Re: MD Re:MEMES

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ROG RESPONDS TO DAN ON MEMES Hi Dan!  Thanks for continuing the discussion. Hi Roger! And thank you too.   DAN: If we equate memes with patterns of value, then all four levels "have" memes, but the lower level memes are separated from intellect by the social level, thus we are unaware of them. ROG: Do the levels "have" POV's, or are POV's divided into the 4 levels? Are the levels reality, or part of the map? My point is simply that memes can be divided into the same 4 groupings. BTW, are you therefore unaware of the inorganic level? I'm not sure if it is a fundamental inadequacy of language or if I simply have yet to learn the proper way to express myself, but yes, to answer your last question first, we are unaware of the inorganic level in everyday reality just as we are intellectually unaware of biological level processes. Take a hypochondriac, for instance. Your second question is a great deal more complex and I am unsure if there is a proper answer the way it is worded. Hmmm. Let's see. Perhaps if you change the "or" to "and"... shuffle the "are" over in front of "reality"... drop the ? mark... then you have a statement "the levels are reality and part of the map" which would seem closer to the mark, though still not quite right... As to your first question, perhaps it is better to say patterns of value have evolutionary levels. This is one reason why I think it is imperative not to look at memes as independent entities. There are very subtle nuances here that are extremely difficult to catch with language, at least I find it to be so.   DAN: Let's dwell on copying for a minute. We know the copy is not the original; a copy can never be exactly identical. Where did the copy come from? And how close to the original does it have to be to be considered a copy? I hear a story and when I go to retell it, I cannot remember just exactly how it went so maybe I embellish a little here and a little there. Is it a copy? Are there any totally original thoughts at all? ROG: The first step in copying comes in pattern identification.  That's why I wrote so much on it. You must determine what is of significance in your story, what are the essential elements or patterns. If you retell it, it definitely can evolve.  It can be changed.  The long term changes to a story can be considered (crudely in this case) as its evolution.  When genetic patterns replicate, how true do they have to be to be considered a copy? And is there any original DNA? Well perhaps someone like Jonathan could answer that one better than I. Universe seems to be a ever regenerating process in which copying is prohibited, at least in the context of every day reality. Universe seems to maintain just the right balance between total chaos and infinite sameness, or so our perceptions tell us. But who is doing the determining as to truth? What is, is. Reality is continuous and yet discrete simultaneously.       Rog(previously wrote): You are making memes into something mysterious and ....weird.  Memes are patterns derived from direct experience that can be copied, stored, transmitted, and adapted.  "Mary had a little lamb" is a pattern that is easy to whistle or play on an instrument. Dan: Why is the image of self mysterious and ...weird? Perhaps Bo's SOLAQI idea is a better analogy (though I suppose the image of self is mysterious and weird when you come right down to it). The image of self as existing separately apart from a world of objects is just what SOLAQI points to. ROG: That isn't my point, it is that equating a simple concept like memes to "my image of myself" is completely off the subject of what memes are. For the record, it's not a good way to explain patterns of value either. BTW, how did you do on the song? A little off key, sorry. :) But Roger, this isn't off the subject at all. Not at all! What is it that keeps us all in place? It is the image we have of who we are plus the image those around us have of us. Carlos Castaneda called it the "tonal". There is no separation in the image between self and not self except that which is imagined. The tonal is everything that make us what we are; everything. All of static quality reality. If one wishes to substitute the term meme for tonal I see no problem at all.   DAN:  Experience can be copied. Direct experience cannot. Experience is static, filled with patterns of value. Direct experience is Dynamic and there is nothing at all to be said of it. The second one utters a sound or sees a sight or feels a touch or sniffs an odor or tastes a taste the unbroken unity is sundered. Each of those are copies of reality and not reality itself. ROG: Agreed DAN: If you also want to call those patterns memes, then that is fine. ROG: By itself, that wouldn't do us any good in an MOQ forum though would it? The point of equating memes with POV's is that the Quality theoies and concepts of memetic evolution and social evolution can be encapsulated into the evolutionary metaphysics of Quality. Of course, we need to ensure we don't bring in any of the rampant "junk science" related to the topic. Ah yes. Junk. I don't know about you but I love picking through junk. One never knows what treasures another finds no value in. But yes, one has to be very careful not to corrupt the Quality idea.   Thanks again,   Rog     And thank you too Roger! Always a challenge. Dan