Hi Squonk,
(I replied to an earlier post of yours on this topic but it bounced because
it was in HTML. I presume my computer automatically picked up the HTML from
your post and replied in kind, as I never use HTML.)
Sq: Hi John, I am trying to sort this out! Thanks.
I thought you had some useful ideas in your recent post, but the ultimate
outworking was somewhat vague, and now following your recent post to Bo I
wonder do you actually understand memetics.
Sq: Its a developing field! My interest is in the philosophical basis of the
field. My interest in physics is its philosophical basis; therefore i still
use terms like 'substance' but substitute 'stable patterns of inorganic
value' as the term's metaphysical basis.
The key to memetics is imitation. Anything that can be imitated is
describable as a meme. This was pointed out by Dawkins who coined the term,
and established in Susan Blackmore's 'The Meme Machine,' with an
introduction by Dawkins, where memetics is fleshed out. While imitation is
by its nature social, it is possible for its content to be intellectual or
artistic, or whatever. Styles in art are clearly memes, and the paradigm
shifts in science are probably memetic.
Sq: I have read both books. I understand your point regarding imitation and
its social basis.
One, Two and three, are memes, but operators such as multiply and divide are
methods for manipulating memes such as One, two and three. Therefore, i call
memes such as 'multiply' hypermemes. I feel intelligence is what memes are
made to do as in multiplication, while social imitation is both memetic and
hypermemetic - you can learn methods which then boost your IQ? Latent ability
to develop new method is more valuable of course!
But you say "culture begins with US AS MEMES. (Or more precisely
memeplexes.)
WE ARE MEMES"
This is memetic nonsense. We are not memes, nor memeplexes, which are
constellations of memes that depend on being copied together to facilitate
their transmission.
Sq: I feel in very large part we are memes, and Blackmore suggests this also.
I can't quote passages as my copy of TMM is not here.
The problem involves classification? Not all memes are social; some are
methodologies which induce intellectual responses - Inference is one such
intellectual response: continue the pattern: 1, 3, 7, 15, 31...
You are recognising memes here but your intelligence will read between the
lines and recognise a method.
You also say that "Memes ARE static social patterns of value."
As I have already pointed out, memes are anything that is capable of
imitation, and this includes ideas, instructions, behaviour, or pieces of
information. While imitation ensures a social element is present in the
transaction, the meme need not be social.
Sq: I feel many memes have been described in ways which are almost identical
to static social patterns of value. Memes have fought and modified DNA
evolution. Memes are not Subjective or objective, etc.
You say "Our 'minds' are but huge wells of memes and our ability to mediate
and manipulate them is INTELLECT. Note: Intellect is an ability, or
capability of discovering quality relationships between static patterns of
social value, (memes) and may be described therefore as a METHOD. That's the
essence of the divide between society and intellect."
I doubt that method actually is "the essence of the divide between society
and intellect." This seems not to be Pirsig's understanding, at any rate.
Sq: memes are rather blind, as you have intimated, in that they rush to
exploit social niches. Intelligence is not blind; intelligence directs the
form of the lower social imitated level and changes it. Rhetoric is a good
example of this? All rhetoric the orchestration of memes into a quality dance
of swirling method.
However I think you are right in seeing intellect as significant. In your
earlier post you used the term 'intelligence,' seemingly interchangeably with
intellect, as in "INTELLIGENCE may be usefully viewed as the ABILITY to
mediate memes."
The role of intelligence can be defined more precisely than you have done.
Its root meaning (from inter legere) is to read between the lines. It is
what 'sees through' the words to the meaning they carry, or it is the
perception that the pointing finger is not the same as what it points to.
The development of language in childhood is incomprehensible without
intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to recognize novel patterns of
value, to grasp their significance. It really has little to do with "the
ABILITY to mediate memes", which is more to do with a form of brain
development which facilitates imitation.
Sq: Libraries store memes but they were created by collective intelligence's?
Their specific ordering and composition were mediated by social and
biological entities?
The significance of this mediation is that it conveys overwhelming intellect
and its formation was intellectual in nature.
One does not walk out of a library having been merely infected with new
memes? One discovers relationships that were either quite deliberately, (as
in a logical treatise for example) or unintentionally, (as in a Dickens novel
for example) deposited there. This agrees well with reading between the
lines, but the matter is still one of discovering relationships or creating
new relationships from disparate materials? I feel that to be the dynamic
leading edge of what crystallises out as a discernible mediation. I did say
that intelligence is an ability to...
However, it is possible that your introduction of the term rationality has
something to do with intelligence. You said "RATIONALITY may be usefully
viewed as one METHOD - itself a hypermeme - for mediating memes." Since
memes are defined as anything that can be imitated, it follows that much
that is imitated my be of no value or even of negative value for those doing
the copying, particularly when genetic evolution has operated to facilitate
imitation though the development of imitative brains. Once these brains
exist, memes will get copied despite their lack of value for the person
doing the copying. Copy-cat suicides, for example.
Sq: Intelligence's are not satisfied with imitation! Imitation is for the
herd?
Let the vast majority of individuals copy as Plato would have suggested, and
the intellectuals either organise them by providing better copies for the
herd to follow or retreat and enjoy intellectual pursuits?
I think it would be more correct to say that it is intelligence, rather than
rationality, that 'mediates' memes, if by the term 'mediates' we mean
'determine value.'
Sq: Intelligence created rationality: rationality is but one method for
mediating memes.
Dickens mediated memes and his novels can be probed for rhetorical devices he
used over and over again? But i do not feel Barnaby Rudge is a rational work?
I feel BR is a work of art created by a very intelligent individual.
All this we must remember is really patterns of quality categorised into 5
levels, (if one is a devote MoQist? ;)
So when we ask how it is that I perceive the value of an idea, which may be
usefully seen as a meme, competing for 'space' in my brain, we have to
acknowledge that there is a way in which I determine that this particular
idea has value, while another has not. Intelligence is the term that points
to this ability to discriminate value at this level.
Sq: If you are part of the herd you are overrun by social patterns. If you
discriminate on a higher quality level you follow intellectual patterns. More
Plato!
Regards,
John B
I enjoyed that and look forward to more quality stuff. :) Thanks John, and i
hope you are well?
All the best,
Squonk.
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