Re: virus: Re: meme pairs (formerly compassion and justice) (formerly AIDS meme)

Peter =?iso-8859-1?Q?=D6kner?= (okner@arch.kth.se)
Fri, 25 Oct 1996 22:30:28 +0530


I keep getting bounced back but i'll try this anyway:

On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, Santo Domingo wrote:
>(....) Do memes usually come in
>pairs of apparent opposites? Or am I just fooling myself with
>semantics? (In that it is hard linguistically to have a symbol for "X"
>without, by labeling it so, creating the concept of everything else
>being "not X".) I seem to recall that set theory deals with this at
>length... >
And on Thu, 24 Oct 1996, Kenneth replied:
>"not X" is usually a much weaker concept than "X", because it requires
>more processing power to understand. [See, it even takes longer to type
>out.]
>
>Actually, memes seem to come in mutually exclusive sets, claiming to be
>exhuastive. The above manipulation is the 'generic' way to create
>mutually exclusive sets, but it can break down in strange logics (...)

The minds inclination to think and percieve in terms of polarities and
categories has all kinds of conseqvenses when we try to get a clear wiew of
reality. I think KMO wrote something on this recently. Here's more:

"During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes
with humanity's entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense
perception is organised, the medium in which it is accomplished, is
determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well."
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,",
no page reference. Quoted from Beatriz Colomina, "Privacy and Publicity",
p.17.

Our perception of reality is a continuously evolving fiction.

"Our perceptual systems are even genetically designed to force straddling
candidates for perception into one classification or another."
Daniel C. Dennett, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", (London, The Penguin Press,
1995),p.202. See also Ray Jackendoff, "Patterns In The Mind: Language And
Human Nature", (London, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993).

But there is another way of thinking about the world:

"Understanding the world as field is very diffrent from understanding the
world as dialectic of solid and void. The world of objects and emptinesses
is enumerable, a world of local binary decisions: is/is-not. In a world of
fields, the distinction between what is and what is not is one of degree."
Marcos Novak, "Transmitting Architecture: The Transphysical City"",
(Internet, CTHEORY, 1996), p.4.

I admit, I was lazy and patched some quotes I've been working with.
There's a book out called Fuzzy Logic, does anybody know if it is worth
it's salt?

<<<<<<<<<<< Peter =D6kner >>>>>>>>>>
<<<<< okner@arch.kth.se >>>>>
"Our common sense tells us that
the things of this earth barely exist,
that actual reality is only in our dreams."
Charles Baudelaire, Les Paradis Artificiels.