If you draw memes controling you and I draw you controling memes...what does
that have to do with what memes do?
Brett
At 11:35 AM 9/21/97 -0700, you wrote:
>On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, Brett Lane Robertson wrote:
>> And as for Brett's response, about how memes can control us if we control
>> memes--Since our minds *are* our memes (in combination with innate
>> features), the two statements are not contradictory. They are two
>> different ways of looking at the same thing. The whole makes decisions on
>> what parts to include, and those parts affect the decisions the whole
>> makes. (Eva)
>> List,
>> There are not two ways of looking at one thing. There is one way of looking
>> at one thing and an infinite number of incorrect or partially correct ways
>> of looking at something. I do agree, however, that "the whole makes
>> decisions on what parts to include" and that *can* demonstrate how "we" can
>> control memes *if we are the whole*. I guess the assumption is (like you
>> said) "we are not solely memetic creatures." I have questions as to whether
>> we control memes or if memes control us; but, if we can manipulate memes and
>> predict their effects--even if we can not control those effects--then that
>> is sufficient for experimentation. (like saying we can manipulate a tiger
>> but not control the tiger).
>> Brett
>There are always multiple ways of looking at a given situation or object,
>and some of them will be more useful for specific circumstances than
>others. If you want to claim that there is some ultimately True way of
>looking at things, okay, but then I will maintain that that isn't
>something we can actually achieve, only a useless Platonism.
>If I'm looking at a ball and claim it's black, and you look at it and
>claim it's white, and someone else says, "well, it's actually half black
>and half white, you guys are just looking at it from opposite sides", does
>that mean the third person's view is the correct one? In some senses it
>is. But not if I'm trying to draw the ball realistically from where I'm
>sitting. If I draw the ball while trying to use the third person's point
>of view, at best I'll end up with a cubist still life, at worst an
>incoherent mess (depending on your attitude toward cubism, this might not
>seem like much of a range). Their perspective is not useful for my
>purposes, however accurate it might be about the nature of the ball as a
>whole. In fact, attending too much to what they know (rather than what
>they can see) about what they're looking at is often a problem for
>beginning artists. They try to draw more than they can actually see, and
>thus end up *mis*representing the object. So what happened to the Truth?
>Eva
Returning,
rBERTS%n
Rabble Sonnet Retort
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.