virus: science

Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Wed, 18 Sep 1996 13:06:29 -0400


Wow, nothing like a little emotion to whip up the responses, huh?

>From what I've read, I think most of the responses to this topic are
address something beside the point I was trying to make when I said:

"Holy shit! Is this culture evolving so quickly that we already have
"memetic fundamentalists"? What ever happened to a healthy skepticism? A
sense of irony? A little humility?

It is my contention that wisdom is not to be found within a single paradigm."

on Monday.

I was specifically responding to the following statement (this was only a
small clip to remind us of the theme of the post:

>From: tramont@iinet.net.au (Steve)
>Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 07:20:06 +0800

>I think that the truth about memes (a truth that we have only just started
>to touch on)
>might be verging on the truest truth that could ever be attained.
>Anything else is
>just a manifestation of the 'truest' truth, a verification of how memes
>work.

I found this to be an example of what Dennett would call "greedy
reductionism" or an attempt to explain complex phenomena with
over-simplistic models. I was particularly agitated by the "truest truth"
language which I feel is out of place in a discussion of this sort, I'm
sorry if I offended anyone, but I'm glad people got riled up enough to
respond... :) I don't belive in a God and I don't belive it a "truest
truth": memetic, scientific, religious, or otherwise. A number of the
criticisms leveled against science here are valid, a few were overextended,
and a couple I disagree with...I'll try to respond to those specifically as
time permits.

Reed

Reed Konsler
konsler@ascat.harvard.edu