From: L-Soft list server at St. John's University (1.8c) To: Ian Pitchford Subject: File: "SCI-CULT LOG9612" Date: Sunday, September 27, 1998 10:19 AM ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 11:40:54 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Call for papers on time and memory X-To: psa-public-sphere@sheffield.ac.uk Antithesis an interdisciplinary postgraduate journal of criticism, culture and theory Issue 8.2 Call for papers on the theme: 'Time and Memory' ARTICLES REVIEWS FICTION POETRY GRAPHICS Antithesis is seeking academic papers on the above theme, particularly articles relating this theme to the work of any of the following thinkers: Bergson, Freud, Lacan, Deleuze, Whitehead, Derrida, Heidegger, etc Issue 8.2 will also include a selection of the proceedings from the 'Time and Memory' conference (including the Deleuze Symposium) that was held in Melbourne in late September of 1996. Conference abstracts can be viewed at: http://cougar.vut.edu.au/~jongr/abstracts.html Deadline for Antithesis submissions: 10 January 1997 Articles (of up to 6000 words), poetry, fiction, reviews and graphics can be sent to: Antithesis English and Cultural Studies Department, University of Melbourne, Parkville Victoria 3052 Australia Submissions must include SSAE, two hard copies and a 3.5 floppy disc version For further information contact the above address or e-mail either of the following: gjones@essex.vut.edu.au GrahamJones@vut.edu.au Or consult the Antithesis Home page at: http://cougar.vut.edu.au/~jongr/antithesis.html Please copy this message and forward it to any interested parties or to any e-mail lists that you subscribe to. Thank you. __________________________________________ Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ US mirror site: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/human-nature/rmyoung/papers/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 12:09:48 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Forum on history of neuroscience X-To: psa-public-sphere@sheffield.ac.uk HISTNEUR-L: The History of Neuroscience Forum. PURPOSE: HISTNEUR-L provides a forum for exchanging information on any aspect of the History of Neuroscience. It includes announcements, inquiries, and discussion on access to historical sources and their use and interpretation. AUDIENCE: Membership is open to anyone interested in neuroscience history, including but by no means limited to historians, scientists, students, instructors, curators, publishers, archivists, and librarians. The listserv is maintained for the benefit of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN), but is open to all (anyone with an e-mail account and an interest in the subject can subscribe without restriction). HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: To join the list (even though the term "subscribe" is used, there is not and will not be a fee), send an e-mail message to LISTPROC@LIBRARY.UCLA.EDU with the following request in the message area: SUBSCRIBE HISTNEUR-L [Yourfirstname, Yourlastname, institution] example: SUBSCRIBE HISTNEUR-L Russell Johnson, UCLA Be sure the message is contained in a single line in the message area; the subject line should be blank. You need not include the comma and the institutional identification, but the latter is helpful to the list moderator and other subscribers. Note that you do _not_ include your e-mail address, only your full name. This is because ListProc, the listserv software, automatically reads the return address on your subscription message and uses that as your e-mail address. Because of this, be sure to be logged on and to send the subscription request from the account or address to which you want HISTNEUR-L messages sent! FOR MORE INFORMATION, or if you have problems subscribing or issuing other commands, please contact the List Owner: Russell A. Johnson (310) 206-2336 Archivist, Science Collections University Research Library, UCLA Box 951575 Los Angeles CA 90095-1575 USA rjohnson@library.ucla.edu __________________________________________ Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ US mirror site: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/human-nature/rmyoung/papers/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 21:47:03 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lucas Parra Subject: taking stand on Intellectual Property As we have entered the information age it appears fundamental for to me as a scientist and humanist to define my stands on the set of issues which is currently summarized under the term "intellectual property": Information is fragile and free. It is the ultimate product of human activity. It is not yours but the result of generations creating structure in an universe of increasing entropy. Create it, store it, use it, but never own it. Intellectual property is public property. In recent trade wars (USA/China) *private* intellectual property has been put in front of human rights as you would expect it from a neo-liberal world order, which seeks to extend the concept of "private property" of material goods to the realm of ideas. Modern society is loosing a historic opportunity to move from a competitive society to a cooperative society. It is currently not at all decided whether in an information society competition is more productive than cooperation. In history the free flow of information however has shown clearly to improve the existential living conditions of the human being. As a scientist and child of the Internet I have confirmed my believe that generous collaboration creates more and better than secretive greed. Lucas Parra ---------------------------------------- www.humanism.org/~lucas ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 06:10:51 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Book recommendation X-To: psa-public-sphere@sheffield.ac.uk From: ingram_b@ix.netcom.com Subject: Book Recommendation The following book may be of interest to some of you. I have no proprietary interests in it, but merely find it fascinating and especially relevant to anyone interested in education/training and media. Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications and Cambridge University Press, 1996, 303 pp. >From the book jacket: "According to popular wisdom, humans never relate to a computer or a television program in the same way they relate to another human being. Or do they? In an extraordinary revision of received wisdom, Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass demonstrate convincingly in The Media Equation that interactions with computers, television, and new communication technologies are identical to real social relationships and to the navigation of real physical spaces. "Authors Reeves and Nass present the results of numerous psychological studies that led them to the conclusion that people treat computers, television and new media as real people and places. Their studies show that people are polite to computers; that they treat computers with female voices differently than male-voiced computers; that large faces on a screen can invade a person's body space; and that motion on a screen affects physical responses in the same way that real-life motion does. One of their startling conclusions is that the human brain has not evolved quickly enough to assimilate twentieth-century technology. The authors detail how this knowledge can help us better design and evaluate media technologies, including computer and Internet software, television entertainment, news and advertising, and multimedia. "Using everyday language, the authors explain their novel ideas in a way that will engage general readers with an interest in cutting edge research at the intersection of psychology, communication and computer technology. The result is that The Media Equation is an accessible summary of exciting ideas for modern times. As Bill Gates says, Nass and Reeves show us some 'amazing things'." CONTENTS Introduction 1 The Media Equation Media and Manners 2 Politeness 3 Interpersonal Distance 4 Flattery 5 Judging Others and Ourselves Media and Personality 6 Personality of Characters 7 Personality of Interfaces 8 Imitating Personality 9 Good versus Bad 10 Negativity 11 Arousal Media and Social Roles 12 Specialists 13 Teammates 14 Gender 15 Voices 16 Source Orientation Media and Form 17 Image Size 18 Fidelity 19 Synchrony 20 Motion 21 Scene Changes 22 Subliminal Images Final Words 23 Conclusions about the Media Equation Robert Ingram Ingram Communications 33717 Second Street Union City, CA 94587 (510) 475-7239 ingram_b@ix.netcom.com __________________________________________ Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ US mirror site: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/human-nature/rmyoung/papers/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 14:20:25 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hobson Sherren Subject: SaC: Intellectual property Lucas Parra refers to the ... > > neo-liberal world order, which seeks to extend the concept of "private > property" of material goods to the realm of ideas. > > Modern society is loosing a historic opportunity to move from a > competitive society to a cooperative society. It is currently not at > all decided whether in an information society competition is more > productive than cooperation. In history the free flow of information > however has shown clearly to improve the existential living conditions > of the human being. > > As a scientist and child of the Internet I have confirmed my believe > that generous collaboration creates more and better than secretive > greed. > Bob Young recommends (independently; not in response to Lucas) ... > > Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass. The Media Equation: How People Treat > Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. > > >From the book jacket: > "According to popular wisdom, humans never relate to a computer or a > television program in the same way they relate to another human being. > Or do they? In an extraordinary revision of received wisdom, Byron > Reeves and Clifford Nass demonstrate convincingly in The Media Equation > that interactions with computers, television, and new communication > technologies are identical to real social relationships and to the > navigation of real physical spaces. It might be interesting to consider these concepts of "generous collaboration" (remembering that there are recent analyses available of "the gift economy") and "real social relationships" in the context of Cameron and Barbrook's "The Californian Ideology". This latter, incidentally, is now also available in Italian, thanks to Pino Caputo, at the Chaos site: http://services.csi.it/~chaos/dieci.htm (highly recommended to readers of Italian). I'd also recommend the following analysis, which is probably only available in Italian, unfortunately: Lorenzo Cillario: L'Economia degli Spettri [The Spectral Economy] (1996 manifestolibri, ISBN 88-7285-086-X). In his first section, he develops his concept of "cognitive capitalism". At the end of the second section (The "Imperfect" Democracy of Capital), we find a discussion of "Forms and Property", based on C.B. Macpherson: Liberty and Property at the Origins of Bourgeois Thought. Of particular interest, in the above context, p. 117: "Modifications of property in relation with the 'cognitive' nature of goods": <> Sorry about the inelegant translation. Even if no-one is moved to follow up this 'link' immediately, I wanted to at least point it out (for future interest?). In particular, I note Cillario's reference to the mental dimension and the term 'projection', here, and hope there will eventually be some discussion of Bob Young's formulation of "Mental Space" in this labour-process perspective. Ciao Sherren ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 16:36:47 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arie Dirkzwager Subject: Re: SaC: Intellectual property At 14:20 9-12-96 +0100, you wrote: >It might be interesting to consider these concepts of "generous >collaboration" (remembering that there are recent analyses available of >"the gift economy") and "real social relationships" in the context of >Cameron and Barbrook's >"The Californian Ideology". Could you give the (English) references? Thanks! Arie Prof.Dr.A.Dirkzwager, Educational Instrumentation Technology, Computers in Education. Huizerweg 62, 1402 AE Bussum, The Netherlands. voice: x31-35-6933258 FAX: x31-35-6930762 E-mail: aried@xs4all.nl {========================================================================} When reading the works of an important thinker, look first for the apparent absurdities in the text and ask yourself how a sensible person could have written them." T. S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension (1977). =========================================================================== Accept that some days you are the statue, and some days you are the bird. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 14:29:39 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Matt Chew Subject: Deteriorating with Consumption "But information is infinitely reproducible, they add; it's the first '= good' that does not deteriorate with consumption." Two points: Information can deteriorate as it is transmitted across socio-cultural = boundaries, as a result of translation, re-interpretation, and changing = context. Information can also deteriorate as falsification renders it 'obsolete'. = There is a lag time in information and technology transfer. For example, = even in U.S. natural resources management, we notice that there is still = sometimes a lag of as much as a generation in the conceptual models = underlying recent management plans. Which raises other interesting = questions about rates and modes of information transmission (and = information acceptance or rejection) even where current technology = operates... -MKC ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 18:09:19 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Matthew Baggott Subject: Re: SaC: Intellectual property In-Reply-To: <199612091324.FAA29174@itsa.ucsf.edu> I think there are obvious parallels between the tendency to theorize about "information" in the abstract sense (as if it has meaning outside a cultural context) and Richard Dawkins-style theories about genes. Both harmonize with a strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one would draw the boundary) culture. