[KO] if you believe its a good idea to clean your teeth everyday then you will tend to perform that action everyday.
What ever appears to manifest in the mind has its somatic component. Taking the meme to be a replicated behavioural instruction then actions and believes are like two sides to the same coin. [Krimel] I do not really make any meaningful distinction between the mind and brain. Memes are reoccurring patterns of brain activity. I agree that actions are determined by biology, experience and what's up now. But I would suggest that belief serves more are a post hoc explanation for our actions in the past than a guide to our behavior in the present. We simply do not have time to engage and a rational process before acting. Red lights in front of us demand action not analysis of momentum and calculation of rate of deceleration. While we can certainly offer up a set of beliefs about braking for the car ahead of us it seems a stretch to claim that these beliefs cause us to act. James offers up a similar account of emotions. He claims that the stimulus of a bear causes us to run. Our account of why this happens namely the emotion of fear is a post hoc explanation not the cause of running. > [Krimel] > Belief, as such, hardly ever guides our action. If it did > we would get next to nothing done. If I have to examine my beliefs about > oral hygiene and the proper order of my teeth before brushing them, I would > just let them rot. [KO] >From the memetic point of view, that you can do amything is an illusion; the only power you have is the ability to inhibit the habitual reaction - if you are fully identified with the believe then you act out of habit. [Krimel] I think you are almost right about this. Rational thinking is a form of free won't. It serves as a break on reflex and habit. In this way "belief" (we really are using an ill defined term here) is much more likely to serve as a brake pedal than a gas pedal. You seem to be saying that belief is critical to the formation of habit and the process of learning. But I don't think that is true either. Learning is a process by which experience of the past influences behavior in the present. Not all learning in this sense is conscious. Nor does it necessarily congeal into belief. We have lots of habits that we are not even remotely aware of and yet those habits are our actions. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
