Re: Memes in brain

From: Robin Faichney (robin@ii01.org)
Date: Thu Oct 11 2001 - 13:27:15 BST

  • Next message: dgatherer@talk21.com: "Re: Memes in brain"

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    Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 13:27:15 +0100
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: Re: Memes in brain
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    From: Robin Faichney <robin@ii01.org>
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    On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 02:17:11PM -0500, Derek Gatherer wrote:
    > Robin
    > Cognitive science is all about the mind.
    >
    > Derek
    > The mind? Hmm... I think it's more to do with the neurological correlates
    > of behaviours, emotions, decision making, even morality (see the fascinating paper
    > in Science 239, 2105-2108 An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral
    > judgement).

    Cognitive science is not primarily about neurology. The focus is on
    functionality. Leaving "neurological correlates" aside, the rest of
    what you mention there sounds very "mind-like" to me. The supernatural
    interpretation of "mind" is a straw man.

    > As far as the mind goes, I think probably follow Dennett in not believing it
    > exists.

    I'd be grateful for a reference on that.

    > To pursue your chess analogy, it's like looking at the chess pieces
    > but then asking to see the chess set. (c.f. Ryle's man who wanders around
    > every Oxford college looking for 'the university')

    So you think chess sets and universities don't really exist? Seems like
    rather a useless usage of "real", to me.

    How about this: the trajectory of a missile can be accurately tracked
    and recorded using the appropriate instrumentation. Is that trajectory
    real, or not?

    -- 
    Robin Faichney
    alt.m: "Memes do not exist. Tell everyone you know."
    inside information -- http://www.ii01.org/
    

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