Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA14692 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 22 Jan 2002 01:50:38 GMT Message-ID: <008901c1a2e6$bde89a40$2dc1b3d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <8DF5710E-0E0E-11D6-8628-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Knowledge, Memes and Sensory Perception Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 17:47:23 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Wade,
> Remove the human from culture, and memetic development is
> impossible. Memetic behavior requires cultural environment, just as
> speech requires a languaged environment to develop. So, far, no-one
> is asking that there be 'languemes' in the brain. No, the genetic
> development of the human brain selected for speech and language
> and culture as a developmental complexity, totally dependent upon a
> sustaining environment. Language in the brain is a potential- the actual
> speech itself comes from outside, in the form of phonemes that are
> heard, not created internally, that fill and fit, like smells, into
> prepared regions of the senses. And memes are not found internally.
> They are found and created outside. Where they shall remain.
How could language not exist in the mind? Yet I agree that it's not in the
brain. In fact it logically cannot reside in the brain, for language is a
set of abstractions, and abstractions have no definable physical
characterisitics. There are no words in brains, only clumps of neurons that
"light up" when we comprehend or produce language. To imagine that the
co-occurrence of brain activity and mental activity demonstrates that brain
causes mind is to commit the well-known fallacy of false cause.
Ted
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