Message-Id: <s53798d4.052@corel.ie>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 17:55:35 +0100
From: Adrian Kelleher <adriank@corel.ie>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #26: metabeliefs
> ...you can't possibly be *mistaken* about what you believe at a given
>moment..
It was I who made the statements (I think) you're referring to....
Belief is complex and people may irrationally hold contradictory opinions.
Also they may frequently revise their beliefs based on reflection alone,
i.e. without external events warranting it. Nevertheless, I don't think any
possible judge could actually say someone is incorrect in saying they
believe something, regardless of how irrational or how fleeting it might
be.
Surveys occasionally allow respondants to select from a list of replies to
a given question (Do you feel *very strongly, *quite strongly, *fairly
strongly or *not strongly at all...etc.), scoring the replies with strength of
opinion, but its questionable (to me at any rate) if the answers are a
much more accurate a reflection of 'how people really feel'.
The assumption that the number of uncommitted individuals on either side
of an issue is in proportion to the overall level of support is often
dubious. This is an issue political polling doesn't have to contend with -
you only get one vote no matter how committed you are, though pollsters
sometimes qualify their results with comments about turnout rates, the
weather (in Europe anyway) etc.
I think this might be a refinement to add to a developed memetics rather
than something to address now, though. Mapping respondents' replies to
yes (for positive yes replies) or no (for anyone else), an effective
consequence (see note) of using Aaron Lynch's notation, makes
analysis much more feasible and also the analogies drawn between
memetics and epidemiology, population genetics etc possible.
Finally, once a survey has been performed, it can always be checked if
the frequency of expression of a given mnemon and its compliment are in
proportion to the measured host levels - if not, its reasonable
(sometimes) to assume one side are more enthusiastic than the other
and qualify results accordingly.
Adrian
Note: You can of course map mnemon-identifiers to points on a scale
allowing opinions across a spectrum to be reflected with arbitrary
accuracy (A='Between 0 & 1', B='Between 1 & 2' etc).
>>> Eva-Lise Carlstrom <eva-lise@efn.org> 04/16/98 07:26pm >>>
aron Lynch responds to Adrian Kelleher, 14 April 98:
> >>If you want to raise questions about validity of individual claims,
then
> >>you might as well also doubt whether the person has the meme he
> >claims to
> >>have.
> >
> >By 'claims', I meant that I may claim to have been decisively
influenced by
> >my father in accepting Zen Buddism, but perhaps I am mistaken in the
> >assertion. Here, I'm making a claim about an objective *fact*. This is
not
> >the same as doubting someone has the meme he claims to have - you
> >can't possibly be *mistaken* about what you believe at a given
moment..
I agree with Aaron that doubting someone's assertion about where they
got
a meme is not on the same level as doubting their assertion that they
have
that meme. However, I don't think it's as clear as he seems to think
that one cannot be mistaken about one's own beliefs. Since beliefs are
not
digital units, but involve many factors including degrees of understanding
and conviction, it is perfectly possible, for instance, to state with no
intention of deceit that one believes something to be true, but also to
act in ways derived from contradictory beliefs. By adding "at a given
moment", Aaron probably means to avoid this kind of fuzzy case, but I
don't think that does the trick, as even "one's beliefs at a given moment"
are not a completely discrete set that can be guaranteed
clear and non-contradictory. See Dennett's multiple-drafts model of
consciousness, as laid out in _Consciousness Explained_, for a
description
of how a person's belief set might not be as clear-cut as Aaron's remark
would have it.
--Eva-Lise Carlstrom
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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