Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980410135517.00922730@voruta.vu.lt>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 13:55:17 +0300
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Kastytis Beitas <kastytis.beitas@gf.vu.lt>
Subject: Re: List of meme definitions (reply to Paul Marsden)
In-Reply-To: <v03102800b1523225c1ff@[194.109.13.153]>
At 10:15 1998.04.09 +0200, Ton wrote:
>Aaron wrote:
>>Actually, I do not assert that the organisms under study must have
>>abstraction systems, so point 3 applies only to "the observer" in my
>>definition. My paper proposes an experiment in avian population memetics,
>>for instance, without specifically requiring birds to have abstraction
>>systems. I also don't say that memories are physical entities per se, but
>>that they exist in a physical substrate.
>
>Okay, since we're trying to reach consensus around definitions, let me add
>that IMO _all_ systems capable of learning (first order or higher) _must_
>have abstraction systems of some kind. All living systems meet that
>criterion, simply because of their fundamentally hierarchical structure.
>Organisms can have effective "models" of their environment without the need
>for consciousness, which is in many respects collateral to the proceedings
>of our minds.
>Ton Maas
We can interpret the consciousness as an interface that filtrates and
prepares relevant information for transmission to other individuals.
In development of this hypotheses:
1. The species that does not have a need to transmit abstract information
about their environment (or about past or future events...) to other
individuals does not have the consciousness.
2. Individuals of many species can transmit only danger signals or similar
ones. These signals are only reflex responses to some external or rather
simple internal stimuli. Such animals does not have a need for consciousness.
>Organisms can have effective "models" of their environment without the need
>for consciousness, which is in many respects collateral to the proceedings
3. The bandwidth of speech channel limits the width of 'conscious
information processing'. The natural selection could not maintain the
emergency of broad 'conscious channels' in human evolution.
So this interpretation may be some weak answer to question why capacity of
conscious information processing is much less then capacity of unconscious
one.
Practically all memes (in humans) are transmitted by consciously controlled
channels.
Kastytis Beitas
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