Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970612113753.00690790@dingo.cc.uq.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:38:00 +1000
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Paul C <pdc@mailbox.uq.edu.au>
Subject: McVeigh and his memes vs. Free will
(Timothy Perper/Martha Cornog) wrote:
>TP: You're wording it fine. The army -- any army -- teaches (=
instills
>memes) that killing people is an excellent way to ram your own memes
down
>other (living) people's throats. They, of course, try to kill you
back,
>and it escalates. Jon's point is quite accurate: McVeigh's memes
weren't
>defective at all -- the morality *he* believed in justified him.
>
>My question is if such an assertion is a defense at law. I'm not
talking
>about "justifiable homicide" or some such claim, but the argument that
the
>person is not the active agent, but the memes are. That view is close
to
>what I've seen on some of these postings (and by now there is no way to
dig
>up who said what, but I tend to associate that view with the Platonist
>position about memes).
>
A final word (mine anyway)
It is asserted that McVeigh was purely expressing his existing "army"
meme when he bombed the building.
>TP
>The army -- any army -- teaches (= instills
>memes) that killing people is an excellent way to ram your own memes
down
>other (living) people's throats
However, wuld not the army teach this:
"killing people <italic>who do not possess our memetic
structure</italic>, is an...."
McVeigh possesed this army meme, but he killed U.S. citizens who also
possessed an memetic structure acceptable to the American form of the
"army meme"
q: Why was McVeigh punished?
a: He did something illegal (according to the law of the society he
existed in)
q: What is illegal?
a: A meme (an its expressions) which is incompatible with the existing
memetic structure, which the society the host is operating in,
posseses.
By 'defective' I meant an incompatible meme.
In comparison to the existing overall memetic structure of the society
that McVeigh existed in, his memes were incompatible. His actions were an
expression of a 'flawed' 'Us army meme'.
He will be punished by society. (ie jail/death = removal from society's
memepool such that his memes cannot reproduce/circulate/amplify through
feedback)
Now, to the matter in hand
>TP
>In the view of the new science of memetics, would McVeigh have had a
>scientifically legitimate defense in saying "My armed service memes made
me
>do this"?
My views (not really thought through, very rough)
Conciousness is speclated to arise from collaspess of the quatum wave in
microtubules, interactions of electromagnetic fields etc.
For memes to exist, etc, they need an effective medium
ie. Memes in a book are akin to raw chemicals sitting in a test tube
that do nothing.
Memes in a brain/mind are capable of doing stuff.
Individual memes combine in the host to present an overall memetic
structure of that host. This memetic structure expresses itself through
the words, action etc of the host.
The underlying conciousness (as produced by collapse of q.wave, electro
etc.) experience reality through the memetic structure/filter that exists
in the hardware of the brain/mind ( I cannot make a distinction)
Thus the information arrives filtered for the Conciousness to process.
Likewise, the signal going out are affected by the memes.
However, if there is no signal to go out, the memes do nothing.
There is no point saying "the memes made me do it" because there must
have been a "do it" signal coming out (of the underlying conciousness
arisen from q.wave....) for them to effect. Memes just provide an
framework for the expression of the signal....
I give up for now.
Any ideas people?
Paul C
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