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 16:11:00 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brown, Alex" Subject: Re.Re: SaC: Intellectual property >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg Date: 10th December 1996 Matthew Baggott writes: "I think there are obvious parallels between the tendency to theorize about "information" in the abstract sense (as if it has meaning outside a cultural context) and Richard Dawkins-style theories about genes. Both harmonize with a strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one would draw the boundary) culture." Exactly. While we can consider information to be that property which in-forms or characterizes material or intellectual products, It cannot be isolated from the products themselves. It is immanent to them. Indeed we can only recognize 'information' as such as a regularity, pattern or statistical recurrence of certain characteristics in a large number of forms. Where is information? Information is 'nowhere'. There is no platonic realm where it exists of itself. If we want to see it, we look for the measurable similarities which inform experience and all of which are the product of human activity. The Dawkin's-style theories, as Matthew observes, suggest otherwise and when, as now, applied to society and culture in the form of the ubiquitous and contagious 'meme' travel 'through the air' so to speak. The pre-Einsteinian ether has been reconstituted as the memetic dimension where apparently we breath ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH US. Human history and ingenuity in the form of combining and recombining previous forms of behaviour or material into new cultural formulations (paradigms, theories, styles, genres), is here rendered superfluous. Apparently we are simply the vehicles for selfish genes in the biological dimension and equally selfish memes in the cultural and social dimension. What we have here, of course is a new theology - theobiology - where god (dethroned from his former celestial home by human thought) now resides in the genetic underworld and carries out its great plan from there. It is no coincidence that in a collection of memetic web pages on the net, there is a site devoted to - Wait for it! - Church of the Virus. The "strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one would draw the boundary) culture." to which Matthew refers is, I would suggest the need for a purposeful Maker to manipulate and drive the human system, an ever present consciousness, a teleology. Asian philosophies (Buddhism, Taoism) do not require such an interventionist watchmaker. The system grows, develops and changes by itself and within this there is some degree of human freedom and the positive or negative consequences of whatever actions we take. ("Empty and marvellous"). Are these genetic and memetic concepts a sign of intellectual exhaustion in the West? regards Alex Brown Singapore ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 11:28:03 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hobson Sherren Subject: SaC: Intellectual Property Arie Dirkzwager wrote in reply to my posting yesterday: > > At 14:20 9-12-96 +0100, you wrote: > > >It might be interesting to consider these concepts of "generous > >collaboration" (remembering that there are recent analyses available of > >"the gift economy") and "real social relationships" in the context of > >Cameron and Barbrook's > >"The Californian Ideology". > > Could you give the (English) references? Thanks! > Arie The latter has been available for some time at: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/HRC/ci/calif1.html I don't have the specific Gift Economy references with me (I'm at work and I'm not an accademic), but I believe the original is French ("L'economie de la Donnee"?). I thought it was by Andre' Gorz (of _Critique_of_Economic_Reason_ and _Metamorphosis_of_Labour_ fame) but I'm not so sure now, having done a net search. Perhaps someone else (French?) can help out, while I check what I've got at home? In any case, the concept seems to be in common useage: my rapid search turned up an amusing and possibly interesting (dated) discussion on the thread 'gift economy', by the Internet Marketing mail list, at: http://www.i-m.com/hyper/inet-marketing/archives/9502/0419.html Matt Chew comments; > Information can deteriorate as it is transmitted across socio-cultural = > boundaries, as a result of translation, re-interpretation, and changing = > context. I would agree with the substance: Cillario is in fact criticizing the simplistic picture of freely exchanged information. The concept of 'deterioration of information' may be better formulated in terms of 'transformation of meaning/significance'. I'm more in agreement with Matthew Baggott's point about > the tendency to theorize about "information" in the abstract sense > (as if it has meaning outside a cultural context). Surely the basis of this tendency is idealistic: a 'misplaced concreteness' or reification of historical, material, social relations. Or no? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 09:18:14 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Donald Wessels Subject: Re: Re.Re: SaC: Intellectual property In-Reply-To: <96Dec10.000503hwt.370968(4)@relay2.Hawaii.Edu> On Mon, 9 Dec 1996, Brown, Alex wrote: > >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg > Date: 10th December 1996 > > Matthew Baggott writes: [snip] > > The Dawkin's-style theories, as Matthew observes, suggest otherwise and > when, as now, applied to society and culture in the form of the > ubiquitous and contagious 'meme' travel 'through the air' so to speak. > The pre-Einsteinian ether has been reconstituted as the memetic > dimension where apparently we breath ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH US. > Human history and ingenuity in the form of combining and recombining > previous forms of behaviour or material into new cultural formulations > (paradigms, theories, styles, genres), is here rendered superfluous. > Apparently we are simply the vehicles for selfish genes in the > biological dimension and equally selfish memes in the cultural and > social dimension. What we have here, of course is a new theology - > theobiology - where god (dethroned from his former celestial home by > human thought) now resides in the genetic underworld and carries out its > great plan from there. > Genetics and the concepts of memetics is not theology. Theology to my mind is a belief system that are sustained through political and psychological means. Theologies use evidence and critical thinking only as far as it supports a preconceived "theory." I don't see theological thinking occuring with Dawkin's concept of the meme. Not that there isn't anybody out there deifying these concepts. Although I am not thoroughly convienced that the concept of the meme is anything but a good socio-psychological analogy of genetic. Maybe Dawkins has hit upon on a real aspect on the algorithmic way thing that replicate act whether it is nucleic acids or intreging or comforting concepts > It is no coincidence that in a collection of memetic web pages on the > net, there is a site devoted to - Wait for it! - Church of the Virus. > We humans all to readily deify ourselfs, our concepts and institutions. > The "strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one > would draw the boundary) culture." to which Matthew refers is, I would > suggest the need for a purposeful Maker to manipulate and drive the > human system, an ever present consciousness, a teleology. Asian > philosophies (Buddhism, Taoism) do not require such an interventionist > watchmaker. The system grows, develops and changes by itself and within > this there is some degree of human freedom and the positive or negative > consequences of whatever actions we take. ("Empty and marvellous"). > > Are these genetic and memetic concepts a sign of intellectual exhaustion > in the West? > If you mean by "intellectual exhaustion" the concept of the big Watchmaker in the sky. Yes, I think the concept of God is being rendered superfluous. But, if you mean by "intellectual exhaustion" the concepts of genetics and memetics. No,especially as it relates to the science of genetics, these ideas will continue to bear intellectual fruit for sometime to come. > regards > > Alex Brown > Singapore > |Ubi dubium ibi liberta Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.| Religion is answers that may never be questioned. | Where there is doubt, | there is freedom. --J.J. Hahn --Latin proverb -------------------------------------------------- + -------------------- For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither know nor care. | Donald F.Wessels,Jr -A.E. Housman | wessels@hawaii.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 13:10:49 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hobson Sherren Subject: SaC: Intellectual Property Returning to Lucas Parra's initial "stand": I'm sorry if my intervention diverted attention away from his main interest. I think he (and others) may be more interested in the following 'movement', which I came across while looking for references to the "gift economy": http://www.u-net.com/gmlets/ltsystem/advant.html home page: http://www.u-net.com/gmlets/ These "LETSystems" seem to be one approach to the practical economics of information exchange: I don't know how successful or praiseworthy. Their slogan is interesting: "Money is only information". Food for thought and critique, with overtones of F.A. von Hayek (The Use of Knowledge in Society) and Hahn's formulation of economic systems as information systems ... Ciao Sherren ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 10:05:42 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Valdusek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: gift economy In a message dated 96-12-11 00:47:36 EST, Hobson Sherren writes: on the gift economy << the original is French ("L'economie de la Donnee"?). I thought it was by Andre' Gorz (of _Critique_of_Economic_Reason_ and _Metamorphosis_of_Labour_ fame) >> The original French essay on this is Mauss, The Gift (translated into English- Free Press, Glencoe in US I believe). There's a lot of anthropological stuff on this. I also mention Titmus (?) book The Gift (?) on blood donation in modern UK as a study of gift-giving economy in a modern industrial society. Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 12:05:00 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brown, Alex" >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg Date: 13th December 1996 Donald Wessels writes: "Genetics and the concepts of memetics is not theology. Theology to my mind is a belief system that are sustained through political and psychological means. Theologies use evidence and critical thinking only as far as it supports a preconceived "theory." I don't see theological thinking occuring with Dawkin's concept of the meme. What would you call a belief system which suggests that human beings are simply vehicles for something else's 'great plan' (in this case, its own reproduction)? When, as in the past: human effort and skill was regarded as directed to the 'greater glory' of a powerful non-human entity which not only created us but intervened in our lifes and in whose image we are made, we called that a religious belief. (Communication between ourselves and this entity was unpredictable to say the least). When as now: human effort and skill is regarded as directed to the 'greater expansion'' of a powerful non-human entity which not only created us but intervenes in our lifes and in whose image we are made, (DNA) we could call that a religious belief. (Communication between ourselves and this entity is so far non-exitant). The fact that this theobiology is cloaked in scientific garb is neither here nor there. Science just like religion is a cultural system and subject to unpredictable teleological whims just as it was in the past. In both cases there is a search for coherence, explanation and a comprehensive meaning to experience. The problem is that experience is notoriously fickle, random and difficult to 'frame'. So, to get meaning out of this flux we have to insert it into an ever-wider context. The only context for this physical world is the meta-physical world which we have always projected into existance since human symbolic thought first began. Why stop now? That projection carries with it our own sense of purpose which we ascribe to this metaphysical dimension. It must also have a purpose - which we call a teleology. The entity(s) which inhabit this metaphorical dimension have a plan (surprise, surprise, just like us). and what gives us meaning is that we are part of that plan. We don't have a choice. Although god is now dressed in genes, this is not a democracy. Donald says: "Not that there isn't anybody out there deifying these concepts" How true. Maybe even some of the scientists themselves. And: " Although I am not thoroughly convinced that the concept of the meme is anything but a good socio-psychological analogy of genetic." I don't know about genetics, but in the study of cultural systems there are better ways than this to get that coherent explanation of emergence, existance and transformation of cultural and social paradigms. "Maybe Dawkins has hit upon on a real aspect on the algorithmic way thing that replicate act whether it is nucleic acids or intreging or comforting concepts". If Dawkins was just spinning the idea around a bit, lateral thinking, 'what if' speculation, like why didn't nature invent the wheel, or whats at the centre of a black hole, that would be okay. A long and honourable tradition there. But if not.............? regards Alex Brown ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 22:59:04 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jean-Luc Gautero Subject: Re: SaC: Intellectual Property Hobson Sherren wrote >I don't have the specific Gift Economy references with me (I'm at work >and I'm not an accademic), but I believe the original is French >("L'economie de la Donnee"?). I thought it was by Andre' Gorz (of >_Critique_of_Economic_Reason_ and _Metamorphosis_of_Labour_ fame) but >I'm not so sure