From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Tue Nov 11 2003 - 18:52:58 MST
At 12:42 PM 11/11/03 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Keith Henson" <hkhenson@rogers.com>
>
> > >The concept of self is replicable in that if I act or react to something
> > >that you do, you are reinforced with a sense that you are a separate
> > >entity. No, it cannot be taught or passed on like langauage or religion,
> > >in that you are right. But it is still something that is learned, not
> > >ingrained into the brain's "hardware." If it is learned, it is
> transmitted.
> >
> > That is not true. You can learn things that are never transmitted from a
> > previous knowledge source. One example, you can set and learn the
> > combination of a safe that you never tell anyone. Second example, you
>
>I would say that a meme is an idea that *can* be replicated through
>communication. If the idea has been replicated, then obviously it
>can be. If it hasn't (yet) been replicated, then we would have to
>have to examine it more closely to see if it is possible. In the
>example of the combination to the safe, I see no reason why it
>could not be.
If we *require* an idea to replicate to be a meme or refer to memes as
replicating information, then an idea that has not been replicated is at
best a *potential* meme, but not a meme by definition. Minor point as long
as you understand what is going on. (It is more restrictive to become an
"element of culture." That requires enough replication for the pattern to
become common.)
>By analogy, a gene that has not yet been replicated is still a gene.
I really don't understand how this could come about. How do you get a
gene, even on paper, that has not undergone some kind of replication? Even
if you start with a listing of what you want to make in the way of an amino
acid chain, there is a replication in the process of translating and
writing it down and certainly a replication step in translating it into
linked base pairs.
The meme/gene analogy breaks here because we have words such as "idea" for
patterns of information that do not require replication where we don't have
a similar distinction for "gene." Genes are *assumed* to be the product of
replication.
> > Ideas about "self" such as "immortal soul" or "thetans" are learned and
> are
> > memes. "Identity" itself however is not learned and *is* a function of
> > mammalian brain hardware. Ask yourself if a dog or a cat has
> > "identity"? Would it still have an identity in a world where it never met
> > another animal of any kind? Of course it would!
>
>Why do you associate the "I" meme with identity rather than ideas about self?
>You seem to have decided in advance that the "I" meme is not a meme, and
>gone to great lengths to show why, rather than interpreting the "I" meme
>as a meme and asking what it could possibly refer to. Why?
I don't find words that have been stretched to encompass everything
useful. If you have to ask what a meme "could possibly refer to" then I
have a hard time with it pointing to anything at all. This is no doubt my
engineering bias showing.
You can tell the difference in a person who has learned some meme like
baseball. They can teach it to other people and independent observers can
make judgments in good agreement if the kids are playing something
recognizable as baseball. I don't see that there is an "I" meme that can
be learned or that there is an observable difference in behavior before and
after being taught an "I" meme.
But I am always willing to be shown differently. Can you think of examples
where you could illustrate for the "I" meme?
Keith Henson
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