Hmmm. Probably. But mostly because I don't got any answers. And I'm not
lobbing nothin', I'm tryin' to get you two to shake hands. Consilience. A
meme that infected me. I'm an old man a-sittin' on a gate.
In all truth, psychological experiments (which are in point of fact what
we are talking about) have reached quite a high degree of control and
reduction of error and scintillance of data. Which is where, if memetics
is to become an experimental science (which is the direction I do indeed
want it to go, sue me) it had better start adapting, and bettering, the
already established protocols of psychological laboratory work.
My tack here is to avoid the criticism from the cognitive neuro side of
things, from the skeptical, physically based, reductionist sciences, who,
whether you like it or not, have been the _only_ ones to have _shown_ us
anything about 'mind'.*
Hardware/software analogies are nice, but they're just that. Metaphors
for the process. Continually centers of perception and behavior and brain
activity are being found, and related to both pathological and healthful
studies. Consilience asks us to work both the analogical and the physical
into a common direction, each one helping the other, helping the other to
find the questions.
That is my wont here. I am not on either side, actually, by intuition,
profession, calling, or talent. I like both things. I want them to live
together.
The only thing lacking is the recipe.
We call one of the ingredients 'memes' but we can neither find it to cook
with nor direct anyone else where to get some.
So we got an empty pot.
So far, I've seen a lot of beggars starting their stone soup....
When will the hunter come home from the hill? The sailor home from the
sea? The farmer home from the fields, all with their harvest? I am saying
the hunt is in the brain. That is all. Why are we avoiding it? All this
cultural anthropology is wonderful, but it ain't (sue me) memetics, it's
cultural anthropology....
*and here is just a brief, but usual, comment- (neither are mine, BTW)
X writes-
>> Arron Lynch is doing much to turn memetics into a real
>> science, with more solid footing than psychology or sociology ever had.
>
>"...real science... ...more solid footing than..." I don't think so.
>"Memes" are only a teensy step away from New Age woo-woo.
Replies Y....
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
******* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ *******