Re: virus: Bastard Son of Virus

Dave Pape (davepape@dial.pipex.com)
Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:20:05 GMT


At 17:17 16/02/97 -1000, Peter wrote:
>David Pape wrote:
>
>>At the end of the day (I'm not particularly getting agitated at you, Peter),
>>I think that considering people to be a collection of interacting memes and
>>a collection of cells and a collection of genes, all interacting with other
>>such collections, is an awesome thing to think about. I stood in a
>>supermarket today, and looked down the row of checkouts, and my jaw dropped
>>from thinking about all the memetic processing that underlies what was going
>>on in that scene. To me, saying "There's 30 checkout clerks scanning
>>people's shopping" is crushed in terms of impressiveness by saying "this is
>>a fractally detailed, local expression of global memetic processing."
>>
>>Dave Pape
>
>What's the problem? We agree.

Cool. Let rivers of peace bathe your palps.

>Generally I think we over emphasize the virus
>angle. I'd like to figure out how healthy minds (including mega-minds, if
>they exist) operate first, before I attempt to tackle the diseases.

What, then, are your ideas about the meme-brain interface? I've got a few,
which I'll maybe post tonight, but haven't got the time this lunch-hour...
have you got any crafty quick memes to seed the debate? Go on... mate...

[Hands up who thinks Peter's quite cool!]

>The
>checkout line description is lovely, perceiving everyday reality within the
>context of underpantics.

It's now my favourite game. Memewatching.

>Now if someone rushed in and started shooting up
>this store, we're looking at viral aberration.

Hey, actually, I think this is one of the reasons why I don't myself use the
Virus analogy very often. There seems around here to be a tendency to call
anti-human underpants "mind-viruses" and pro-human underpants "the forbidden
M-jargon-word-thing-object-idea-tag-stuff". I'm interested in viewing both
the "gun down a shopful of people" idea (if it spreads from person to
person) as being the same sort of process as the
"this-is-how-you-fill-the-shelves-and-this-is-how-you-swipe-the-goods"
underpants.

>For me our
>Proto-Science-That-Is-Without-A-Name-We-Can-Say-On-A-Regular-Basis-For-Fear-
>Of-Being-Jargon- Producing-Groupies (PSTIWANWCSOARBFFOBJPG) has an
>opportunity to link science with wisdom. Or if you prefer biology with
>psychology, or data with politics. I'm a pragmatist and wonder what this is
>all for, if not as a foundation to improve our lives. But we need to get
>some real facts first, namely how does the brain produce memes (Oops!) and
>what is their relationship to the rest of the system. Knowing the
>neurophysiogamy seems essential to progress. Memetics is a solid theory,
>one that folks like Patricia Churchland (author of Neurophilosophy) have
>been looking for. According to Churchland the lack of a workable brain
>function theory has thwarted research. You need a theory in order to ask the
>right questions.
>
> --Peter
>
>
>

Dave Pape
============================================================================
Ran out of sig. ideas.

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