While perusing this paper, I noticed that it was not my latest
draft, but a working model that was posted. The differences can be
resolved by two insertions.
The first insertion should be placed in section I (The Substrate:
Perception, Recursion and Conscious Self-awareness), after the
sentence
"When this feedback loop is applied self-referentially (in
phenomenology, not to the noema but to the noesis), that is, not to
the perceived and acted upon but to the perceiving and acting of
the organism itself, self-awareness results."
Here is the insert:
Abstract (as opposed to concrete) self-consciousness results when
entire interdependent tripartate structures - including the self, the
object and the interrelational modality (perceiver-perceiving-
perceived for perception, conceiver-conceiving-conceived for
cognition, signifier-signifying-signified for signification, etc.) -
are abstracted and perused as complex objects. This abstraction
can only occur once the self has become concretely aware of itself
as a perceiving, conceiving, signifying entity. One of the first
noticeable characteristics about such complexes is that they are
structured like three-legged stools; in the absence of any of the
three elements comprising them, the others cannot stand on their
own.
The succeeeding sentence beginning with "That this system is
incomplete..." should begin a new paragraph.
The second insertion should be placed in section 12 (Why
Technology Had to Precede Language, and the March of the Ur-
Meme), after the sentence
Once this mutation spread within a group of hunter-gatherers, its
members could yell for help better and both express and
apprehend more subtle emotional states - useful skills in a
nomadic foraging band. Being informationally rather than
biologically based, the machine, phonetic and phonemic
principles of tools, signs and texts were nevertheless most likely
extrapolated from the gestalt contexture of action/perception; the
structures underlining these therefore appear to constitute a
combinatorial Ur-meme (The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins,
1976).
Here is the insert.
Genes are physical characteristics that exercise configurational
control and evolve within a species by means of mutation and
natural selection; they are replicated through sexual reproduction
between members of that species, and are naturally selected for by
the differential rates of reproduction of those who possess them
(and the configurations of which they are templates) vs. those who
don’t, or possess different ones. Memes, on the other hand, are
mental/cognitive characteristics that exercise behavioral control,
mutate within the minds of their holders, and multiply by being
passed between them via communication or imitation. They are
replicated by being spread from intentionally or inadvertently
teaching carriers to learning recipients, who either intentionally or
inadvertently select to accept or reject them, by means of
communicative behaviors, such as showing, telling or writing.
They evolve by means of the differential selection rates of some
memetic variants vs. others (The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins,
1976). Self-conscious awareness, signification, intentionality and
the capacity to actualize our intentions are required for intentional
teaching and learning; only then may we purposefully attempt to
direct the evolution and spread of freely chosen memes.
Ths succeeding sentence, beginning with "Remember the Gaia
Hypothesis..." does NOT begin a new paragraph in this case
Please make the update corrections, or, if it is easier, I can post
the updated essay in its entirety. Please advise.
Sincerely,
Joe Dees
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