Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA27284 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 3 Aug 2001 12:24:30 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745FE7@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Macguffin Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 12:05:19 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
here, here (I think...).
> ----------
> From: joedees@bellsouth.net
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, August 3, 2001 2:40 am
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Macguffin
>
> On 2 Aug 2001, at 18:10, Bill Spight wrote:
>
> > Dear Joe,
> >
> > > > > Neither is the word "giraffe" really a tall, long-necked,
> > > > > four-legged, leaf-eating african denizen, but the word stands
> > > > > for, that is, symbolically represents, its referent, as does the
> > > > > personal pronoun.
> > > >
> > > > And what, pray tell, is the referent for that "I"?
> > > >
> > > For you, it is that dynamically recursive conscious self-awareness,
> > > that emerged from your material substrate brain as you developed
> > > from infancy, which asked that question. For me, it is the one that
> > > answered it.
> >
> > But that "I", for me, depends on my brain, and could not have been a
> > giraffe. That's the illusion I was referring to.
> >
> The fact that the self depends upon its material substrate brain for
> its existence is a point in favor of the existence of the self, not an
> argument against it.
> But your existence is not an illusion, for existence is an a priori of
> efficacy. To do, one must be. You could not have chosen to ask
> an intentional, self-referent question coded in a symbol system,
> and then actually done so, without existing as an intentional, self-
> consciously aware, symbolizing entity with free choice possessed
> of a modicum of causal efficacy. Not only that, but let's look at the
> statement "the idea that there is a self is a delusion". Well, either
> there is a self or therer isn't. If there is a self, then the statement
> is
> true, and there is no delusion, If there isn't a self, however, there
> would be no one to be deluded, and delusion requiring a deludee to
> exist as delusion, once again, there could be no delusion. There is
> no wriggle room between the absurdity-killing horns of this viciously
> lethal logical dilemma. Some people maintain that the self is a
> construct people may use in some situations and not in others,
> without coming to grips with the consequences of the answer to
> the question of who constructed the construct, and who chooses to
> or not to use it in particular situations. Then there are those selves
> who self-contradictorally deny that selves - including their own self -
> exist, and therefore not only display incoherence (for when one
> rejects logic, as one does when one insists that the insister
> doesn't exist - the very definition of self-contradiction - one cannot
> even argue a position, for one would have to use the selfsame logic
> one has already rejected in order to do that), but in addition display
> their ignorance of their own incoherence; in other words, not only
> are they nonsensical, but they are oblivious to this fact. Most of
> these people, who reject the evidence of their own senses and
> cognitions to assert what cannot be if they are even able to choose
> to accept or reject such apodictically self-evident evidence, are in
> memebotic thrall to an eastern religious meme which imposes its
> own filters to logic, reason and rationality, much as a certain
> western religious meme imposes the same filters regarding
> evidence for evolution. Such people, even more self-
> contradictorally, are emotionally atteched to the delusion that they
> do not exist; in other words, they have bizarrely bound up their self-
> esteem, their self-concept, even their sense of self-worth, with the
> religios dogma-based fantasy that they, as selves, do not and
> cannot exist. All one can do when one confronts such people, who
> are actually self-deluded enough to spend their selves in the
> service of denying that they even possess them, is to sadly shake
> one's head and walk away, consoling oneself with the thought that
> dinosaurs could not survive a novel physical environment, and that
> perhaps ideas which confront evolving knowledge, such as
> nonselfism and creationism, will mercifully (for the sake of those
> who would otherwise become infected and inflicted by such
> transparent fallacies) follow the same course.
> > Best,
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > 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
> >
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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