X-Message-Number: 28458
From: "egg plant" <>
Subject: Memes and Genes
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 21:25:59 +0000

Mr. Anthony Autophagy Wrote:

>What, then, is the cut-off point? Roughly speaking, which organisms do not 
>have minds or memes

I was wondering when you'd bring up that idiotic argument. You say, 
correctly, that if you keep making a mind simpler and simpler eventually it 
would be difficult to say if there was really a mind there or not; but then 
you conclude that because of that the entire concept must be meaningless. A 
80 pound man is thin, a 800 pound man is fat, but you can't point to an 
exact point and say if this man gains one more ounce he will instantly 
change from thin to fat. You can't point to an exact nanosecond where day 
changes into night, but that doesn't mean there is no difference between day 
and night. In the real would there is seldom a  cut-off point  between 
categories, there is a cut-off blob.

That reminds me, you once demanded to know what the first meme was. Well ., 
I'll tell you that just as soon as you tell me what the first gene was, what 
it did, and if it was made of DNA, RNA, protein, clay, or something else.

>To clarify - by "consciousness" I do not mean
>"self-awareness" but mindfulness - an proprioceptive awareness that allows 
>them to act of a basic organismic
>level.

Translation from the original Pompous-Speak: If you know where your shit's 
at you can act like an animal.  Please note, I make no claim that my 
translation makes any more sense than the original. Big words are no 
substitute for big ideas.

>I know that "drift" in not uncontroversial, being
>both an argument for natural selection and against it

It is not controversial that some mutations are harmful some are helpful and 
some are neutral, it is not controversial that the neutral ones change the 
genome over time at a pretty constant rate and this change is called genetic 
drift. And it is not controversial, it is idiotic, to say neutral mutations 
created language.

  John K Clark    

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