Prof. Tim responded;
>I'd venture that, in the western world, the vast majority of #2s are
>really #1s that no one is interested in understanding the software of.
Certainly this is true in many but not all cases. As with
most classifications there are grey areas.
> In
>traditional societies they utilize the psychotic's potential by grooming
>them to be Shamans. In our society we don't have a niche for that brand
>of "software" so we institutionalize them.
As I understand it, in traditional african societies those
who are sane go hunting in the jungle where there are poisonous
snakes and spiders, Leopards and Tigers (a Tiger, in africa?..shh).
While the psychotic shamen stay at home and take drugs. Mmm which
ones are mad again?
Still I maintain that this way of looking at rationality is
helpfull.
On another post Prof. Tim Wrote;
>Anyone? What is a meme?
One useful way of classification might be to say that memes
are anything that is learned, even if the meme occupies a pre-
designied nich in the mind. Using this system the first meme we
acquire would often be the meme for mummy. Actualy thinking about
our own developmental history in the context of memetics can be
illuminating. I remember hearing the phrase
"ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"
In the genetic context. I believe it is equaly
applicable in the memetic context. Who amongst us even here can
truley say we never believed in God when we were 4?
Theres something fractacularly self-referential about all
this.
Tony Hindle.