Re: memes, things and verisimilitudes

Paul Marsden (PaulMarsden@msn.com)
Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:04:53 -0000

From: "Paul Marsden" <PaulMarsden@msn.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: memes, things and verisimilitudes
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:04:53 -0000

Alex,

>2. To me, the question of whether a meme (or a gene) is:

>(A) a real material entity describable by observable and concrete limits or
borders (this I take to be our definition of
>*thing*), or
>(B) merely an abstract idea or concept useful for explaining our
observations of reality because of its high propensity
>for predicting *results* (this I take to be the (*a*?) definition of a
*verisimilitude*)

>and the answer depends upon which camp you are in.

>The materialist-scientists who believes that we will eventually have a
complete (and unique) picture of how reality *works* will go for (A); not
>just for memes, but for every plausible and workable scientific concept
(e.g. Paul Churchland).

>The functionalist-philosopher who believes that we will never have such a
picture, and will only come up with ever-more workable and useful >analogies
and metaphors (like Dennett) will go for (B).

>any others go for this model?

Alex,

Nice, but I don't think it captures the subtlety of Dennett's approach - he
is a self declared physicalist (materialist), his functionalism is not of
the old Putman type, but a quasi functionalism/realism where although we
tend to use folk psychological heuristics (intentional stance, design stance
and all that) to understand phenomena, we can go beyond that by adopting
what he calls a heterophenomenological (behaviourist to you and me) approach
to accurately describe the objects of consciousness. So Dennett, (and BTW
me) is a Camp A pixie, but finds it useful sometimes to use the insights of
Camp B.

Paul Marsden
Graduate Research Centre in the Social Sciences
University of Sussex
e-mail PaulMarsden@msn.com
tel/fax (44) (0) 117 974 1279

Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission:
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/

----- Original Message -----
From: UEA <A.Rousso@uea.ac.uk>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: 26 January 1999 17:13
Subject: memes, things and verisimilitudes

>It's nice when everyone gets involved, like on digest #133. One thing that
always strikes me is that how heated the
>conversation heated seems to correlate directly with how many people are
involved in the particular discussion. My
>two pennies are (and no, I'm not going to lose it):
>
>
>2. To me, the question of whether a meme (or a gene) is:
>
>(A) a real material entity describable by observable and concrete limits or
borders (this I take to be our definition of
>*thing*), or
>(B) merely an abstract idea or concept useful for explaining our
observations of reality because of its high propensity
>for predicting *results* (this I take to be the (*a*?) definition of a
*verisimilitude*)
>
>and the answer depends upon which camp you are in. The
materialist-scientists who believes that we will eventually
>have a complete (and unique) picture of how reality *works* will go for
(A); not just for memes, but for every
>plausible and workable scientific concept (e.g. Paul Churchland). The
functionalist-philosopher who believes that we
>will never have such a picture, and will only come up with ever-more
workable and useful analogies and metaphors
>(like Dennett) will go for (B).
>
>any others go for this model?
>
>cheers,
>
>alex rousso.
>
>
>
>===============================================================
>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
>

===============================================================
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