Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA25605 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 2 Aug 2001 18:00:23 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 09:55:16 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Macguffin To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3B6985F4.9A808CC1@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en References: <3B69234B.6363.10004E@localhost> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Joe and Vincent,
> > Was there a "self" in the primordial soup? Isn't self a macguffin
> > (Blackmore thinks it's a memetic macguffin, or more accurately concurs
> > with Dennett's notion of the self as a benign user illusion).
> >
> > Vincent
> >
> Self is no macguffin; nether is it an illusion
The sense of self arises from the formation of the Self-Other
distinction. If it is memetic, then chimpanzees have memes, since they
can recognize themselves in a mirror.
But illusions of self do arise with thoughts such as "I might have been
a giraffe." The "I" in that sentence is just a pronoun, not a self. ;-)
Best,
Bill
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