore.
I suppose the same could be said of other memeplexes like the Self, and also
like another one almost invisible, which I should call 'the existence and
unicity of reality'. We all agree on that. Suppose we didn't... in
situations where we do not think or act according to the 'existence and
unicity of reality', other memes get quite difficult to pass on, because
communication itself between two people becomes awkward. It also, like
philip said, gets difficult to come to satisfactory solutions. Imagine you
want to shake hands with someone and share a cup of coffee, and you don't
agree about both of you being in the same place, or being of the same
species, or even being simutlaneously at all. If you don't agree about hands
being hands, and coffee being coffee.
These basic dominant memeplexes can come in handy in the morning !
About logic, I would add that the 'logic' meme has mostly been enforced by
cartesian western civilisation, but it is not absolutely world-wide. I was
listening to the radio today, and a guy was reporting precisely about
non-logical things he had witnessed in Africa, South America and Asia. For
example, he told about a village in Africa where people had suffered from
sickness, deaths, cattle diseases, famine, and so forth. They had come to
the conclusion that someone in the village had used black magic to curse
them. But nobody would dare to inquire or turn his neighbor in, for fear of
retaliations. So they asked the 'feticheur'. He had all villagers gather in
a big circle, and with his machette, he cut a chicken's head. The chicken
managed to walk a few metres without it's head, and fell dead at the feet of
an old man. The feticheur did it one more time, and the second beheaded
chicken picked the same man again. He screamed and confessed : He had done
the deed. All trouble in the village stopped. This is not logic. But it
worked for those people, so the meme passed on that european logic should be
resisted because it does not help solve problems.
A bientot, les amis !
Pascal
A bientot sur / see you soon on
www.contagions.com
Tell your friends / parlez-en à vos amis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Jonkers" <P.A.E.Jonkers@phys.rug.nl>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2001 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: Logic
> Hi TJ,
>
>
> Is logic a meme?
>
>
> Logic offers reasonable answers to rational questions. It is
> a reflection of how the physical world works. Nature ultimately
> works according to the laws of logic, if it didn't there would be
> no such place as our universe in the first place. Anyway, to solve a
technical
> or physical problem requires logic to arrive at a satisfactory
> working solution. Having a solution based not on logic will have to
> rely on luck or brute-force operant conditioning (trial-and-error).
> In general, if the problem solver uses logic he will come to a higher
> quality solution in less time and with less expenditure of resources.
>
> Therefore, the logical approach to any problem will be preferred
> over other - less logical and more irrational - angles.
> People will gain competitive edges by developing an affinity
> for emphasizing logic in their problem solving approach. In the past,
> there ought to have been a true genetic interest in developing,
> either via creation or imitation, logical behavior. This means a memetic
> drive towards thinking more-and-more logical, analogous to the
> memetic driving leading to the big human brain as Susan Blackmore
> argues in `The Meme-Machine'.
> It therefore seems only logical (!) to infer that, YES, logic is
> synonymous to an extremely powerful memeplex. This niche is supported
> by the existence of the whole realm of rational-thought disciplines
> built on logic. Mathematics, science and technology are examples of
> extremely successful memeplexes which would not have come to existence
without
> logic.
>
> Indeed, I owe it to logic that I'm capable of coming to the conclusion
> that, indeed, logic is a memeplex, and a very successful one at that.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Philip Jonkers.
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
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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