Message-Id: <v03102806b21d9d6feb66@[194.109.13.153]>
In-Reply-To: <35F6BEC8.1D9818BF@fcol.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 17:23:50 +0200
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Ton Maas <tonmaas@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: The Memetics Stance and the SSSM
Bob wrote:
>Fine but without a pocket PET scanner how are you going to do mental
>
>> memetics?
>
>Snip
>
>This may be one of the most cogent statements thus far. We do not want to get
>into the same bind that Classical Physics and Quantum Physics acquired,
>i.e., we
>must have a "model" that we can use as an analogue, etc., and when one
>could not
>create a wavicle model we were stymied until physicists did just that,
>created a
>wavicle model but a totally mathematical one, an abstract one. Making an
>empirical model and experimenting became a distinctly different thing and if
>one thinks that one can continue investigating particle physics sans a bigger
>and better accelerator, et al, then one does not realize why particle
>physicists
>are all rushing into other fields, such as molecular biology, etc. We are
>beyond the days of Crook's Radiometers, pitchblende and film, and simple
>mechanisms to show evidence of these things and are paying the price for not
>continuing with the super-cooled supercollider, etc. The penalty will be paid
>later...
>
>We may just have to have pet scanner time and techniques available for the
>necessary empirical studies in order to make "real" progress.
No PET scanner will _ever_ provide access to subjective experience. Simply
because subjective experience is not _determined_ by its physiological
counterpart. Bateson: "In mental process, the effects of difference are to
be regarded as transforms (i.e. coded versions) of events which preceded
them." (Mind & Nature p.92)
Ton
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