now, having done a net search. In the bibliography of Andre Gorz, I don't find neither "Economie de la donnee" nor "Economie du don" (which is a better french translation for gift economy, "Economie de la donnee" would be Datum Economy, or Economy of the given). In france, I think that the notion of gift was first developed by a french ethnologist, Marcel Mauss, who wrote "Essai sur le don", and it is now developed by a movement whose name is "Mouvement Anti Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales" (Anti utilitarian Movement in Social Sciences), animated by Alain Caille; I think they talk about gift economy, but I cannot find any book with this title. ------------------------------------------------------------ Jean-Luc Gautero - Centre de Recherches d'Histoire des Id=E9es =46acult=E9 des Lettres - Universit=E9 de Nice-Sophia Antipolis 98 Boulevard Edouard Herriot - BP 209 - 06204 Nice Cedex 3 Email: jgautero@hermes.unice.fr ------------------------------------------------------------ ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++ ++++ see: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 15:45:23 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hobson Sherren Subject: SaC: Gift Economy refs. You can find info about this Italian collection (literally: _The Gift: lost and refound_) at: http://www.mir.it/mlib/hdoc/0487.htm > Il dono perduto e ritrovato > > di G.Berthoud, J.T.Godbout, G.Nicolas, A.Salsano > > La dimensione personale e comunicativa del dono, > tra scambio mercantile e redistribuzione statale. I happened to bump into Marco Revelli (author of books and articles on questions around post-fordism, mondialization-globalization, and the third =non-profit= sector) this morning at a strike-demo supporting our metal-workers' contract-renewal demands ... it was he who drew Italian attention to "l'economia del dono". He tells me Godbout wrote the book about the Gift Economy I was trying to remember ... and he thinks it was translated into English. Meanwhile, I came across this amusing hyper-text "novel" ... http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/cw97/alexla08.htm#e8 > > "Intellectual property is theft" "Teleworking is the freedom to manage capital > for capitalist" "The hacker is the today's freedom fighter" > > And so it went on a barrage of rocks thrown at random in the hope that one of > them will find a target. > > Polite applause greeted the end of Teller's talk. The chairman of the session > asked for three question and Alex let someone else ask the first two. As > Teller finished spewing out his standard sound bites as an answer to the > second question Alex spoke up. Ciao, Alex! Basta cosi'. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 17:15:56 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Giuseppe Caputo Subject: Re: SaC: Intellectual Property At 13.10 11/12/96 +0100, Sherren wrote: > Their slogan is interesting: >"Money is only information". >Food for thought and critique, with overtones of F.A. von Hayek (The Use >of Knowledge in Society) and Hahn's formulation of economic systems as >information systems ... > >Ciao >Sherren > I'd like to draw your attention about the project of the so-called "bit tax". To my knowledge it should a tax on every bit exchanged through the network. I think that this is a serious attack to the freedom of information exchange. It is a double attack if we think that we are running very fast to the "information society": everyone who cannot pay can be considered out of this future society. Probably they consider the products of thought as an "intellectual property", and like all kind of properties, must be taxed. In this case the slogan must be changed in: "Information is only money". And I believe that this will be the true slogan of the future European information society. Ciao Pino Caputo You can find further information about the bit tax at the following web sites: http://www.ispo.cec.be/hleg/bittax.html (in english: a paper by Luc Soete, the inventor) http://www.mclink.it/telelavoro/bittax.htm (in Italian: an interview with the same) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 12:05:59 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: de Bivort - Lawry Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <199612131648.LAA12126@umd5.umd.edu> Alex Brown is correct in saying that "Science just like religion is a cultural system and subject to unpredictable teleological whims just as it was in the past." But this does not mean that science and religion are the same, or operate the same way, or have the same functions, or same effects. Perhaps the concept of memes is being misunderstood here. Regarding memes, Alex Brown says: "When as now: human effort and skill is regarded as directed to the 'greater expansion'' of a powerful non-human entity which not only created us but intervenes in our lifes and in whose image we are made, (DNA) we could call that a religious belief. (Communication between ourselves and this entity is so far non-exitant)." Memes are not independent "entities" that have created us, or in whose image we are made. They are linguistic structures that people create (deliberately or not) that have certain properties: they "reproduce" via people repeating them, for example. If people don't repeat them, they do not get disseminated. Yes, they _can_ 'interfere' in our lives: When they do get repeated, they compete with other ideas that we may have to occupy the the appropriate place in our thoughts, i.e. to influence or inform us. Quite a bit of work has gone into memes, beyond what Dawkins came up with some time ago. None of it involves 'praying,' or spiritual connection, or faith (in the religious sense of the word, where acceptance and surrender of the self are formally based upon the functions of faith). It is true that, as with quite a few other cutting edge, high-potential areas of research, there are meme enthusiasts out there that are overly excited and exagerrate what memes are and how they work. For those who may want an example of a meme, I suggest the GOODTIMES virus, with which everyone on this list is probably (over)familiar with . Regards, Lawry ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 14:00:00 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brown, Alex" Subject: re.your mail:reply meme >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg Date: 14th December 1996 de Bivort-Lawry writes: "Alex Brown is correct in saying that "Science just like religion is a cultural system and subject to unpredictable teleological whims just as it was in the past." But this does not mean that science and religion are the same, or operate the same way, or have the same functions, or same effects." No. Science and religion are not 'the same', but I would suggest that they can usefully be regarded as similar - some things being the same, and some things being different. We can appreciate that their subject matter and thus language are clearly different,. However, there is a fundamental similarity in that both are attempts to find/impose coherence on experience. They both do that by the formulation of paradigms (beliefs systems, sets of permissible behaviours), which offer guidelines for future action. They both reduce the need for expensive (or sometimes dangerous) trial and error and, as a corrolary both make experience more comprehensible. The fact that these typical sets of behaviours (these paradigms) are cultural products and thus historical, means that they will change over time. Which of course they do. Sometimes this is in the form of crisis, revolution, heresies and schisms but most times by simple recombination of existing ideas to match new circumstances. At a more amusing level we can note that both have their heroes, authority figures, priesthoods, obscure terminologies, accumulated truths, rituals or strict methodologies (which can sometimes conflict with common sense), various liturgical instruments and costumes, the latter varying between simple white cotton coats to multicoloured silk and a strong sense of bonding between the members of the group. A last, and more serious point on this. I would suggest that what we have is the same human cognitive processes of selection and combination of the elements of their respective paradigms being played out in different domains/different subject matters and their respective languages. The result I would suggest is the production of metaphors of one another and key organizational and concptual similarities. And, unfortunately, the occassional slippage into teleologies. on de Bivort-Lawry's second point: "Perhaps the concept of memes is being misunderstood here..........Memes are not independent "entities" that have created us, or in whose image we are made. They are linguistic structures that people create (deliberately or not) that have certain properties: they "reproduce" via people repeating them, for example. If people don't repeat them, they do not get disseminated. Yes, they _can_ 'interfere' in our lives: When they do get repeated, they compete with other ideas that we may have to occupy the the appropriate place in our thoughts, i.e. to influence or inform us". If only memes were just that: 'linguistic structures", but the key issue here is that the memetic concept of information and cultural activity involves a direct metaphor of the self-replicating gene with its 'host(s).' Here the self-replicating 'entity' or IDEA jumps from host to host. The product of this activity is presumable human(?) society and culture. Note the following quotation from Aaron Lynch on alt . memetics:" When an idea "self- replicates," IT ACTS TO PRODUCE OR PRESERVE IDEAS that we call "the same idea." The resultant ideas can for now be called "self-replicated" ideas. MY question is: What is it that ACTS to produce or preserve ideas? The answer here seems to be that humans don't, but these neural representations, these ideas, these memes do. I really have covered the 'memetic' ground so to speak, there is a lot of it on the web but in my view the concepts, definitions and theories, are quite unable to explain the vast complexities of human culture. Note the following statement by the same author: "The biologists' > terminology is thus a metalanguage to the more concrete language of > nucleotide sequences. Yet for the evolution of ideas, no equally > understood concrete language has been discovered. Science has achieved > no direct observation of the neural encoding of ideas, which might have > provided us a precise language for discussing ideas. Indeed, even if we > knew in principle how to express ideas in terms of neurons, synapses, > etc., the description would likely be prohibitively complex. So instead > of language based on a concrete mechanism of information storage, we > must settle for an abstract representation of the information stored". I will leave you with a respnse of mine to that statement which puts my own 'cultural systems' approach to the issue of cultural reproduction and complexity: " This may be because these 'scientists' they are taking a somewhat limited view of the system they are looking at. Regarded as an ecological system, human society has a very extensive and 'concrete' language of ideas and of almost infinite storage capacity - namely, human culture, its products and social organization, (institutions and forms of behaviour). This is our exogenous memory and quite specifically defines our species identity and its changing character (history). Our ideas or our attempts to represent those ideas are directly encoded and written out in the shape of cultural products: architecture, music, art, science, media, social relations, literature and everything else which surrounds us and defines what we think and what we do. It is an inescapable environment created by our previous combinatory activity AND FROM WHICH WE LEARN.Culture in this sense is not something separate from human kind - it is what we are. The other aspect of this ecological/cultural systems approach is (as a fundamentally historical approach), that it clearly and concretely shows the transformations that have taken place in our perception of ourselves (ideas) and can quite clearly be analysed and understood. If we really want to understand how ideas are represented, combined and transformed, all we need to do is look 'out there' at the forms which we select and recombine to produce others - new ideas, paradigms, styles genres which act as general codes for future action". regards and apologies for the length too enthusiastic by far Alex Brown Singapore ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 01:11:58 -1000 Reply-To: Donald Wessels Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Donald Wessels Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <96Dec13.064729hwt.370586(5)@relay2.Hawaii.Edu> On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Brown, Alex wrote: > >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg > Date: 13th December 1996 > > Donald Wessels writes: > > "Genetics and the concepts of memetics is not theology. Theology to my > mind > is a belief system that are sustained through political and > psychological > means. Theologies use evidence and critical thinking only as far as it > supports a preconceived "theory." I don't see theological thinking > occuring with Dawkin's concept of the meme. > > What would you call a belief system which suggests that human beings are > simply vehicles for something else's 'great plan' (in this case, its own > reproduction)? Genes have no 'great plan' they reproduce only because they can. They simply do what they do because they can. I see no teleological implications in this mechanical process. There is no mind, only an algorithmic process constrained by natural selection, behind our genetic make-up. > > When, as in the past: human effort and skill was regarded as directed to > the 'greater glory' of a powerful non-human entity which not only > created us but intervened in our lifes and in whose image we are made, > we called that a religious belief. (Communication between ourselves and > this entity was unpredictable to say the least). When as now: human > effort and skill is regarded as directed to the 'greater expansion'' of > a powerful non-human entity which not only created us but intervenes in > our lifes and in whose