Hi Krimel, 2009/2/1 Krimel <[email protected]>
> [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. Fine, i agree - was just as a manner of speaking.. > > Memes are reoccurring patterns of brain activity. they tend to instigate an action, and they register as an experience. > 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. Yes - i agree but with caveats; belief is generally taken to be about ones commitment to future actions, but they are post hoc in the sense that when we state a belief it is based on memory of our past actions. 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 anything 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. I can see how you would get to that idea about what i said and i do think there is some truth in that; however i dont really have it clear enough of just what is a belief; do i believe i am going to type some more just now? Off the top of my head i would say that belief gets in the way of learning and so is definitely a factor in that process. > Learning is > a process by which experience of the past influences behavior in the > present. Somehow you have this back to front. Learning happens when new experience in the present imprints or overwrites memory of experiences of the past. > Not all learning in this sense is conscious. Most learning even, is in a manner of speaking unconscious - but the best learning happens when is possible to pay more attention to a good teacher. > 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. > Krimel, please allow me to go in a slightly different direction:- You believe you can get in and out of a chair, right? Yet the way you get in and out of a chair is almost completely habitual. I could almost certainly show you a better way. Likely you were too busy noticing other things when you were first introduced to chairs - those long hours sitting in the school desks, your back collapsed and twisted through tiredness; now your back is visibly distorted and has several weak and painful areas; the way you have used your back over the years has affected the way it functions now. To improve the use of yourself now could only be done by saying 'no' to your habitual way of, for example, getting in and out of a chair and instead giving consent to allow movement in a different way. That's why i say - 'let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the back lengthen and widen' -KO 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/
