RE: Knowledge, Memes and Sensory Perception

From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@cogeco.ca)
Date: Tue Jan 15 2002 - 05:39:41 GMT

  • Next message: Keith Henson: "Re: Knowledge, Memes and Sensory Perception" 

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Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:39:41 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca>
Subject: RE: Knowledge, Memes and Sensory Perception
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    At 11:39 PM 14/01/02 -0500, you wrote:
    >Greetings, Keith,
    >
    >I think part of the answer must lie in the fact that people have many
    >values, and that sometimes meeting these values demands behaviors that may
    >contradict other values. A smoker, for example, may smoke in order the
    >relax, though knowing it harms their health. The value of relaxing conflicts
    >with the value of remaining healthy.

    Smoking is chemical rewards. Addictive chemicals.

    >Our values aren't all equally important; we in effect have hierarchies of
    >values. Values ranked higher will tend to command more of one's behaviors
    >than those ranked lower, and can thus 'force' the adoption of damaging
    >behaviors in the pursuit of higher held values.
    >
    >How does this mesh with your own thinking?

    Not very well. I am not sure just exactly what a '"value' would represent
    to the evolved psychological mechanisms built by genes in an attempt to get
    the genes into the next generation.

    The mechanisms can misfire in awful ways. A recent example is that the
    attention rewarding mechanism can go awry in ways as mad as the dudes in
    Heaven's Gate who whacked off their nuts.

    Keith Henson

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