image we are made, (DNA) we could call that a > religious belief. (Communication between ourselves and this entity is so > far non-exitant). What is religious belief? Does a belief become religious when it discribes something that has global implications of our place in nature and the forces, enforced by nature, that we have no control over. Or, does a belief become religious when the tenets of that belief are irrationally clunged to even when all available evidence shows that it is wrong. I daresay it is the latter. You seem to be of the opinion that it is the former. > > The fact that this theobiology is cloaked in scientific garb is neither > here nor there. Science just like religion is a cultural system and > subject to unpredictable teleological whims just as it was in the past. > In both cases there is a search for coherence, explanation and a > comprehensive meaning to experience. The problem is that experience is > notoriously fickle, random and difficult to 'frame'. Our experience, a product of our brains, has been characterized in a rather precise manner, its called Chaos theory. So, to get meaning > out of this flux we have to insert it into an ever-wider context. The > only context for this physical world is the meta-physical world which we > have always projected into existance since human symbolic thought first > began. Why stop now? That projection carries with it our own sense of > purpose which we ascribe to this metaphysical dimension. It must also > have a purpose - which we call a teleology. The entity(s) which inhabit > this metaphorical dimension have a plan (surprise, surprise, just like > us). and what gives us meaning is that we are part of that plan. We > don't have a choice. Although god is now dressed in genes, this is not a > democracy. > The meaning, in proper perspective, that science of genetics has imparted to us is that heritary is a chemical process that produces the proteins, sugars etc... of all the living things on this planet. This substance has no a plan for us, any more than the hardware and software of the Internet has plans for my message when I decide to send it. There is no way of knowing the path in which this message will take to reach you, and everyone else on this list. But, because of the constraints of the this global network it quite reliably delivered. DNA works in much the same way. The future path of its, and our, evolution is unpredictable. But, because of the constraints involved in natural selection DNA has no choice in which direction it will replicate it has to, because it has to, a mechanical, no mind, algorithmic process. DNA has no intents, nor does it intervene on our or even its own behalf it is just an exquisite replicator and carrier of information that happens to make living things thereby continuing the process of its own replication. I think, what many who attack evolution as religious fear is the fact the evolutionary process needs no special help from a Deity. It does what it does mechanically without the need of a Godhead to protect and guide it. [snip] |Ubi dubium ibi liberta Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.| Religion is answers that may never be questioned. | Where there is doubt, | there is freedom. --J.J. Hahn --Latin proverb -------------------------------------------------- + -------------------- For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither know nor care. | Donald F.Wessels,Jr -A.E. Housman | wessels@hawaii.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 17:51:22 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rick Allen Cain Subject: Re: SaC: Intellectual Property ---------- unsubscribe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 05:55:38 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Special offer for _Science as Culture_ quarterly journal Science as Culture - the quarterly journal. We hope that subscribers to this forum will also subscribe to the print journal with which the forum is associated. There is a special offer at the moment - see below Science as Culture explores the role of expertise in shaping the values which contend for influence over the wider society. The journal analyses how our scientific culture defines what is rational, and what is natural. SaC provides a unique, accessible forum for debate, beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines and specializations. The journal and email forum are associated with a web site at http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/rmy/sac.html Editorial Board: Robert M. Young (Editor), Les Levidow (Managing Editor), Sarah B. Franklin, Pam Linn, Maureen Mcneil Advisory Panel: Tom Athanasiou, Roger Cooter, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Stephen J. 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This offer stands only as long as stocks last. __________________________________________ Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 12:22:24 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "David A. Wallace" Subject: ICHIM '97 - Call for Papers Please excuse cross-postings CALL FOR PAPERS ICHIM97 @ LOUVRE.FR The Fourth International Conference on Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums (ICHIM97) will be held at the Louvre in Paris, September 1-5, 1997. As with previous ICHIM conferences, the focus of the meeting will be on the ways in which hypermedia and interactive experiences can enhance museum visits and museum publications as well as serve as the foundation for enhanced curatorship and scientific research. Proposals to submit papers will be accepted through January 30, 1997. Papers are due in final form no later than May 15, 1997, in either French or English. Papers will be published in their original language, with abstracts in both French and English, and will be published in an edited trade paperback edition, given as part of conference registration but available after the conference for sale to the public. Proposals may be for: * individual papers (submit an abstract and speaker biography) * 1.5 hour session (submit a session description PLUS individual paper abstracts and biographies of a maximum 3 speakers, two speakers with a commentator preferred). Speakers must have agreed to participate and write papers. * 3.0 hour session (submit a session description PLUS individual paper abstracts and biographies of a maximum 5 speakers). Speakers must have agreed to participate and write papers. * a demonstration of a museum system by museum personnel (submit a description of the application). Commercial demonstrators should apply for the commercial exhibit. In general demonstrators will be expected to bring their applications on a laptop computer; large monitors and/or projection equipment will be available. Full details required for all proposed organizers, commentators, speakers and demonstrators include: Name Title Organization Address Phone Fax E-mail All conference participants must register for the conference. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Museum Content: Digital capture and representation, multimedia and object database management, licensing Hypermedia Design: Interfaces, searching, navigation, linking methods, metaphors & object typologies Interactive Publications: Product development, delivery formats, marketing and distribution, online delivery systems Installations: Ergonomics, audiences, human-computer interaction Museum Applications: Conservation, education, multimedia documentation, rights management, membership and development, sales and marketing Evaluation: Formative evaluation, product pre-testing, summative evaluation, impact assessment, sales Collaboration: Museum/Industry partnerships, Museum/University & School partnerships, Standards Legal and Societal Impacts: Copyright, visual literacy & mediacy, the concept of museums, economic models, training A web site with conference details will be available in January 1997 at www.louvre.fr/ichim97 and at www.archimuse.com/ichim97. Respond to David Bearman, Conference Organizer, dbear@archimuse.com ------------------------------- David A. Wallace Archives & Museum Informatics 5501 Walnut Street, Suite 203 Pittsburgh, PA 15232-2311 USA voice: +1-412-683-9775 fax: +1-412-683-7366 email: daw@archimuse.com URL: www.archimuse.com ------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 15:05:00 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brown, Alex" Subject: genes, mind,teleology >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg Date: 23rd. December 1996 In response to my statement/question: What would you call a belief system which suggests that human beings are simply vehicles for something else's 'great plan' (in this case, its own reproduction)? Donald Wessels writes: "Genes have no 'great plan' they reproduce only because they can. They simply do what they do because they can. I see no teleological implications in this mechanical process. There is no mind, only an algorithmic process constrained by natural selection, behind our genetic make-up." I totally agree with this statement. If only the theobiologists did. Donald: "What is religious belief? Does a belief become religious when it discribes something that has global implications of our place in nature and the forces, enforced by nature, that we have no control over. Or, does a belief become religious when the tenets of that belief are irrationally clunged to even when all available evidence shows that it is wrong. I daresay it is the latter. You seem to be of the opinion that it is the former". Yes. In my opinion it is LIKE the former, although customized to play down the natural/material world aspect and emphasize the psychological/cognitive demand for coherence in the face of the transient /random character of experience. Religion is one of several frameworks that do this. Others being science, art, literature, magic, movies, sport, music, dancing and the innumerable social rituals and fashions which give meaning to lived experience. Sport? Oh yes. In this and the others there is a clear and measurable framework which gives a total and coherent (admittedly fictiitous) experience FOR ONCE. Where else would we get such a perception - seeing the whole complicated slippery thing all at once: resolved one way or another. (One might of course experience this resolution on one's deathbed looking back on the events of one's life. Re-running the movie so to speak and knowing that within a few minutes it - namely you- will end). What humans do is to create FICTITIOUS COHERENCES which give definite limits and organization to experience. In sport, the frame is the rules of the game PLUS the fact that the game has a definite time limit - a chronological frame. Tension and unpredictability within that frame, but always finally resolved. Movies are time constrained. Pictures are physically framed. Religion is framed by permissible behaviours. Science, of course prides itself on being the arch-framemaker in terms of drawing tight boundaries around a given subject matter (de-contextualizing it) and applying very specific methodologies to its exploration. Like sport, it cannot predict the results of its activities beforehand only the fact that, given its self-imposed rules, there will be a result. ALL, however are attempts to get a definite handle on things no matter how temporary and thus imbue things with meaning and, by association, with purpose. Another nice thing is that it is fairly easy to define the nature of the frameworks for various domains. They are the similarities of behaviours that can be noted over time. In my view, therefore it has nothing to do with whether the behaviour or belief is 'rational' or 'irrational' anymore than such things worry me when I read a novel or watch a movie. Does it bother me that the scenario described there is impossible or never happened? No. Its value lies in the fact that it offers me and everyone else the one thing that we can't have 'for real' so to speak - a fully comprehensible (and total) experience. In the continual flux and one might almost say, boredom of things these various domains offer that unique possibility. Donald: "Our experience, a product of our brains, has been characterized in a rather precise manner, its called Chaos theory". Two comments: 1. Experience is a relationship - between mind (internal frames, paradigms, styles, etc) and environment (the collective paradigms). 