>Well, OK. I don't know that what you claim is "true", but even if it
>is, how does this absolve the issue? Where did the Egyptians get their
>ideas? And where did they get their ideas?[1]
>From some other people. Read Plato's Critias and Timaeus but don't get
caught up in the terms.
The terms for an abstract meme may change over eons, but does the essence
of the meme change itself ?
>Essentially, I'm using the "argument from design" with a slight
>variation here. Since ideas exist, and there was a time at which they
>didn't (say before even our first remotest ancestors) the idea's /must/
>have been formed as /orginals/ somewhere along the line. An unmoved
>mover, in the form of a *new* meme.
I see it thus : all ideas are potentially contained in more compact
memes. There are fundamental memes (or math axioms) which can be expanded
using functions or ways of combinations. From them stem other memes
or combo-memes
The trouble arises when the ideas of the fundamental memes in one era
is called something completely different in another. i.e. one syntax
for a fundamental meme in an ancient eon is used for a cmpletely
different thing in another, more recent eon, hence the confusions.
To avoid the confusion, maybe one should systematically rename all
the memes and then compare their inteconnections as processes, as
fundamental, general processes.
For example the process of a life cycle : birth, growth,
reproduction, death is a general, abstract process of which
what we observe in nature are concrete examples;
This is the type of symbolic thinking used by Egyptians (this is
what I'm seeing in a book by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz). I'll have
to buy Isha's "Her Bak" series as well.
One symbol has semantic variation, thus the essence or generality
of a process is pictured in hieroglyphics.
The memesets you can get from these are extremely varied and can
apply to many subjects.
>What's really nice about this, looking back, is that as soon as one
>admits that humans are capable of completely orginal idea's, it does not
I'd say variations of the same underlying general principles.
>seem so rough to admit that the universe is capable of bringing us into
>existance. We are the /new/ meme's of the universe. If we can do it,
>surely the "much more complex" universe is capable of it as well. An
>interesting trap for a Christian who beleives in /free will/ and orginal
>ideas.
>
>[1] Point in case: Where did Decartes get his ideas? born 1596 died
>1650. "Invented" Cartesian geometry. An idea never before seen.
A new way of looking at things like in this :
"The better adapted to their environment are selected"
becomes (in my mind):
"Those with more spatio-temporal stability will prevail"
(seems like a circular argument, but you can switch between those
two modes of thinking whenever it suits you to explain something in
this view. )
In any case it's more complex than this simplified and
general phrase.
Those with mobility or knowledge of the importance of spatial stability
seek to avoid spatial, localized hazards.
The knowledge of the importance of temporal stability makes one store
information or strive to reproduce it, eventually the storage
must be multiple (to avoid spatial hazards).
Would you say I invented anything ?
Or would you say I found just another way of looking at things ?
Did Darwin INVENT natural selection or did he bring the knowledge
of it to our eyes ?
Coming back to my view of a general life-cycle :
A crystal forms from a seed, then grows by addition of elementary
parts in an orderly fashion with time. With time, the crystalline
shape is found further from the seed. This is a primitive form
of replication. A crystal can be shattered.
A crystalline structure can be the frame for another type of
replicators to take over (molecules).
Clay->molecules->DNA->memes
Dawkins mentions this from another source but I cannot remember
his name except there's a W in there (maybe as first letter).
And so on...
Yash.