Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA07684 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 1 Feb 2002 19:33:59 GMT Message-ID: <004901c1ab56$c2cdf820$0d86b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <F438ncwewZvAuMroXsA0000e02a@hotmail.com> Subject: Beam me up, Scotty Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 11:29:23 -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
> >> > Dimensions are just ways of looking at
> >> > space by comparing one arbitrarily chosen section of it to another.
> >> > Again, the comparison takes place in the brain and not in space.
> >> >
> >> > Grant
> >>
> How do you know that it might, instead of being stored in the "brain"
> (that amorpous clump of mush that couldn't possibly "store" memories),
> not be beamed to you morphically? Perhaps your amorpous clump of
> mush acts as an antenna and is tuned to the right frequency, the species
> frequency?
Do fill us in on your little sci-fi fantasy, Scott.
> Has the hook set well? Can I start reeling it in? Either I'm trolling Ted
> the Sheldrakian or Grant who might be too new to know Ted's source
> of inspiration.
I've never suggested that form (morphe) is beamed into our heads. My claim
is that memory is a property of nature. What distinguishes life from, say,
books and computers, is that living things possess natural memory-- the
retention of the past-- while books and computers rely on storage of
material configurations.
Btw, this is Bergson, not Sheldrake. And it was Elsasser, rather than
Sheldrake, who first applied Bergson to organisms. Elsasser realized that
organisms would have no way of knowing how to develop from the egg without
some kind of "holistic memory." As a physicist, he rejected the notion that
DNA could somehow set in motion a purely physical process of development.
He based his reasoning on the fact that physical systems can be understood
according to fairly simple calculations, whereas biological systems are
"transcomputational."
Ted
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