2. Chaos Theory, as I understand it is a sub-set of Complex Systems Theory since the 'chaotic part' is simply a particular period(s) in the overall history of the system which over time shows an apparent fragmentation of the previous regularities in the behaviour of the system. Order, disorder exist at unpredictable points in time and for obscure reasons (in fact these are changes in environmental conditions). If Donald is saying that this is what experience looks like: well, maybe, but certainly not with any precision although we can see this emergence and fragmentation (in the chaos theory sense) as historical patterns of dominant and multiple paradigms within societies through time. It does not matter what the 'content' of the paradigms are. It is the occasional uniformity or plurality of social organization which is significant in complex systems terms. Donald: "The meaning, in proper perspective, that science of genetics has imparted to us is that heritary is a chemical process that produces the proteins, sugars etc... of all the living things on this planet. This substance has no a plan for us, any more than the hardware and software of the Internet has plans for my message when I decide to send it. There is no way of knowing the path in which this message will take to reach you, and everyone else on this list. But, because of the constraints of the this global network it quite reliably delivered. DNA works in much the same way. The future path of its, and our, evolution is unpredictable. But, because of the constraints involved in natural selection DNA has no choice in which direction it will replicate it has to, because it has to, a mechanical, no mind, algorithmic process. DNA has no intents, nor does it intervene on our or even its own behalf it is just an exquisite replicator and carrier of information that happens to make living things thereby continuing the process of its own replication." I absolutely agree with this. It is a beautifully elegant system. It is just a pity that the same impartial, recombinatory elegance is not mandatory in historical and sociological thought. Here, a naive need for reassurance in the form of the human presence, identity and constructive purpose (the watchmaker now disguised in genes), distorts the lens of theory. Donald: "I think, what many who attack evolution as religious fear is the fact the evolutionary process needs no special help from a Deity. It does what it does mechanically without the need of a Godhead to protect and guide it." Good heaven's. I hope I am not being accused of anti-evolutionary thought. Clearly, the (heavy - handed) irony of my previous statements on 'biotheology' or 'theobiology' may have been misconstrued. I am not now, nor have I ever been........................whatever I am being accused of . regards to Donald and Merry Christmas to all Alex Brown Singapore ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 18:41:19 -0500 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Subject: Re: genes, mind, teleology. Part I Why is this discussion, going on for two weeks now and, once again, debunking theism so interesting to the believers in the soul-less mechanistic Universe? They certainly epitomize in their own beliefs the rubric of "Science-as-Culture," and for that I thank them. Since this derived somehow from the discussion of "Intellectual Property" perhaps I should include this refutation of my argument that Einstein's Energy-Matter theory of the Universe is what the Buddha understood 2500 years ago to be enLIGHTenment, in my book. I should do so, particularly, since Alex of Singapore compares, in one of these exerpts, the Western intellectual theories the discussants are refuting as an example of "Western intellectual exhaustion" with respect to the Eastern understanding of the Universe, that he characterizes as a system growing & changing by itself, "empty & marvelous." In case you have been preparing for the High Holidays with other benighted religious folk at this solstice celebrating the longest night of the year, I shall exerpt some of the discussion with my own comments in brackets [], effete Western Intellectual that I am. What started the flogging, particularly this time of year, of this dead horse again, which was once entitled, with scientific impartiality, "Science VS. Religion &/or Stupidity" was this e-mail [Date: 10th December 1996] from Alex Brown in reply to: > > Matthew Baggott writes: > "I think there are obvious parallels between the tendency to theorize > about "information" in the abstract sense (as if it has meaning outside > a cultural context) and Richard Dawkins-style theories about genes. > Both harmonize with a strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not > certain where one would draw the boundary) culture." > > Alex: > Exactly. While we can consider information to be that property which > in-forms or characterizes material or intellectual products, It cannot > be isolated from the products themselves. It is immanent to them. Indeed > we can only recognize 'information' as such as a regularity, pattern or > statistical recurrence of certain characteristics in a large number of > forms. Where is information? Information is 'nowhere'. There is no > platonic realm where it exists of itself. If we want to see it, we look > for the measurable similarities which inform experience and all of which > are the product of human activity. > [NOTA BENE, the surprising fact that the discussion of "intellectual property" is going to be transmogrified into our "dead horse" that Ian Pritchard and Arie Dirkswager so valiantly slaid at the end of summer. More surprisingly still, we are told "information is nowhere," perhaps like sound in a forest when there is no ear-drum to register the vibrations? Again, I apologize for my inferior Western intellect, I am just trying to understand what is going on in this Forum I joined. If I understand correctly, I am being informed that there is no meaning in information -- there are only patterns of regularity in material or intellectual products. Now we have two concepts, "products" and "property" -- the latter having been the original topic, "Intellectual Property," which I, IMHO, thought would have something to do with International Copyright Law as it would be extended to the Net.] Alex continues: > The Dawkin's-style theories, as Matthew observes, suggest otherwise and > when, as now, applied to society and culture in the form of the > ubiquitous and contagious 'meme' travel 'through the air' so to speak. > The pre-Einsteinian ether has been reconstituted as the memetic > dimension where apparently we breath ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH US. > [Once again, I was very far from the truth here given, in that I thought, as a specialist in the culture of Western Civilization, that, all memes aside, Human (vous voyez, Jacques Melot, pas besoin de se mettre en quatre pour developper l'usage d'une expression telle que "WERE-MAN"!) is a gregarious animal and learns from one another, something which I have been calling along with many misguided others, "zeitgeist" the spirit of the times. -- Now does this mean that our "collective spirit" or "consciousness" for those of you who prefer the modern, more secular term, implies a "pre-Einsteinian ether"? This is really complicated by the fact that "Dawkins-style theories" are the origin of this concept of a "memetic dimension" in which we (Humanity) "apparently . . . breath {sic: breathe} ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH {sic} US." -- Well, I DO acknowledge that my ideas have come full-blown into my head from my education. Is the metaphor of "memes" merely trying to characterize a regularity of pattern in the way this occurs culturally? Is this not just another "product" of information (getting us nowhere?)] Alex again: > Human history and ingenuity in the form of combining and recombining > previous forms of behaviour or material into new cultural formulations > (paradigms, theories, styles, genres), is here rendered superfluous. > Apparently we are simply the vehicles for selfish genes in the > biological dimension and equally selfish memes in the cultural and > social dimension. What we have here, of course is a new theology - > theobiology - where god (dethroned from his former celestial home by > human thought) now resides in the genetic underworld and carries out its > great plan from there. [Perhaps there is a lack of attention paid here to the previous discussion of this Forum. I personally posted some research into this question of consciousness and genetic encoding, and attempted to update the work of Carl Jung, who died just before the breakthrough research by Watson & Crick in that field. When we, as experts in our respective fields, get together in a Forum, such as this, it sometimes takes some homework on the part of the members to understand what each of us is trying to summarize of our own life-work for the other members. If I go to the trouble of summarizing the relevant research in my field, I would expect that anyone who subsequently summarizes the content would not trivialize it, as in the last three lines above, following "theobiology."] Alex cont.: > The "strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one > would draw the boundary) culture." to which Matthew refers is, I would > suggest the need for a purposeful Maker to manipulate and drive the > human system, an ever present consciousness, a teleology. Asian > philosophies (Buddhism, Taoism) do not require such an interventionist > watchmaker. The system grows, develops and changes by itself and within > this there is some degree of human freedom and the positive or negative > consequences of whatever actions we take. ("Empty and marvellous"). [My understanding from Buddhism is that "the system [which] grows, develops and changes by itself" IS CONSCIOUSNESS. LIGHT IS THE NUCLEUS OF MATTER. This was the Buddha's awakening that enabled him to conclude that the Universe is both expanding and contractiong 2500 years ago. The "Shining Emptiness" of SHUNYATA is the Consciousness preceding the Big Bang. Empty though it may be, it follows the form of its own LAWS, enabling Science to find its regularity in patterns we are now culturally defining as "products of information." Truly marvelous.] ALEX AGAIN: > Are these genetic and memetic concepts a sign of intellectual exhaustion > in the West? > > Dec. 13th, Science just like religion is a cultural system and subject to > unpredictable teleological whims just as it was in the past. In both > cases there is a search for coherence, explanation and a comprehensive > meaning to experience. The problem is that experience is notoriously > fickle, random and difficult to 'frame'. So, to get meaning > out of this flux we have to insert it into an ever-wider context. The > only context for this physical world is the meta-physical world which we > have always projected into existance since human symbolic thought first > began. Why stop now? That projection carries with it our own sense of > purpose which we ascribe to this metaphysical dimension. It must also > have a purpose - which we call a teleology. The entity(s) which inhabit > this metaphorical dimension have a plan (surprise, surprise, just like > us). and what gives us meaning is that we are part of that plan. We > don't have a choice. Although god is now dressed in genes, this is not a > democracy. > [HoHoHo! Are the conclusions drawn here all a joke? Anyway, democracy in our exhausted W. intellectual conceptualization has come to mean "the lowest common denominator" in honor & integrity and "the highest common denominator" in income & assets. The discussion of "Science VS. Religion" has at least granted that the God of us religious gullibles is no longer an old man on a throne. Maybe next year we will be accorded some common twenty-first century usage for the definition of "religion." However, whether we choose to be "part of the plan" or not is definitely still a freedom we enjoy, as Milton put it: "to rule in Hell or serve in Heav'n" -- it is the LAW of the Shining, Empty Consciousness that we must serve, not the Narcissism which favored evolution through the animal law of the jungle. Human is just entering a new stage in evolution and it's taking us several millenia (a blink of an eye with respect to the age of the species) to do so. Further, if you're going to talk about psychological terms such as symbols and projections, why not observe simply the logic of your argument? You switch back and forth between literal and symbolic thinking, {cf.: Gerald Edelman, *Bright Air, Brilliant Fire* -- on "first and second order" thinking} when you talk about the sloppy thinking of your opponents, those who do not share your *beliefs* which you draw as scientific conclusions.] > Donald says: "Not that there isn't anybody out there . . . > Dec. 14th e-mail, Alex quotes & replies to: de Bivort-Lawry writes: > "Alex Brown is correct in saying that "Science just like religion is a > cultural system and subject to unpredictable teleological whims just as > it was in the past." > > But this does not mean that science and religion are the same, or > operate the same way, or have the same functions, or same effects." > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 18:54:18 -0500 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Subject: Re: genes, mind, teleology. Part II Cont. > Alex: > No. Science and religion are not 'the same', but I would suggest that > they can usefully be regarded as similar - some things being the same, > and some things being different. We can appreciate that their subject > matter and thus language are clearly different,. However, there is a > fundamental similarity in that both are attempts to find/impose > coherence on experience. They both do that by the formulation of > paradigms (beliefs systems, sets of permissible behaviours), which offer > guidelines for future action. They both reduce the need for expensive > (or sometimes dangerous) trial and error and, as a corrolary both make > experience more comprehensible. The fact that these typical sets of > behaviours (these paradigms) are cultural products and thus historical, > means that they will change over time. Which of course they do. > Sometimes this is in the form of crisis, revolution, heresies and > schisms but most times by simple recombination of existing ideas to > match new circumstances. At a more amusing level we can note that both > have their heroes, authority figures, priesthoods, obscure > terminologies, accumulated truths, rituals or strict methodologies . . . [Ah! even more subtle sophistication! here the discussants are acknowledging that any ordering of experience is a belief-system.] > de Bivort-Lawry: > Memes are not independent "entities" that have created us, or in whose > image we are made. They are linguistic structures that people create > (deliberately or not) that have certain properties: they "reproduce" via > people repeating them, for example. If people don't repeat them, they do > not get disseminated. . . . > > Alex: If only memes were just that: 'linguistic structures", but the key > issue here is that the memetic concept of information and cultural activity > involves a direct metaphor of the self-replicating gene with its 'host(s).' > Here the self-replicating 'entity' or IDEA jumps from host to host. The > product of this activity is presumable human(?) society and culture. . . . > > Alex quoting Aaron Lynch: > "The biologists' terminology is thus a metalanguage to the more concrete > language of nucleotide sequences. Yet for the evolution of ideas, no equally > understood concrete language has been discovered. Science has achieved > no direct observation of the neural encoding of ideas, which might > have provided us a precise language for discussing ideas. Indeed, > even if we knew in principle how to express ideas in terms of > neurons, synapses, etc., the description would likely be > prohibitively complex. So instead of language based on a concrete > mechanism of information storage, we must settle for an abstract > representation of the information stored". > > > I will leave you with a respnse of mine to that statement which puts my > own 'cultural systems' approach