{'This is so confused I don't even know where to start. So I choose not
to reply
in the hopes that readers won't take Brett's word for it.'}
No, really....
Although- Why don't Brett understand me? And is it me, or do I tend to
really piss people off around here? I'm a gentle and unprepossessing sort
of guy.
I'm actually lost here Brett. Can you honestly claim you can come up with
an experiment to verify your definition above? And isn't Occam rotating
in his grave at your multiplying of entities?
I am (only and completely, read the subject line...) wondering about
whether or not memetics will ever become a real science, or if it is
doomed to wander in its presently crowded pseudo-academic
quasi-philosophical bullshit phase.
And yes, I readily admit I haven't a clue as to what a 'meme' is. No-one
has shown me one yet. Oh, I've been shown things. But changing a few
names don't impress me. And I _do_ reject the 'cultural artifact' example
of memes. Yes, I have accepted that a meme is unique to an individual
brain, and the method of creating them is culture. Yes, I reject all
attempts at inclusion of animal behaviors into 'culture' as used here.
Through a smattering of readings into the cognitive and neuro- sciences,
I have arrived at a preliminary portion of a definition of a meme as a
neural determinant of conscious, non-autonomous, cultural action, and
have as well decided that the activity of dreaming is thus a non-memetic
process. It is this diving platform I am asking you to comment on. How
far out on a limb have I gone claiming dreams are not memetic activities?
And, yes, I (so far) think that there are plausible experiments to be
designed to test this. Have you any plausible experiments to propose?
And yes, I don't give a shit what anyone else calls a meme. Why? Again,
because no-one has shown me one. Have you shown me one? I am totally
content to think that a meme is a theory which needs verification. (I am
also content to think it can be verified.)
"Show me the me-me."
And again, this is all a ramble- I'm thinking out-loud here. So don't get
pissed.... Don't you think there is some reason the 'what is a meme'
thread gets unraveled again and again? I am really, really, trying to
make it go away....
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
morbius@cyberwarped.com |
******* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ *******