[Ian] Memes ? Not so much brain activity, as the communication and sharing of those patterns (of information). They don't have to be understood or even interpreted to be replicated by communication - think of a parrot or a computer virus or e-mail spam.
[Krimel] I stand correct. Brain activity is one of many way a meme can be formatted. I might argue that it is the most important. Perhaps the only one the "matters" but still one of many. [Ian] Causation ? The jury is out anyway, whether you are talking about brains, memes or Newtonian billiard balls for that matter. The mechanisms involving memes are pretty straightforward. The only serious doubt is whether the name "meme" adds much to the name "idea" - I think it does, for the reason noted, but I often have to debate that point. [Krimel] It seems to me that what the jury is deliberating is not causation but the possibility of identifying all or on occasion even to most salient causes. As for the terminology I was using them as synonyms. [Ian] Half-second-delay ? The Libet effect is grossly mis-represented, [Krimel] I stand corrected again the effect is more like 100-150 millisecond. I grossly over stated that but I would say emphatically that I have not mis-represented the impact of the effect itself. Two areas other areas of research that are also relevant to the issue at had are the Iowa Gambling studies and the Implicit Attitude Test (IAT). Both are readily Googlable. [Ian] ...if you think about free-will and causation too simply, too common-sensically. Better if you think about free-will rather as free-won't, and think of delegation in a multi-layered supervisory control system, with many sub-routines pre-programmed and ready to go, waiting for a permissive signal to remove an anticipated back-stop, then the Libet effect is no mystery. [Krimel] I don't find the effect mysterious but what you are putting toward here sounds like GOFAI and not Heidegarian AI. Now there is a jury that will be ordering take-out for a good long while. [Ian] Think of a top-class tennis player retuning the serve of another top-class tennis player. Think about the anticipation, reaction and decision-making times involved and how it is possible ever to return a serve. Ask yourself who is this who, who is making the decisions, separate from the who who is acting - there is no homunculus. [Krimel] I think that was my point. In most of our daily activity, not just tennis, we are called upon to act; not to reflect. [Ian] As Dennett says, you can always externalise everything if you make yourself small enough - in reality "you" are spread out over many patterns / systems. I found Daniel Wegner very good on this, or Adam Zeman, or in fact Libet himself in the original - much clearer than so much other second hand reporting of this effect, which I think tends to be motivated by people grasping at straws, not wanting to believe in free will (and misunderstanding causation itself, which is the real root problem). [Krimel] I have to admit I only made 3/4 of the way through Libet's book and got distracted with something else. I don't see a whole lot of folks grabbing at straws because they don't want to believe in free will. Quite the opposite. In fact I would say that the function of religion is to help us accommodate to the myth of control. But perhaps you could help bring us all to a better understanding for the true nature of causation. 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/