to the issue of cultural reproduction > and complexity: > > " This may be because these 'scientists' they are taking a somewhat > limited view of the system they are looking at. Regarded as an > ecological system, human society has a very extensive and 'concrete' > language of ideas and of almost infinite storage capacity - namely, > human culture, its products and social organization, (institutions and > forms of behaviour). This is our exogenous memory and quite specifically > defines our species identity and its changing character (history). Our > ideas or our attempts to represent those ideas are directly encoded and > written out in the shape of cultural products: architecture, music, art, > science, media, social relations, literature and everything else which > surrounds us and defines what we think and what we do. It is an > inescapable environment created by our previous combinatory activity AND > FROM WHICH WE LEARN.Culture in this sense is not something separate from > human kind - it is what we are. The other aspect of this > ecological/cultural systems approach is (as a fundamentally > historical approach), that it clearly and concretely shows the > transformations that have taken place in our perception of ourselves > (ideas) and can quite clearly be analysed and understood. If we really > want to understand how ideas are represented, combined and transformed, > all we need to do is look 'out there' at the forms which we select and > recombine to produce others - new ideas, paradigms, styles genres which > act as general codes for future action". > [This is a succinct definition of cultural reproduction & complexity that is the core of agreement for our Forum on Science-as-Culture. If we are going to progress in our coming together with our various contributions, why take off on tangents like those when you draw conclusions based on your definitions of certain contents in "religious" belief-systems, as above? As a final example of what I mean, I exerpt the discussion below from today's Dec. 23, e-mail exchange:] > Donald: "Our experience, a product of our brains, has been characterized > in a rather precise manner, its [sic: it's] called Chaos theory". > > Alex: > Two comments: 1. Experience is a relationship - between mind (internal > frames, paradigms, styles, etc) and environment (the collective > paradigms). 2. Chaos Theory, as I understand it is a sub-set of Complex > Systems Theory since the 'chaotic part' is simply a particular period(s) > in the overall history of the system which over time shows an apparent > fragmentation of the previous regularities in the behaviour of the > system. Order, disorder exist at unpredictable points in time . . . > > Donald: "The meaning, in proper perspective, that science of genetics > has imparted to us is that heritary [sic: heredity] is a chemical > process that produces the proteins, sugars etc... of all the living > things on this planet. This substance has no a plan for us, any more > than the hardware and software of the Internet has plans for my message > when I decide to send it. [Look at the logic of the last sentence above: First of all, the *meaning* is drawn that "the substance has no plan for us, any more than the hardware and software of the Internet . . ." The reference is misplaced in the analogy, it should be the "I decide to send it" on the "hardware and software of the Internet," created by human beings. IF WE FOLLOW THIS ANALOGY, THEN WHO IS THE PROPER REFERENT FOR THE GENETIC "SUBSTANCE"? Who is sending the message in our genetic encoding, if this analogy be correct in the first place?] Donald: > There is no way of knowing the path in which this message will take > to reach you, and everyone else on this list. But, because of the > constraints of the this global network it quite reliably delivered. DNA > works in much the same way. The future path of its, and our, evolution > is unpredictable. But, because of the constraints involved in natural > selection DNA has no choice in which direction it will replicate it has > to, because it has to, a mechanical, no mind, algorithmic process. > > DNA has no intents, nor does it intervene on our or even its own behalf > it is just an exquisite replicator and carrier of information that > happens to make living things thereby continuing the process of its own > replication." > > Alex: > I absolutely agree with this. It is a beautifully elegant system. It is > just a pity that the same impartial, recombinatory elegance is not > mandatory in historical and sociological thought. Here, a naive need for > reassurance in the form of the human presence, identity and > constructive purpose (the watchmaker now disguised in genes), distorts > the lens of theory. > [Perhaps the "pity that the same impartial, recombinatory elegance is not mandatory in historical and sociological thought" is the case -- is for the same evident reasoning that the two of you are applying here: you yourselves are drawing conclusions from reasoning by false analogies, as above. When you describe the DNA "recombinatory elegance" or the "cultural reproduction & complexity" you know your facts. When you draw your conclusions, you too are wearing the very cultural blinders that you have described, when you humourously drew the parallel between science and religion. Setting aside the sides that we are on, "the watchmaker now disguised in genes" is a false attribution to some profound research that is going on in the "No Body's Land" between Science and Cultural Studies (a.k.a., Humanities, Social "Sciences"). Strip your conclusions down to the laws of Logic, isolate the referents, the antecedents, the propositions, the analogies you make, and you will find the "cultural blinders." The UNconscious, by definition, is what you are NOT conscious of. In sum, it is a question of RESPECT -- there seems to be little here for researchers in the NON-sciences; yet, you are not, by the conclusions that you draw, giving their research much study.] Donald: "I think, what many who attack evolution as religious fear is > the fact the evolutionary process needs no special help from a Deity. It > does what it does mechanically without the need of a Godhead to protect > and guide it." ["Evolutionary process"? What if the Laws of the Universe ARE the Consciousness -- and vice versa? Are you not restricting us to your OWN definition of "Deity"? You say "attack evolution" -- does that mean that "religious" people are *only* those who believe in the Old Man on a Throne in the Sky who created ex nihilo? Don't you think that those people who believe in that are themselves evolving out of existence with the ideas that are somehow (memes or otherwise) taking over the generations still alive today? Do we have to talk about them anymore on this Forum as representing the "religious" point of view? Are you not flogging this dead horse of "anti-evolutionaries"? Michelle Christides http://www.vgernet.net/jungsoul/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 14:02:00 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brown, Alex" Subject: re. re. genes,mind >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg Date: Christmas Eve 1996 In order to restore the tranquility of the season I would like to clear up some unfortunate misunderstandings that seem to exist in Michelle Christides posting: Michelle writes: 1. "Why is this discussion, going on for two weeks now and, once again, debunking theism so interesting to the believers in the soul-less mechanistic Universe? Possibly because the participants find the discussion interesting. No one is 'debunking theism'. I raised the religious issue as a criticism of what I consider to be a particular kind of teleological theorizing in cultural/memetic (biological) thinking. The criticism, in other words, was not of religion, but of what I regard as the theory of a 'soul-less' (dehumanized) mechanistic (biologizing) Universe (human society and culture). I would have thought there were similarities in our positions in this respect. 2. M: "................ perhaps I should include this refutation of my argument that Einstein's Energy-Matter theory of the Universe is what the Buddha understood 2500 years ago to be enLIGHTenment, in my book....." I'm not sure what the problem is here or where the refutation is. I would have thought by now such parallels between physics and Buddhist thought were fairly well understood (for anyone who has looked at both). There is certainly nothing in the text of the postings which suggests otherwise. 3. M: ".... I should do so, particularly, since Alex of Singapore compares, in one of these exerpts, the Western intellectual theories the discussants are refuting as an example of "Western intellectual exhaustion" with respect to the Eastern understanding of the Universe, that he characterizes as a system growing & changing by itself, "empty & marvelous." My question about the possibility of 'Western intellectual exhaustion' was rhetorical and provoked by what I regarded as a somewhat overly-conscious and deterministic explanation of the formation of human culture and social institutions (eg. ev. psych, selfish gene and memetic theory). My reference to Eastern philosophies was a different but related point that they do not pursue such an approach. (Hardly an anti-religious idea on my part). 4. M: "What started the flogging, particularly this time of year, of this dead horse again, which was once entitled, with scientific impartiality, "Science VS. Religion &/or Stupidity" was this e-mail [Date: 10th December 1996] from Alex Brown.........................[NOTA BENE, the surprising fact that the discussion of "intellectual property" is going to be transmogrified into our "dead horse" that Ian Pritchard and Arie Dirkswager so valiantly slaid at the end of summer". This is not the 'dead horse' (which is thoroughly deceased, late, stiff, and gone to the great grazing grounds in the sky). This is another horse, but having the quality of 'horseness' makes it resemble its dead companion in some but not all respects. In other words this is a different discussion which is NOT about science v religion, but about information, genetics, teleology, science as culture, memetics, cultural (re)production and numerous other related subjects. In other words it is a particular recombination of the many fields discussable on this list. Fields which we may have walked through before but from a different direction (and noted the horses therein). 5. M: "More surprisingly still, we are told "information is nowhere," perhaps like sound in a forest when there is no ear-drum to register the vibrations? ......... " Yes. As I said in my posting there is no 'platonic realm' where information exists in some pure state. It is immanent to the material and social forms which it characterizes/organizes. 6. M: "If I understand correctly, I am being informed that there is no meaning in information -- there are only patterns of regularity in material or intellectual products. No. I am afraid you have misunderstood this one. Information IS meaning since it denotes the patterns of similarity and/or difference, regularities/irregularities, probabilities/improbabilities, uniformities and pluralities of character by which we can categorize and conceptualize experience. 7. M: "I thought, as a specialist in the culture of Western Civilization, that, all memes aside, Human (vous voyez, Jacques Melot, pas besoin de se mettre en quatre pour developper l'usage d'une expression telle que "WERE-MAN"!) is a gregarious animal and learns from one another, something which I have been calling along with many misguided others, "zeitgeist" the spirit of the times. -- Now does this mean that our "collective spirit" or "consciousness" for those of you who prefer the modern, more secular term, implies a "pre-Einsteinian ether"?" Yes. human beings are gregarious and do learn from each other. This is carried out by a process of communication and exchange of forms of experience and behaviours between the members of a society. This collective and cumulative activity results in the formation of paradigmatic forms in the various domains of activity that make up a society and that these become the imitative sources for future activity. Not the most radical or conytroversial idea in the world I would have thought. So what is the problem here? My point was to criticise the crypto-telepathic aspects of memetic theory. 8. M: "This is really complicated by the fact that "Dawkins-style theories" are the origin of this concept of a "memetic dimension" in which we (Humanity) "apparently . . . breath {sic: breathe} ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH {sic} US." While the missing 'e's are simply a technical problem for me, they are clearly a sadly significant issue for Michelle and possibly even symbolic (or not). 9. M: " Well, I DO acknowledge that my ideas have come full-blown into my head from my education." If we stretch the concept of education over the many years it takes place in one form or another and widen it to include the many places, people, books, movies, TV programmes, discussions, crises, joys, moments of reflection and the madness of crowds and the countless images and sensations we have experienced, it is fairly obvious that our ideas are a combination and recombination of many different experiences we have throughout our lives. These do not rattle around independently in our brain. They are continuously integrated and differentiated into conceptual categories.(The dream state offers a peek at the apparently arbitrary nature of this merging/categorization process). We are not just the sum of our experiences. We are quite naturally creating and recreating ourselves in interaction with our environment and this is called learning. But learning is not an additive process: eg. ("so many full-blown ideas stored today, sir"), but a recombinatory process. 10. M: "Perhaps there is a lack of attention paid here to the previous discussion of this Forum." No. Different discussion in the same general field. (See point 4 above). 