Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id HAA21872 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:05:37 GMT Message-ID: <013c01c1a4ac$e8875d00$6621aace@oemcomputer> From: "Philip Jonkers" <philipjonkers@prodigy.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <F160Hy3SpwBGpEI2rV40001d58b@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Grant's theory of Everything Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 22:27:43 -0900 Organization: Prodigy Internet Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Steve:
I find i agree with a lot that you have said, and that we do have many
choices in the memes we accept. Where i disagree is that we have been
exposed to various memes throughout our lives that we do not neccesarily
question without a great deal of thought, and that many people either do not
do , will not do it or cannot do it. Hence they accept memes that are close
to the one they posses without hte scrutiny that they should deserve, and
act accordingly. eg. If i said to you that Hitler was not that bad a bloke,
you would likely not agree! (and evryone else hopefully!) :-). But for
some reason in the 1930's a lot did. And if they didn't they at least kept
stum. This is what i mean by the idea that memetic acceptance/ rejection is
one of a spectrum rather than a simple filter that we chose to interpret the
world in terms of our 'wants'.
Both yourself and Philip are at least attempting to to narrow the field a
bit and good luck to you both for trying.
About the the freedom we have in chosen memes we like: you should not
forget that memes shape who we are. Ideas and ideologies we adopt are in
resonance with memes we already adopted. Memes code the brain, and in a
way the metaphore memes selecting memes is not so bad.
I think the actual freedom one has in chosing between one meme or
another is not that big. Emotions play a crucial role in the selection
process but
emotions in turn are steered by thoughts, ideas, notions, opinions each of
which is memetic also.
Thanks for your encouragement Steve....
BTW how did you learn speed-reading?
Philip.
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