Re: Song of Myself

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2001 - 04:42:47 BST

  • Next message: joedees@bellsouth.net: "Re: Song of Myself"

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    From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: Re: Song of Myself
    Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:42:47 -0400
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    >From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >Subject: Re: Song of Myself
    >Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:43:27 -0500
    >
    >On 26 Aug 2001, at 11:56, Dace wrote:
    >
    > > From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
    > >
    > > > > Sheldrake is suggesting that the form of an organism somehow stays
    > > > > with the present, even when its materialization has long since
    > > > > vanished. This is simply a roundabout way of saying that if
    > > > > memory is real, it's holistic, not particulate.
    > > > >
    > > > And this idea of an ethereal or astral memory, in the complete and
    > > > utter absence of any site or mechanism for same, is itself an
    > > > anthromorphization and a (very old) mystically driven error.
    > > > Platonic Forms, 'somehow' hovering in the celestial spheres, to
    > > > inform the mundane world, long after their dead carriers have
    > > > dissolved away; it makes for okay greek literature, and even
    > > > possesses a seductive touch of poesy, but scientific and empirically
    > > > veridical, it is not.
    > >
    > > Platonic Forms don't evolve. They transcend time altogether.
    > > Sheldrake criticizes Goodwin on the grounds that his "generative
    > > equations" are unaffected by the emergence or extinction of the
    > > species whose forms they describe.
    > >
    >Whether a species of starfish is dead or alive, five arms
    >mathematically works best from a geometric stability point of view,
    >just as five legs does for rolling chairs.
    > >
    > > In the morphic model, there's no
    > > field until there's a species in resonance with its past. As the
    > > species evolves, its form changes. Thus what it resonates with also
    > > changes. Fields evolve right along with the organisms they govern.
    > >
    >This would make the genetic evolutionary evolution of the organism
    >causally responsible for the changes in such a field, rendering the
    >very idea, much less the existence, of such a field Occamically
    >superfluous. Why doncha borrow one of those groovy field
    >detectors from the scientologists?
    >
    Didn't they "borrow" the skin galvanometer from Jung? He put it to good use
    in his complex theory at least IIRC. Just like the engram was yanked from
    Semon.

    [grumble, snort, chortle]

    These days neuroimaging technology [PET and fMRI] has replaced archaic
    devices such as galvanometers as a means of studying mental states.

    (snip)
    >
    > > The parts of a
    > > machine are manufactured separately and then placed together. Its
    > > form is imposed onto it, rather than arising intrinsically, and is
    > > separable from the matter that comprises it.
    > >
    >That's because we build it. We also build genetically engineered
    >living organisms. And your point is?
    >
    >
    Have you personally taken part in building any genetically engineered
    organisms? I haven't.

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