Re: virus: Re: Rationality

Alex Williams (thantos@decatl.alf.dec.com)
Wed, 5 Mar 1997 10:31:28 -0500 (EST)


> > Oh, quite. But in order for you to become aware of any impulse, whether
> > memetic in nature or otherwise, it needs to be translated into a language
> > your operating system (consciousness) can understand, ie. memes.
>
> Are you advocating, then, that every action that one undertakes is controled/
> guided by a meme or meme-complex? Again, this leads us to the free will
> question.

Considering that this is the stance I take and that we've already
hashed over this construct, but ... :)

How does free will enter into the picture unless you see the `mind' as
seperate from the memetic structure? If you accept that the mind is
the /result/, a verbal shorthand for, the emergent properties of
interacting memes, it ceases to be a problem. Your body is the
product of the emergent properties of a set of interacting particles
of various masses, does it have `free will'? Is it meaningful to even
make the judgement?

> I'm trying to work out whether you mean that the mind relies on the meme
> to make a decision, or whether the mind blames the meme for the decision,
> without using it in the first place.

Try `there is no mind seperated from the meme just as there is no body
seperated from the Elements.' What is your body sans carbon? Not
your body. What is the mind sans memes? Not your mind.