On Jul 2, 1:28 pm, grimeandreason <[email protected]> wrote: > All you see is same old same old? You havent even looked at it. > > We clearly have different working definitions of memetics. All I > mean, and all the theory requires, is that information is transmitted, > mutated, built upon and transmitted again. That is all I mean by > memetics. There, all utterly uncontroversial. Call it man-made > environment, symbols, signs anything you like, other disciplines are > happy to do so.
But this is exactly what I am talking about. Same old , same old. Memetics is nothing new; you don't need a theory to tell you that ideas change. What you need is to know how and why they change in their varying cultural and historical specifics, and where and when they are "transmitted". This mutation is called personal and cultural interpretation, and transmission is called talking listening, writing reading, printing, translating. What needs to be engaged is the specifics, contingencies, and unique cultural and historical particularities. Trying to reduce this to a 'theory' is asinine. > > Your insistence in requiring examples shows we are thinking of two > utterly different things. Memetics to us is abstract for a very good > reason... because a meme is processed by uniques mind-states. You > have an inert, nothing-in-and-of-itself meme and you have the > subjective appropriation of the meme by a mind. Like a tree falling > with nothing to hear it, the power of the meme is in the beholding. Except that there is no such thing as a meme. Eject the theory are nothing is lost. > > How am I a dualist? Its really simple. The human-made environment we > inhabit is all I mean by memes. Dah! The world is made up of memes! Why add a useless word? I saw your 'essay' on Hegel - change the word meme for idea and/or ideology are you have a slightly stilted intellectual history essay. The memetics is wholly additive and of no use whatever. That our identity and personality > develop in part through our cumulative journey through this > environment is hardly controversial. Indeed not That this experience is stored > in the brain is again utterly uncontroversial. Therefore the effects > of memes ARE physiologically defined within our brains. Anything > OTHER than that is dualist. We cannot locate specific memories in the > brain, yet we do not doubt they exist. Why then are you dualistically adding a meme to the discussion? It is no different from talking about the human spirit but adding a soul. > > The whole notion of unit is misleading. We are talking here of > complex systems (complexity from simplicity, unpredictable etc) with > literally millions of permutations and possibilities. Only complex if you want to reductionise the argument. Without memes we can just go on as we always have and talk about culture, politics, economics, ideas, ideology - but with much more sense; realising the complexity of human experience without pretending that they all have to conform and confirm a grand theory which offers nothing by way of explanation. The whole idea > of memes as units is unneccesary. We are not talking simple chemistry > here, as with genes. We are talking about the inter-relationship of > the conscious and sub-conscious, of a complex system magnitudes > greater than that of genetics and one that deals with the abstract. In other words there are no memes, as I say. We can happily continue to discuss and understand human history and culture by humans means. > > As I said, all that the theory requires is that information is > transmitted, mutated, built upon and transmitted again. listening, reading, talking, seeing, interpreting etc.. humanly understood existential explanations for human experience, without unnecessary abstraction. Add to this > the utterly uncontroversial evolutionary axioms I present and it gives > a very comprehensive theory from a ludicrously simple process. The > model of history it produced is, to me, the most comprehensive i've > seen. The notion of peoples identities being forged by those holding > the power of memetic creation and transmission is a fundamental part > of humanity, a common denominator that cuts across cultural devides by > being based upon cognitive science. There is no need to gild a lilly, especially not with mud. > > It covers a lot of ground... History as Heterohistoriography (my > coinage), the progression from cognitive dissonance to cognitive > dissident (my coinage), an explanation for the creation of the three > core identities of (roughly) religion, state and commerce identified > by Pierre Levy (which he had not been able to explain himself and > liked very much), identifying the corrolate with moral and social > progress that is communication technology.... all from simple axioms. You are just engaged in a self-justifying process, and missing what is really available to our understanding. > > It is also a collaborative project, with amendments and expansions as > feedback comes in from academics (very positive thus far). I shall > certainly use your feedback thus far to illustrate the minimum > requirements for this theory to hold true and to offers different > terminology to those who have apparantly made up there minds already > about memetics (if you'd be so good as to fill me in on your > credentials/qualifications etc?). I'm sure you will all be very happy together in the church of the meme. > > On a personal note, I am obsessed with knowledge. I haven't come into > this from an ideology, indeed my whole view of humanity has been > forced to change as I've internalised and reinforced this idea. It > has not only given me deep contentment but also a vastly increased > empathy and emotion. Only recently have I noticed all the > collaboration between western science and eastern philosophy but I > believe the implications are converging. > > On Jul 2, 10:50 am, chazwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Jul 2, 8:16 am, grimeandreason <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > But there is so much more to it! Please just read it! > > > Tell me what