Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 10:04:51 GMT
From: UEA <A.Rousso@uea.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: reality and other memes
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Bill wrote:
That is to say that the memes too have bought into the
illusion that we exist and therefore try to control us? And
this despite the fact that the memes are really the ones in
control!<<
Good stuff Bill! It's nice to have others coming up with
different angles on this issue. The way you (and Lloyd) put
it makes it sound very contrived. Unfortunately, I don't
think Blackmore would give up the ghost just there. She is
coming from the angle of no control - not by anything - i.e.
she is a determinist. So even to say "the memes are
controlling us" is the wrong way to look at it in her view -
it is purely an algorithmic process, like all evolutionary
theory. If you ask me, this point of view is even easier to
prove wrong, but as I say, I'm using Dennett to try to prove
her wrong, and I'm not too sure how he gets himself out of
determinism yet.
Jake wrote:
I am sensing that she may have a lot to say that is not
entirely erroneous. <<
Jake, mate. Much as I am on your side in this whole
argument, I have to say that this kind of statement is not
going to do you any favours: people will stop listening
pretty sharpish if you say this kind of thing. Sue Blackmore
is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology who has had a book
published by Oxford University Press and personally endorsed
by no less than Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. You are
some bloke on the internet. This statement betrays the fact
that you had prejudged the book as having nothing useful to
say, based on hearsay (or my presumably inadequate
explanations of it), and before you had read any of it. You
say you are a criminal defense lawyer. What ever happened to
innocent until proven guilty? That's what we're trying to do
here - prove Blackmore is "guilty", but it would help if you
didn't jump to these kind of conclusions.
cheers, alex rousso.
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