Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA02946 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 28 Jan 2002 06:58:39 GMT Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 22:54:23 -0800 Message-Id: <200201280654.g0S6sNt23197@mail21.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [65.80.160.154] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: necessity of mental memes Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
> "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Re: necessity of mental memesDate: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:33:26 -0800
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
>> Keith Henson:
>> >>Joe, this is one of those cases where if you take another viewpoint,
>> >>the problem might make more sense. Consider driving down a road.
>> >>From your viewpoint, *anything* could happen, rabbits run across the
>> >>road, an airplane land on the road ahead, etc. Now consider it from
>> >>the viewpoint of a person far overhead making a film. Now consider
>> >>it from the viewpoint of someone watching that film later. They will
>> >>see the chain of events where too much head wind and not filling the
>> >>tanks caused an aircraft to land on the road in front of your car.
>> >>
>> Joe Dees:
>> >>OF COURSE everthing appears fron hindsight to be necessary, just
>> >as things appear in foresight to be contingent, but in the present cusp
>> >where causally effective decisions are made, neither assumption can
>> >be made, for the appearance/reality distinction collapses on this plane.
>> >>>>
>> Ted Dace:
>> >Ah, but Joe, there's no such thing as time-- remember? There's only a
>> >static, four-dimensional space-time. "Before" and "after" are nothing
>> >more than "left" and "right" from the limited point of view of people
>> >trapped in the illusion of time.
>> >
>> >As long as you've conceded the reduction of real time to space-time,
>> >there's nothing you can say against determinism.
>> >
>> Wrong; spatiotemporality is quite real
>
>Of course. Everything that exists in space also exists in time. From the
>point of view of physical objects, the two are totally intertwined. But
>time itself doesn't exist in space. It exists intrinsically, irreducibly.
>
Nope; spatiotemporality is a single irreduceable manifold. There is no way that anyone can perceive either a spaceless time or a timeless space, or even imagine such things. Our perceptions grasp the various aspects of this manifold to differing degrees, but both aspects of the manifold - the spatial aspect and the temporal aspect - are omnipresent to all modes of perception. And spacetime does not itself exist apart from the matter/energy that curves and creates it by means of gravitation. There cannot be space without matter/energy, there cannot be matter/energy without change, and there cannot be change without time.
>
>Only when viewed from the outside-- that is, from the point of view of
>space-- does it appear to be purely relative to space.
>
Nither is dependent upon the other; they are interrelationally correlative with neither being prior or posterior.
>
> The same is true of
>the mind. It exists intrinsically and irreducibly but only when viewed from
>inside of it. Obviously, when you view something from outside itself, you
>no longer see its self-nature but only its relativity to other things. This
>is how physicists approach time (from the pov of space)
>
Nope; they label both spaceless time and timless space as cognitive misunderstandings from the pov of spatiotemporality.
>
>and how biologists
>approach mind (from the pov of brain).
>
The brain is the amterial substrate for the emergent mind. Neither space nor time provides the substrate one for the other; 'they' are aspects of a single perceptual manifold, and we perceive that manifold, in which we perceive matter/energy, because that is a valid reflection of the way circumstances actually proceed according to the field equations.
>
>> When you travel faster, the temporal aspect slows (empirically verified by
>around-the-world-flying B-52's carrying atomic clocks, compared with clocks
>that weren't flown) and the spatial aspect shrinks (gets shorter) on the
>axis of travel direction.
>>>>
>
>Yet, no matter how fast you travel, you still perceive time-- from within--
>the same way you always have. At no point does the person on the rocket
>ship perceive a change in tempo. As far as the direct experience of time is
>concerned, nothing has changed. The rate of time's passage varies only in
>its external relation to space and the objects moving through it more
>slowly.
>
That is because you are not distinguishing between the subjective experience and the objective passage. The objective passage of time is indeed relative to a frame of reference, and one resides in a referential frame moving at one's own velocity in either case. But, subjective, existential duration experience may vary. An evening in the arms of Catherine Zeta-Jones might seem to just speed by (time flies when you're having fun), but that same afternoon strapped to a hot eye on an electric oven would seem to last much longer.
>
>Ted
>
>
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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