you think is new. I've been reading this sort of stuff > > for decades. > > > > Evolution creates nothing? > > > Dah!! Yes. Evolution is an effect of change; it is not a cause. Think > > about it! > > Evolution is the result of natural (and other types) of selection. > > > We are the most complex machine known... > > > > created because of evolution. Why should how complex civilisation by > > > from a form of evolution also? > > > > What other process can create complexity? > > > Creation is a loaded word; borrowed from the religious; and colonised > > by science for replacement. > > > > No physiological basis for memetics? That to my mind equals duality. > > > Yes - you are a dualist. You got that right! > > > > We can't locate it in grey matter? No Wonder! Doesnt mean it aint > > > there. > > > Where is it? > > > > Kant was wrong, there is no pure reason, merely people with greater > > > data-sets making better conclusions. > > > I was talking about his reflections on the thing-in-itself and his > > assertion of subjectivity. > > I think you may have missed the point. The clue is in the title > > "CRITIQUE of pure reason". > > get it? > > > > Hell, you can read my thesis and replace meme with idea... its the > > > same thing! Memetics is merely the content of information exchange. > > > How does this not exist? > > > Neither ideas nor memes exist as discrete physical entities. Attempts > > to reduce them to such a thing is Platonic nonsense. > > Intellectual History as rejected "unit ideas", Archaeology has > > rejected "CVT", and no self respecting materialist ought to touch this > > stuff with a barge-pole. > > memetics says absolutely nothing; contributes nothing. It talks about > > mechanism but fails to understand the culturally and historically > > situated conditions by which ideas or 'memes' are transmitted; without > > the cultural logic memetics is like trying to understand the reason > > for the car journey by talking about the grade of petrol. > > > > Please just read the paper. A theory explaining all of civilisation > > > from simple axioms at least deserves reading before you trot off > > > critiques formed in the early stages of this conceptual shift. > > > I have asked you for one example - you have no example because you > > cannot, like evolutionry theory, its all about the mechanism and > > nothing to do with the substance, reason etc. > > > You don't have a 'conceptual shift' - you have an old idea in which > > there is nothing new. > > If you really want me to trawl through the words; you will have to > > give me some hint that there is anything new or different here. All I > > see is the same old, same old. > > > > On 1 July, 16:33, chazwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Jun 30, 4:23 pm, grimeandreason <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > You are working upon a false definition of meme. No one actually > > > > > believes that meme X is identical in any two people. Quite the > > > > > opposite; it explains subjectivity. > > > > > I'm not - i'm just showing how asinine it all is. The point is that > > > > there is no such thing as a meme beyond what we already understand by > > > > ideas. > > > > We already had Kant to explain subjectivity, we son't need a > > > > naturalist to help-out. > > > > > > Please read the thesis and critique it's points, I will gladly debate > > > > > it with you. You are exactly right, there is no difference between a > > > > > meme and an idea. Its a concept of blurred boundaries and distinction > > > > > precisely because it is the source of subjectivity. > > > > > This being the case, we can simply do without memetics. > > > > > > Memes are > > > > > processed by unique meme-machines, resulting in unique physiological > > > > > structures of memes which at a conscious level means different things > > > > > to different people. > > > > > Now you are jsut talking bullshit. There is no such thing as a'unique > > > > physiological structure for memes. > > > > Memetics attempts to place ideals in the realm of the material, when > > > > we know that already. The point is > > > > no one was ever able to understand an idea by looking at grey matter. > > > > There is nothing of use here. > > > > > > How about this argument from my thesis, that evolution is the only > > > > > process that we know of that is capable of going against entropy, > > > > > creating complexity from simplicity, from simple axioms. > > > > > You mistake 'evolution' as a cause. It is nothing of the sort; it is > > > > an effect. > > > > Evolution has no capabilities, it is not a force that creates. Things > > > > change, successful things are preserved and the RESULT of this is > > > > evolution. > > > > Right here we have hinted at the chief problem with reductionism in > > > > its most Platonic form. > > > > > You accept > > > > > > this with genetic evolution, yet the idea that genetic evolution is > > > > > responsible for the exponential evolution of culture is absurd... > > > > > genetics is the realm of instinct and sub-conscious action. That is > > > > > what I mean when I say memetic evolution provides us with our > > > > > conscious selves. The exponential growth comes from horizontal > > > > > transference as well as the standard hereditory, together with the > > > > > ability to transmit from one to many and over vast distances of time. > > > > > But memetics says nothing about, and cannot account for WHY 'memes' > > > > survive, only that they can. > > > > In practice people make conscious choices for the preservation of > > > > ideas, and these are the ideas which are important. > > > > They are existentially important. There is nothing within memetics > > > > which can hint at or predict the reasons. And just like evolutionary > > > > theory has no predictive power, so too memetics is bland materialist , > > > > clever sounding but ultimately useless bullshit. > > > > > > Who are you? You might describe > > ... > > read more » -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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