From: "Tim Rhodes" <proftim@speakeasy.org>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Xtra!
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 05:35:03 -0700
Aaron Lynch wrote:
>>> "If a mnemon resides very redundantly in someone's brain, that person
still
>>> counts as only one host and one mnemon instantiation." (Lynch, 1998, end
of
>>> section 4) Then Gatherer attacks this supposed neurobiology as if it
were
>>> mine.
Derek (see--spelled it right this time!) replied:
>>But it is yours. You claim that mnemons are instantiated in host
>>brains. This is what you have to justify. Why is the word 'if'
>>important?
To which Aaron in his response writes:
[snip]
>The word "IF" is extremely
>important in a context such as this, and cannot be dropped without imposing
>a major change of meaning.
[another snip]
>No, the above paragraph again contains the word "if." It therefore does not
>assert even *that* a person has two functioning brain hemispheres, let
>alone anything about redundancy of information content. I'd suggest reading
>a basic logic text to find out just what you can and cannot infer from an
>"if" statement.
I think the one of the problems Derek and I are having with your logical
"IF"s is that "IF"s are conditionals: If X, then Y. One can build
wonderfully intricate, facinating theories based on IF-X-THEN-Y, but you
still have to prove that X is the case or else its all just so much amusing,
colorful hogwash. (Like, "_If_ our lives are ruled by angels and demons,
then... " for instance. Some interesting constructions have been based on
this premise, but all of them worthless since they can never prove their
"IF"s.)
You seem to offer a wide range of "IF"s and construct a truly impressive
house of cards based on those "IF"s, but you'll exuse us if some of us don't
feel comfortable moving into that house until you give us some proof that
your conditionals are being met.
_IF_ you're going to base your theory on a conditional, _THEN_ the
responsiblity falls upon you to prove that conditional before we can accept
the theory.
-Tim Rhodes
===============================================================
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