11. M: "...... If I go to the trouble of summarizing the relevant research in my field, I would expect that anyone who subsequently summarizes the content would not trivialize it, as in the last three lines above, following "theobiology." See point 10 above and point 4 above. I have no idea why you think your work is being 'summarized' or thus 'trivialized' in these discussions. I am sorry to say that no one was referring to your work. 12. M: "HoHoHo! Are the conclusions drawn here all a joke? No. But I would suggest that some degree of humour is necessary here and there, even in the most serious topics, otherwise we end up with a crushing literalness and rigidity of reception to other people's ideas. Thus, the Lord of the Dance (Hinduism) or "Meeting they laugh and laugh, the forest grove, the many fallen leaves" (Basho). 13. M: "Further, if you're going to talk about psychological terms such as symbols and projections, why not observe simply the logic of your argument? You switch back and forth between literal and symbolic thinking.....". Yes. True. The logic is there, believe me, but the descriptive/explanatory conjunction is obviously still too compressed within adjacent sentences. A matter of time and personal inclination, I'm afraid. I will try to created more 'digital gaps' in the semantics of the text. (Make it a bit more 'Anglo'. That was a joke) 14. M: "when you talk about the sloppy thinking of your opponents, those who do not share your *beliefs* which you draw as scientific conclusions." Oh dear. I'm afraid you really have got it badly wrong here. This was never said, implied or thought about. (Check the text and I won't tell anyone you said this). In fact, this phrase if I remember comes from the science v religion discussion which I was not involved in, but noted a certain flaming quality to the postings. I find it useful to take a more open and relaxed attitude to reading other peoples' texts' otherwise I project things into it which are not there, my own perceptions get in the way and I might miss something useful and informative. regards from a warm Christmas Singapore Alex Brown Two monks - one old/one young - wandering through deep and cold winter snows see a small shrine up ahead. They reach it and get inside. Empty apart from a statue of Buddha. The older monk takes the wooden statue, chops it up and lights a fire with it. The younger monk is shocked and after a while complains to the old monk that this action was surely sacriligious. "Warm your hands" says the old monk. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 23:16:34 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: Rejected posting to SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU To: and From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: Problems with MSU [Please report to me any lost posts - MG] Cc: Katherine Branstetter Late Sunday night, the MSU system went down and remained inoperative until 9:30 this morning. The H-Net system could not function without MSU, so we shut down also. Listserv is attempting to clear itself of the backlog, but we received numerous messages that digests to some addresses did not get delivered. We are unsure of the number of lost messages. If you receive questions about non-delivery of messages or posts sent in and not posted, please explain this to your subscribers. Listserv has a tremendous backup at this point and we are monitoring it to be certain that it continues to work throughout the holiday with no problems. Hopefully all will be cleared up very quickly. Thanks for your patience. Jackie Kent (for Vickie Banks and Dave Halsted who are away enjoying the holidays with family) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 23:22:15 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: Re: genes, mind, teleology. Part I Why is this discussion, going on for two weeks now and, once again, debunking theism so interesting to the believers in the soul-less mechanistic Universe? They certainly epitomize in their own beliefs the rubric of "Science-as-Culture," and for that I thank them. Since this derived somehow from the discussion of "Intellectual Property" perhaps I should include this refutation of my argument that Einstein's Energy-Matter theory of the Universe is what the Buddha understood 2500 years ago to be enLIGHTenment, in my book. I should do so, particularly, since Alex of Singapore compares, in one of these exerpts, the Western intellectual theories the discussants are refuting as an example of "Western intellectual exhaustion" with respect to the Eastern understanding of the Universe, that he characterizes as a system growing & changing by itself, "empty & marvelous." In case you have been preparing for the High Holidays with other benighted religious folk at this solstice celebrating the longest night of the year, I shall exerpt some of the discussion with my own comments in brackets [], effete Western Intellectual that I am. What started the flogging, particularly this time of year, of this dead horse again, which was once entitled, with scientific impartiality, "Science VS. Religion &/or Stupidity" was this e-mail [Date: 10th December 1996] from Alex Brown in reply to: > > Matthew Baggott writes: > "I think there are obvious parallels between the tendency to theorize > about "information" in the abstract sense (as if it has meaning outside > a cultural context) and Richard Dawkins-style theories about genes. > Both harmonize with a strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not > certain where one would draw the boundary) culture." > > Alex: > Exactly. While we can consider information to be that property which > in-forms or characterizes material or intellectual products, It cannot > be isolated from the products themselves. It is immanent to them. Indeed > we can only recognize 'information' as such as a regularity, pattern or > statistical recurrence of certain characteristics in a large number of > forms. Where is information? Information is 'nowhere'. There is no > platonic realm where it exists of itself. If we want to see it, we look > for the measurable similarities which inform experience and all of which > are the product of human activity. > [NOTA BENE, the surprising fact that the discussion of "intellectual property" is going to be transmogrified into our "dead horse" that Ian Pritchard and Arie Dirkswager so valiantly slaid at the end of summer. More surprisingly still, we are told "information is nowhere," perhaps like sound in a forest when there is no ear-drum to register the vibrations? Again, I apologize for my inferior Western intellect, I am just trying to understand what is going on in this Forum I joined. If I understand correctly, I am being informed that there is no meaning in information -- there are only patterns of regularity in material or intellectual products. Now we have two concepts, "products" and "property" -- the latter having been the original topic, "Intellectual Property," which I, IMHO, thought would have something to do with International Copyright Law as it would be extended to the Net.] Alex continues: > The Dawkin's-style theories, as Matthew observes, suggest otherwise and > when, as now, applied to society and culture in the form of the > ubiquitous and contagious 'meme' travel 'through the air' so to speak. > The pre-Einsteinian ether has been reconstituted as the memetic > dimension where apparently we breath ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH US. > [Once again, I was very far from the truth here given, in that I thought, as a specialist in the culture of Western Civilization, that, all memes aside, Human (vous voyez, Jacques Melot, pas besoin de se mettre en quatre pour developper l'usage d'une expression telle que "WERE-MAN"!) is a gregarious animal and learns from one another, something which I have been calling along with many misguided others, "zeitgeist" the spirit of the times. -- Now does this mean that our "collective spirit" or "consciousness" for those of you who prefer the modern, more secular term, implies a "pre-Einsteinian ether"? This is really complicated by the fact that "Dawkins-style theories" are the origin of this concept of a "memetic dimension" in which we (Humanity) "apparently . . . breath {sic: breathe} ideas - or, rather, THEY BREATH {sic} US." -- Well, I DO acknowledge that my ideas have come full-blown into my head from my education. Is the metaphor of "memes" merely trying to characterize a regularity of pattern in the way this occurs culturally? Is this not just another "product" of information (getting us nowhere?)] Alex again: > Human history and ingenuity in the form of combining and recombining > previous forms of behaviour or material into new cultural formulations > (paradigms, theories, styles, genres), is here rendered superfluous. > Apparently we are simply the vehicles for selfish genes in the > biological dimension and equally selfish memes in the cultural and > social dimension. What we have here, of course is a new theology - > theobiology - where god (dethroned from his former celestial home by > human thought) now resides in the genetic underworld and carries out its > great plan from there. [Perhaps there is a lack of attention paid here to the previous discussion of this Forum. I personally posted some research into this question of consciousness and genetic encoding, and attempted to update the work of Carl Jung, who died just before the breakthrough research by Watson & Crick in that field. When we, as experts in our respective fields, get together in a Forum, such as this, it sometimes takes some homework on the part of the members to understand what each of us is trying to summarize of our own life-work for the other members. If I go to the trouble of summarizing the relevant research in my field, I would expect that anyone who subsequently summarizes the content would not trivialize it, as in the last three lines above, following "theobiology."] Alex cont.: > The "strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one > would draw the boundary) culture." to which Matthew refers is, I would > suggest the need for a purposeful Maker to manipulate and drive the > human system, an ever present consciousness, a teleology. Asian > philosophies (Buddhism, Taoism) do not require such an interventionist > watchmaker. The system grows, develops and changes by itself and within > this there is some degree of human freedom and the positive or negative > consequences of whatever actions we take. ("Empty and marvellous"). [My understanding from Buddhism is that "the system [which] grows, develops and changes by itself" IS CONSCIOUSNESS. LIGHT IS THE NUCLEUS OF MATTER. This was the Buddha's awakening that enabled him to conclude that the Universe is both expanding and contractiong 2500 years ago. The "Shining Emptiness" of SHUNYATA is the Consciousness preceding the Big Bang. Empty though it may be, it follows the form of its own LAWS, enabling Science to find its regularity in patterns we are now culturally defining as "products of information." Truly marvelous.] ALEX AGAIN: > Are these genetic and memetic concepts a sign of intellectual exhaustion > in the West? > > Dec. 13th, Science just like religion is a cultural system and subject to > unpredictable teleological whims just as it was in the past. In both > cases there is a search for coherence, explanation and a comprehensive > meaning to experience. The problem is that experience is notoriously > fickle, random and difficult to 'frame'. So, to get meaning > out of this flux we have to insert it into an ever-wider context. The > only context for this physical world is the meta-physical world which we > have always projected into existance since human symbolic thought first > began. Why stop now? That projection carries with it our own sense of > purpose which we ascribe to this metaphysical dimension. It must also > have a purpose - which we call a teleology. The entity(s) which inhabit > this metaphorical dimension have a plan (surprise, surprise, just like > us). and what gives us meaning is that we are part of that plan. We > don't have a choice. Although god is now dressed in genes, this is not a > democracy. > [HoHoHo! Are the conclusions drawn here all a joke? Anyway, democracy in our exhausted W. intellectual conceptualization has come to mean "the lowest common denominator" in honor & integrity and "the highest common denominator" in income & assets. The discussion of "Science VS. Religion" has at least granted that the God of us religious gullibles is no longer an old man on a throne. Maybe next year we will be accorded some common twenty-first century usage for the definition of "religion." However, whether we choose to be "part of the plan" or not is definitely still a freedom we enjoy, as Milton put it: "to rule in Hell or serve in Heav'n" -- it is the LAW of the Shining, Empty Consciousness that we must serve, not the Narcissism which favored evolution through the animal law of the jungle. Human is just entering a new stage in evolution and it's taking us several millenia (a blink of an eye with respect to the age of the species) to do so. Further, if you're going to talk about psychological terms such as symbols and projections, why not observe simply the logic of your argument? You switch back and forth between literal and symbolic thinking, {cf.: Gerald Edelman, *Bright Air, Brilliant Fire* -- on "first and second order" thinking} when you talk about the sloppy thinking of your opponents, those who do not share your *beliefs* which you draw as scientific conclusions.] > Donald says: "Not that there isn't anybody out there . . . > Dec. 14th e-mail, Alex quotes & replies to: de Bivort-Lawry writes: > "Alex Brown is correct in saying that "Science just like religion is a > cultural system and subject to unpredictable teleological whims just as > it was in the past." > > But this does not mean that science and religion are the same, or > operate the same way, or have the same functions, or same effects." > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 13:41:34 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arie Dirkzwager Subject: Concepts, was: genes, mind, teleology. At 23:22 23-12-96 -0800, Michael Gregory wrote: >Why is this discussion, going on for two weeks now and, once again, >debunking theism so interesting to the believers in the soul-less >mechanistic Universe? They certainly epitomize in their own beliefs the >rubric of "Science-as-Culture," and for that I thank them. This discussion turns (again?) to be quite fundamental to our approach of "Science-as-Culture". Still