Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA11502 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 9 Oct 2001 22:00:32 +0100 From: "salice" <salice@gmx.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 22:55:15 +0000 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Genes are Memes In-reply-to: <003301c150fb$05c08140$cbdab3d1@teddace> Message-Id: <E15r3wU-00078P-00@dryctnath.mmu.ac.uk> Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> And the behavior of a thing is an aspect of that thing. How do you think
> planets and stars formed in the first place except through behavior? Memes
> are found in planets and stars because their behavior reflects those memes.
> That's essentially what you're arguing.
No, i totally agree with what you write.
> Once the meme has been let out of
> the mind box, there's no stopping it.
"Salice is always right and everyone else is wrong"
Okay this meme it's been out of my mind box now, there is no stopping
to it, everyone will agree and i will become the king of the world.
> There's nothing fundamentally
> different about brains, behavior, books, planets, and genes. All are in the
> realm of the senses. Try putting a meme under a microscope.
Agree.
> No, you don't. What you find on your computer screen is pixels.
Well i find pixels on my screen as i find words on it. BOTH my
mind finds but what the heck. Who cares anyway?
> > If a meme exists in the mind and the mind exists in the brain then
> > the meme also exists in the brain.
> > If you don't agree, you either think that the mind is not in the
> > brain or you don't believe in logic.
> Here's a little logic for you, Salice. 1. All phenomena that appear to
> arise from a particular object do indeed arise from that object. 2. The
> mind appears to arise from the brain. 3. (conclusion) The mind arises from
> the brain.
Well so you think that the mind is outside the brain? Where is it
then? Sure noone can know ITS ALL A BIG ILLUSION. But what illusion
do you have? My illusion is that the mind is in the brain what's
yours?
> Yet we know that it actually enters the TV from
> somewhere else, either over the air or via cable. Thus there's at least one
> case in which a phenomenon that appears to arise from an object does not
> arise from that object. We must strike "All" from the first premise and
> replace it with "Some." With this modification, the conclusion no longer
> follows.
Well i don't know what you mean. I wrote "If a meme exists in the
mind and the mind exists in the brain then the meme also exists in
the brain"
Relating this to your tv example it would be.
"If a picture exists on the tv screen and the tv screen exists in the
living room then the picture is also in the living room."
It doesn't matter whether the picture came from somewhere else the
logic is still true.
> > > No words in our ears, only drumbeats. No words in our brains, only
> > > electrochemical reactions. Words exist in the mind and nowhere else.
> Same for memes.
Hm, i think words also exist outside the mind. But all that is just
playing around with language and different viewpoints.
> That we abstract words doesn't mean the abstraction exists alongside the
> bits of ink on the page. Abstractions have no reality outside the mind.
I wouldnt agree. We put our abstactions into "ink on a page". We
change it and structure it. That's what makes memes possible. If we
wouldn't be able to put our abstractions outside our head we wouldn't
be able to transmit memes from head to head.
I mean i write you this, so there is this WORD as i write it and
there is this WORD as you read it. In both of our minds it's
probably there but in the way between it's somehow also there else
how could i transfer my words from my head to your head?
> If
> the mind is reducible to the brain-- if it has no intrinsic reality-- then
> abstraction has no reality at all, not even as abstraction, much less the
> thing it represents. In trying to stuff the mind into the brain, you lose
> the mind altogether.
Oh no. You can abstract something and you can look closer. That
doesn't mean that either of these actions destroy something.
You can abstract 'forest' but you can also look at all the trees
independently. That does not mean that the forest or the tree gets
lost by doing so.
> All memes propagate themselves.
Themselves? They make babies? They sit there and think "Oh i want to
have a child now".
> Selfish memes are like cancerous cells. They don't function in accord with
> anything outside themselves. They just reproduce their own particular kind.
> If memes are the basis of culture, then selfish memes are the basis of cult.
Well some cults become culture.
> Materialist mysticism is a fine example of memetic cancer. This tumor of
> the mind causes otherwise rational people to abandon all sense when it comes
> to issues of life and mentality.
Oh yeah. This reminds me a bit of a socialism text, it was also a bit
like that: "Capitalism is an illness of the mind" or something like
that.
It's all just a matter of what culture you live in to say what's
wrong and what's not.
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