Re: Perception, Memory, Knowledge, Imagination and Cognition

From: Joe Dees (joedees@addall.com)
Date: Sat Feb 02 2002 - 02:11:44 GMT

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    Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 18:11:44 -0800
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    From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com>
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: Re: Perception, Memory, Knowledge, Imagination and Cognition
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    >Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 22:44:28 -0500
    > memetics@mmu.ac.uk "Francesca S. Alcorn" <unicorn@greenepa.net> Re: Perception, Memory, Knowledge, Imagination and CognitionReply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >
    >Joe said:
    >
    >
    >> All of the other mental modalities have their source in
    >>perception. Memory comes directly from perception, knowledge is the
    >>subcless of former memories that have been narratively compressed or
    >>abstractly represented, imagination is comprised of perceptions and
    >>memories deconstructed and components of them recombined, and
    >>cognition is the deconstruction and recombination of components of
    >>perception and knowledge.
    >> Memory is restricted to the reproduction to some degree of a
    >>segment of past perception, complete with a spatiotemporal
    >>perspective; thus memory is diachronic and positional. On the other
    >>hand, knowledge of an informational datum would not entail that we
    >>be capable of reproducing the experience of learning it; thus
    >>knowledge may be considered synchronic and apositional. Imagination
    >>and cognition extrapolate possibilities from the actualities grasped
    >>in perception and retained in (for imagination) memory and (for
    >>cognition) knowledge. However, imagination is restricted to a
    >>generation of possible perceptions from particular spatiotemporal
    >>perspectives and is diachronic and positional; cognition is
    >>synchronic and apositional.
    >
    >Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but it seems to me that cognition
    >has *some* spatial elements to it. I think more three-dimensionally
    >and my husband is a linear thinker. I've always seen this as a
    >left-brain/right-brain thing. Or maybe space is the best analogy
    >that we can find to describe a connective pattern.
    >
    Some mathematicians are said to conceive of mathematical relations in spatiotemporal terms, but this bit of synesthesia is probably most common among theorists of multidimensional topology <g>.
    >
    >Dispensing with the spatiotemporal lends itself to the concept of
    >abstraction. I had never thought of that before.
    >
    And narratization.
    >
    >> Although they are all to some degree autonomous with respect to
    >>perception (knowledge and cognition more so than memory and
    >>imagination, due to the fact that the former two have dispensed with
    >>spatiotemporal context), they are all directly or ind!
    >>irectly grounded in perception, and recurse to inform it.
    >>Forgetting needs to be mentioned also. If we consider memory to be
    >>an imprinted representation of presented experience, a perceptual
    >>text, if you will, and subsequent experience to be continually
    >>inscribing upon the same neural parchment, the minor details and
    >>routine experiences would become obliterated first; thus broad
    >>outlines and the unusual would be remembered longer. Finally, the
    >>experiential, that is, spatiotemporal and object-perceptual context
    >>in which the information was received would be destroyed, and thbat
    >>which remains would no longer be memory, but knowledge. Cognition
    >>deconstructs and recombines these nerratized and abstracted
    >>remainders, as imagination deconstructs and recombines memory images
    >>(of all percpetual media, not just visual) and perceptions.
    >
    >
    >I have wondered about the process of memory decay. I could never
    >reconcile it with Penrose (the canadian surgeon) who stimulated
    >certain portions of a person's brain during neurosurgery and got them
    >to reproduce quite mundane memories. I think he might have been the
    >originator of "engram" and the concept of holistic memory, but don't
    >hold me to that.
    >
    A mundane memory could also be the summation of many different experiences; if you have spent a hundred languid sunny days at a particular lake, you are more likely to remember the 'sunny day at the lake' type than any particular token, absent distingushing features.
    >
    >Are you suggesting that these "nerratized and abstracted remainders"
    >might be somehow related to memes?
    >
    I think that those are indeed cortically encoded and stored latent memes, that become manifest when we pass them on.
    >
    >frankie
    >
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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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