Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> asked:
> Rationality is most certainly a meme-complex. Why is
> saying that pointless?
Actually, I said that to try and argue against rationality is pointless --
you can't undermine logic by using logic!
> If you want to be clear about all
> this, you have to accept that, from a memetic point of
> view, to argue for rationality is to be a virus carrier,
> just exactly as if you were arguing for Christianity.
Perhaps so -- except that, like I say, memetics has a blind spot in exactly
the position we are considering. I think that rationality is *critical* to
our free-will; to our ability to make up our own minds. To say that
<rationality> somehow still possess the Intentional Stance, rather than the
Human choosing to be free with rationality, is to fall into the blind spot
of memetics.
(I would also note that *if* you are rationally persuaded to become a
Christian, then you can be said to possess the intentional stance there
too, and NOT the meme <Christianity>. However, I doubt it possible to
*rationally* convince someone of the truth of Christianity. Anyone found
an argument which proves the existence of God yet?)
ERiC