From: <christopher_l._turner@hud.gov>
Message-Id: <9803318913.AA891365399@hudsmtphq.hud.gov>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 12:31:06 -0500
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Gs and memetic engineering
Bob Grimes wrote:
>>>>>>We like to call some of this the result of "reason" as many
would prefer to think that hey have "free will" within the process.
They forget pheromones, hormones, neurotransmitters, and a plethora of
other things, known and unknown, that truly act and interact, oppose
and coincide, resulting in lots of "rational" activity on the part of
our organisms. ...<<<<
Good point, Bob. I think I am reasonably aware that I personally need
to re-engineer my own memes (my language-based behavior motivating
programs) to incorporate a greater awareness and acknowledgement of
the involvment of my own nervous system in my perceptions, but I'm not
so sure about many others on this list. I think that before we
undertake to re-engineer the memes of others, _OR_ criticize the
concept of doing so, we need to carefully examine, and re-engineer as
necessary, our own memes. I wonder how many of you folks have taken
a serious look at general-semantics as a discipline? I see a lot of
apparent confusion of _labels_ like 'nature', etc., with phenomena in
our extra-neural environment. Our words, and the categories of our
experience that we designate with them, are arbitrary conveniences
contrived by our own nervous systems. We need to be keenly aware of
this fact if we want to seriously consider systematically
reconstructing our memes to more constructively _interact_ with their
'environment' (our 'minds'), and therein direct us to more
constructively interact with ours (each other, or ecological
environment, etc.).
Comments appreciated.
Chris Turner
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