I think sloppy use of words are confusing it. Let's try to have each word denotate the "same" concept to us all. What does this mean, as we can observe that NO two concepts, especially when sustained by different brains (individuals), are the same? A concept is always a concept ABOUT something, I propose to define two concepts to be the "same" when the discussants agree that they are "about" the same "something" (whether this something "exists" or not, "exist" as such is a concept about something's way-of-being). Only then we can scrutinize in what way two "same" concepts differ and judge between differing concepts which one is the better one about that "something". In this process concepts are changed, as are their relations, to generate a conceptual framework that "maps" the something the concepts are about. The concept "Science" is about such conceptual framework and about it's building by human (scientific) activity. I would like to imply in this concept also the application of science, a.o. in technology. The word "Culture" is ethymotologically related to "Cult", which refers to human (religious) activity: the cult of some "god". I like to think of ALL human activity (including science) as (having this) "cultural" (aspect). Then an important question becomes: "What cult is practised in that activity?", especially interesting when we have to do with an atheist. Is it the cult of self-fulfillment in a materialistic or spiritual sense? Is it a cult in which money is the measure of all things (sometimes called the cult of Mammon)? etc.. From the viewpoint Religion->Cult->Culture the concept "god" becomes important: does some "god" "exist"? What concept "X" takes the function of the concept "god" in our cult(ure)? Then the question (quite personal to the scientist) becomes: "What "X" is our science the cult of?", or rather: "What "X" should our science be a cult of?". Different answers (concepts about this "X") are possible. My proposal would be to agree that those concepts are all the "same" in that they are concepts about the one God (mind the capital) who warned us NOT to make *images* of Him, or of any creature, to aim our cult at. As far as any concept is an "image" I think OUR (subjective) concept *about* God should be empty (it can't or should not exist). On the other hand, in the tradition of Abraham, Isaak, Jacob, the prophets and Jesus Christ and His apostles we may "assume" that this God made Himself known to us and thus there is no NEED for us to build our own image of Him. Starting from knowing Him (and consequently "Loving Him above all and our neighbour as ourselves, which is the same) we can and should build our culture including science, as a cult of Him. Merry X-mas to you all! Arie PS. >What started the flogging, particularly this time of year, of this dead >horse again, which was once entitled, with scientific impartiality, >"Science VS. Religion &/or Stupidity" 1. The dead horse was in the "VS. Religion", NOT in the "VS. Stupidity". I think the above is a contribution to science, especially VS. Stupidity. Let me know why when you don't agree. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 23:53:53 -0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Stephen Dewey Subject: Saying hello, making a point.... >Why is this discussion, going on for two weeks now and, once again, >debunking theism so interesting to the believers in the soul-less Well, some of us, who have only just joined this mailing list, never saw the prior discusssions, so this is as fresh as a daisy to me. (BTW [intro time] I'm Steve Dewey, no affiliations, no papers, no academic credentials beyond my BSc degree - BSc in Society and Technology - just here to lurk. I joined this list to refresh my interest in things society-ish and technicology-ish.) What's never ceased to amuse me since joining this mailing list is that the Intro message to this list suggests that it is a list not merely for academics but for interested lay-were-people, and goes on to suggest that contributors write in a "non-technical way" or similar sentiment... So far, I still get an urge to scratch my head and frown meaningfully at the screen... Perhaps I'll ascend to a higher plane having followed another couple of weeks of discussion here... As an aside, isn't it in the nature of a mailing list/newsgroup/wotever, for topics to be endlessly recycled? The memberships of such lists is usually in a state of flux, so.... Cheers SteveD ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 01:33:37 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jonathan Morris Subject: Re: genes, mind, teleology. Part I I do not enjoy being afflicted by theobabble - either pseudo-science or mainstream religeous. The vigour of the responses to the faith-filling-in-the-gaps campus is a joy. H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory wrote: > ...[snip]... > Why is this discussion, going on for two weeks now and, once again, > debunking theism so interesting to the believers in the soul-less > mechanistic Universe? They certainly epitomize in their own beliefs the > ...[snip]... I can only say how delighted I am to find the army of intellectualism getting even on the theology battleground! For most of my life I have been afflicted with the opinions of Christian bigots. Theology is so attractive because it is so comforting. If _reason_ cannot unify the complete spectrum of current knowledge it is seductively comforting to apply theobabble dressings over to gaps. Seductive and WRONG. The only cure for incomplete knowledge is scientific study and reasonable deduction. > ...[snip]... > This is really complicated by the fact that "Dawkins-style theories" are > the origin of this concept of a "memetic dimension" in which we > (Humanity) "apparently . . . breath {sic: breathe} ideas - or, rather, > THEY BREATH {sic} US." -- Well, I DO acknowledge that my ideas have > come full-blown into my head from my education. Is the metaphor of > "memes" merely trying to characterize a regularity of pattern in the way > this occurs culturally? Is this not just another "product" of > information (getting us nowhere?)] > ...[snip]... IMHO Dawkins presented an exposition on the filtering effect of a random environment, in both micro and macrocosms, on a genetic pattern which displayed an opportunistic algorithm. Essentialy, Dawkins worshipped at the shrine of cause and effect. This explains why your thoughts are a result of your experience and why _original_ thought is so rare and so cherished. Even _original_ can only be defined as _of obscure origin and of arcane development_ in this context. In this scenario, memes are an effect not a cause and are a convenient mechamism for explaining the appearance of _effect_ without getting involved with the _cause_ mechanism. This is because information is shown as present by the application of information - that is _its effect_. > ...[snip]... > Alex cont.: > > The "strong conceptual bias in Western (? I'm not certain where one > > would draw the boundary) culture." to which Matthew refers is, I would > > suggest the need for a purposeful Maker to manipulate and drive the > > human system, an ever present consciousness, a teleology. Asian > > philosophies (Buddhism, Taoism) do not require such an interventionist > > watchmaker. The system grows, develops and changes by itself and within > > this there is some degree of human freedom and the positive or negative > > consequences of whatever actions we take. ("Empty and marvellous"). > > [My understanding from Buddhism is that "the system [which] grows, > develops and changes by itself" IS CONSCIOUSNESS. LIGHT IS THE NUCLEUS > OF MATTER. This was the Buddha's awakening that enabled him to conclude > that the Universe is both expanding and contractiong 2500 years ago. > The "Shining Emptiness" of SHUNYATA is the Consciousness preceding the > Big Bang. Empty though it may be, it follows the form of its own LAWS, > enabling Science to find its regularity in patterns we are now > culturally defining as "products of information." Truly marvelous.] > While I definately feel that philosophy is needed in order to provide a meaning to _science_, I get very uneasy about serious reference to religeous thinking from our (relatively) violent and barbaric world history. The human drive to fill in the gaps is so strong that any distraction from a pure approach to science is likely to rapidly seduce the thinker into inefficiency. IMHO it seems that the discussion of this subject should be undertaken with extreme caution and discipline. -- >- Jonathan Morris >- >- Everyone has the right to an opinion >- ...but not everyone's opinion is right! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 16:49:21 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jesper Hoffmeyer Subject: Re: genes, mind,teleology Donald Wessels wrote: >"Genes have no 'great plan' they reproduce only because they can. They >simply do what they do because they can. I see no teleological >implications in this mechanical process. There is no mind, only an >algorithmic process constrained by natural selection, behind our genetic >make-up." And Alex Brown joined: > >I totally agree with this statement. If only the theobiologists did. I should like to make a comment on this. But let me first make clear that although I am a kind of biologist I have no sympathy with Dawkin's meme theory which I think implies an unacceptable reification of the content of the mind. It seems clear to me that even my own ideas are never quite the same the next time they emerge in my head. They grow or shrink, they are infected by other ideas, or they have changed their emotional moiety. Ideas don't have this unambiguous steadiness which could legitimize that we treat them as recombinatorial mental units or mental genes. Even the very idea of the gene illustrates this. The concept of the gene was introduced by the Danish geneticist W. Johannsen in 1903 (or appr). But Johannsen's gene was very different from any of the differing gene-concepts which are now current. Thus, Johannsen was very anxious to underline that the gene must not be thought of as a material thing - a view he compared with the way ignorant peasents of his time thought there were hidden horses inside the locomotive! According to Johannsen the gene was nothing but a unit for calculation. Furthermore, while embryologists thought of the gene as a unit for explaining the development of a trait during ontogeny, geneticists thought of the gene as a unit for transmission of traits between generations. Only because the geneticists won this war (mostly thanks to the elegance of the Watson-Crick helix model) did the gene gradually materialize itself in the form of a sequence of nucleotide bases at a distinct location on the chromosomes. I also agree with Alex Brown that "Information is 'nowhere'. There is no platonic realm where it exists of itself." Of course, if we think of information in the sense of Shannon's information theory, then information becomes a measurable quantity. But this kind of information has very little to do with information as the term is used in everyday language. A sentence like "I like her cooking" has no objective content of information, since we can only know what it means if we also know the context in which it is used. If, for instance, we were seated among cannibals the sentence might have a very dramatic meaning, which would be extremely rare in a European use of the sentence. Information is created rather than transmitted, and the only reason why this can work is that we share both natural and cultural history. Now, the concrete comment I want to make to the quote given above has to do with the fact (as I take it to be) that "genetic information" cannot be understood objectively neither. Biologists do not use the term heriditary information in the sense of Shannon information. They use it in the sense of mental information, i.e. as information relevant to the survival project of the organism. Genes do not mean anything in themselves. In the prototyope case of the sexually reproducing species it is up to the fertilized egg (or growing embryo) to interpret the genome, i.e. reading the instructions hidden in the DNA code and carrying them out by constructing the individual. If one gene is compared to one word, the human genome contains ca 100.000 words - probably more than the bible. The DNAism of genetics is probably as much of a false reification as is Dawkins' Meme-ism Therefore I agree with the first part of the quote: "Genes have no 'great plan'" Of course not. It is not for genes or for words to have plans. Organisms may have plans and human speakers certainly have plans. But I disagree with the second part of this same sentence: "they reproduce only because they can. They simply do what they do because they can" This seems to me to be an oversimplification. In fact, genes "do" nothing. DNA is a very inert molecule, the only thing it does is to wait for the proteins to select a place for opening it, copying it, bringing the copy (mRNA) to the protein factory outside the nucleus, folding the nascent peptide chains into a distinct three-dimensional structure and finally, but not least, transporting the newborn protein to the right location in the cell. More important, the whole dynamics of living systems are based on the interaction between the digital (word-like) code of DNA and the analog (body-like) code of the physical organism. It is this strange self-referring code-duality which makes up for the extraordinary creativity of (organic) evolutionary systems. People tend to think that natural selection is a mechanical explanation for this process. But natural selection is no such thing since it does not explain how it became itself established. To explain this we will have to explain how in the first place code-dual systems could arise on our planet. (Natural selection presupposes a surplus production of organism, but why at all do organisms care to produce offspring? This must first be explained) I do not think this will raise insurmountable problems but it takes us back to the second law of thermodynamics (the entropy-law). And there is very little reason to believe that this whole process is algorithmic in nature. The kind of systems we are talking about here are prone to be pushed into chaos dynamics, which me