Re: virus: Rationality
Tony Hindle (t.hindle@joney.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:21:40 +0000
In message <9702251543.AA15978@musca.gatwick.Geco-Prakla.slb.com>,
jonesr@gatwick.geco-prakla.slb.com writes
Drakir wrote
>A point I made somewhere else, though, was: Is rationality itself a
>meme, or is the idea that there is such a thing as rationality a meme?
>Is it one or the other or both?
I would say "the idea that rationality is a meme" is
certainly a meme, as is "the idea that rationality is a fish".
Is "rationality" a meme? is a more subtle question. Which I
think you go on here to clarify;
>In fact, one could model it as an OS, drawing on a database. The database
>contains
>the information (memes), and the OS runs on small commands (also memes) to
>interpret the infomation in the database! Wow, I like that analogy.
I like it too. It lets me see that rationality is a special
kind of meme (or meme-complex, I see the two as the same).
Extending the notion of rationality to include all of science (the
most highly evolved meme-complex I can think of) and developing
your analogy further, would you agree that science is a constantly
evolving operating system. It operates on the universe to discover
useful memes which it can incorporate within itself to improve the
efficiency with which it operates on the universe. This is why
science will always make new discoveries.
Although today science models that the earth goes round the
sun and has done for millions or years, it did not always have this
usefull model (meme). The most evolved meme-complex in pre-
copernican days lacked this meme. In western science this meme has
reached fixation to the extent that it is "part of discovered
reality". Much earlier meme complexes lacked even basic memes like
mutual cooperation.
In the beginning there was a bootstrapping process. (as
always)
Tony
If the human brain was sufficiently simple for us
to be able to understand it, we'd be too simple to
understand it.