Message-Id: <199910051808.OAA19501@smtp7.atl.mindspring.net>
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 14:17:01 -0400
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: bbenzon@mindspring.com (Bill Benzon)
Subject: Re: implied or inferred memes
>Mark wrote:
>
>When a person is revived after a minute of 'brain death', they sometimes
>recover their identity and memories. There seems to be something
>physical and static about memory that can be described in tangible terms,
>just as DNA can be described. It seems to me that such a feature of our
>anatomy would be of interest.
>
Of course it is.
>>As far as I'm concerned all you are doing is
>>providing a new name for entities we already know about.
>>But that new name does not bring with it any new explanatory mechanisms.
>
>I don't know of any name being used to describe patterns of
>autophosphorylating kinases across a network of synapses (see Koch,
>Biophysics of Computing). If you know of one, please share it with me.
George:)
>Koch goes no further than describing the autophosphorylating kinases
>electrical performance characteristics.
>
>I'm not talking about ideas. I'm talking about the molecular genotype
>for cultural behavior.
And what makes you think that "autophosphorylating kinases" are that, other
than the fact that they are in the nervous system?
>
>I would understand if you said autophosphorylating kinases patterns were
>unimportant, I may have the wrong molecular explanation for static memory
>which survives 60 seconds of brain death.
Those molecular mechanisms may well be involved. But you haven't come
close to explaining how they encode memories.
To provide an analogy, you can know all there is to know about logic
circuits on silicon chips and still not have the foggiest idea how to
program a word processor. And, you can do a bang-up job of programming a
word processor without knowing the physical or logical layout of memory
chips, etc.
William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbenzon@mindspring.com
Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
===============================================================
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