>>OK, I know that we're just getting into petty arguments now about this thread,
>>and runnig round and round in circles. If you're interested, Martin, then
>>here is something a little more fucussed, which I'm talking from the course
>>of these posts. Any changes you want to propose, or corrections, or where
>>I've misunderstood you, just point out.
>>
>>THE STATE
>>
>>A geographical location, but defined only by the land owner's boundaries.
>
>As I've said, I'd rather we drop the term completely. Far too much
>baggage.
>
>>GOVERNMENT
>>
>>None.
>
>Self and voluntary.
Martz, aren't you missing a fundamental memetic point?
Memes are (in my mind) ideas transmitted through culture.
The way ideas interact is, you get little groups of them joining
(associating) to form meta-groups, and these metagroups associate in turn to
form metametagroups... EG:
Babies have useless little ideas like "twitch left arm", or "Go, 'nerr'", or
"see blob of light" or "FACE!" -Little hardwired ideas, responses, which
don't let them do clever adulty things, but let them get fed and cry.
I think learning is a network of associations arising between these simple
concepts. You eventually see a /person/ arising: a conscious, pyramidal
structure of associations, with the roots of that structure in the neural
impulses in organs of sense or muscle cells, and the top levels being huge
pan-nervous-system networks of neural activation, corresponding to very
abstract, "clever", ideas or memes.
So, memes/ideas tend to get together over time in big, hierarchical,
pyramid-like structures. Out of these structures, come things like
personalities.
I'd argue that SOCIAL AND GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURES arise from the same
cognitive processes, the same associations between memes, but at a broader
level. I'm saying that memes/ideas interact by just the same process BETWEEN
heads as they do WITHIN heads.
Thus, you see pyramidal relationships between managers and subordinate
staff, between Presidents and senators, between... the idea "dog licence"
and the ideas "dog, paper, lawyer, money, collar, lead, & bonio".
I'm saying that societies (with governments) arise from groups of people,
just like your adult ideas arise from associations between groups of your
childhood ideas.
To promote responsibility for government at an /individual/ level is to
dismantle some of the biggest and most complicated meme structures the human
organism has yet generated! Won't that make memetic study a bit boring for us?
Dave Pape
===============================================================================
The memetic equivalent of a G3 bullpup-design assault rifle blowing a full
clip at my opponent. (Alex Williams 1996)
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