Yes.
David wrote:
I said the subject matter of the X-files (meaning alien abductions,
vampires, reincarnation, monsters, etc.) are fictional. The memes
exist, certainly, but not the referents.
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We are coming closer and closer to thinking the same way again.
My language and your language are meeting halfway. What I said was real,
and you said was not real can be adequately described as fictional and
contain both our arguements.
I am not saying that there is no objective truth. I am just saying that
it is is useful, from the viewpoint of a memeticist, to not say that
something is "un-real" simply because there is no referent. It is more
useful to ask "under what conditions is this real?"
Is levitation best used as a story, a description of a calm state of
mind, or as a means of travelling from Vancouver to Chicago O'Hare?
Then we get it's memetic "fingerprint".
In a story, I would buy flying carpets and levitating genies.
As a description of a sensation I would believe someone who said "I felt
so good, I was floating around all day."
As a mode of travel, I would hesitate before booking a flight on the
7:45 Yogi to Chicago. (Yogis are much slower than even a DC-3 and
there's no table/tray to set up my laptop computer.)
David wrote:
I'm not a Truth Believer. But I do believe in objective reality.
I think there is a fact of the matter about the roundness of the
world independent of humans and their culture.
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David Wrote:
If you were consistent you would have to say that the first victims
of Gay Cancer didn't die of AIDS because that concept wasn't invented
yet. Is that your point?
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Yes. From a memetic viewpoint, yes.
And those memes affected the nature of the disease, the technology and
finances that were dedicated to it, the knowledge people needed to
protect themselves-- the things that defined the environment for the
survival and replication of HIV.
David wrote:
Well that's where we disagree. If you honestly believe the world exists
only in the mind of mankind you don't believe in an objective reality.
Or maybe we aren't talking about the same "world".
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No we aren't.
I'm talking about the world of information. The green pastures where
memes graze and roam free in their natural state :)
This world is affected by the real (objective) world in the same way
that a pasture is affected by weather. Hot dry weather produses course,
hardy grass... wet weather is good for marsh grasses...
Perhaps I haven't been picking up on the subtltety od your statements.
Slap me if I've just gone over old turf. (pun intended)
David wrote:
I agree, which is why I no longer believe in Absolute Truth. But
it was more of a change in attitude toward our view of objective
reality, not objective reality itself.
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I see that I probably have.
David wrote:
Good thing, because I probably would have agreed with you anyway.
(Not that agreement is a bad :-)
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Looks like we might be in even more agreement.
Maybe we will reduce a thread to the point of just sending smiley faces
to each other every day?
[I'll be away from e-mail til Tuesday. "See" you all next week.]
Bye Dave.
-- Regards +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ Ken Pantheists http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan Virus Theatre http://www.lucifer.com/virus/theatre TooBa Physical Theatre Centre http://www.tooba.com +--------------------------------------------------------------------+