Meme theory = mayavada?

[Subha]

This is all so tacky its like reading an Indian magazine.

[Tootsy]

ooops, in that long coment that I said "cicle of samskara", it should be, "cicle of samsara" which is made of samsakaras.

[vs]

Then there is love. Even though Nitai knows very well that, in Dawkins estimation, the idea of love itself is a meme, he carelessly presents it to be very close to the love propounded by Mahaprabhu, so close that it might just do. To be fair, Nitai did say atheists do not relate in absolute terms. But then, why did he earlier objected that bhakti has to absolutely be gotten from an specific line of human beings? This contradicting shows carelessness, to say the least. Making as we go we are, but then, perhaps that too is a dynamic of CV. Its all good, and its all God.

I'm not at all well read in the works of Dawkins, does he assert that love itself is a meme?

Regarding emotions as memes, Sangeetha Menon of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science Campus in Bangalore India writes;

Abstract The word ¡®meme¡¯ was first used by Richard Dawkins (Dawkins, 1976)1 in the sense of a replicator to introduce the idea of cultural transmission through the process of imitation, just as genes are responsible for the evolution of organisms. Following Dawkins several writers came forth to have a closer look at ¡®meme¡¯. The consensus was that this was a fascinating way of explaining cultural evolution and transmission; that meme is the basic unit of (cultural) information whose existence influences events so as to make more copies of itself (Brodie, 1996).2 The book which got most attention in this line of literature wasThe Meme Machine (Blackmore, 1993),3 which favours the idea that culture, like biology, evolves through the process of variation, selection and replication. Something striking in Blackmore¡¯s thesis is that emotions and attitudes do not count as memes since they are subjective and never get passed on.

This was an excerpt from Sangeetha Menon's book

THE SELFISH MEME & THE SELFLESS ATMA

So, appearantly Blackmore asserts that emotions and attitudes do not count as memes, that would mean then that Blackmore is differing from Dawkins?

If we take the view that memes are more or less samskaras, then I would say that emotions and attitudes would count as memes. I don't see how attitudes and emotions can be divorced from "cultural transmission through the process of imitiation". Behaviour is closely linked with emotion afterall.

What is bhakti itself if not a type of "transmission through the process of imitation (emulation through sadhana)"

Imitation:

krti-sadhya bhavet sadhya-bhava sa sadhanabhidha

nitya-siddhasya bhavasya prakatyam hrdi sadhyata


Transmission:

suddha-sattva-visesatma prema-saryamsu-samya-bhak

rucibhis citta-masrnya-krd asau bhava ucyate

Indeed, the transcendent emotional bhav-state is a transmission of hladini and samvit saktis onto the chitta of the jeev.

This may all be over-extension of the definition, but this has generally been the way I explain the concept of raganuga bhakti to persons who do not have a background in bhakti at all and who are not at all familiar with Sanskrit terminology, for reasons of linguistic convenience.

Just as samskaras can be divided into bhakti-positive or bhakti-negative, so can memes.

There appears to be a lot of written material juxtaposing samskaras with memes already. So we are not the first to draw parrallels between the two terms.

In addition, here is another parrallel;

Bija: Encyclopedia - Bija

Bija
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term b¨©ja (Jp. ·N×Ó shushi), literally seed, is used as a metaphor for the origin or cause of things.
The metaphor is considerably extended in the Consciousness-only teachings of the Yogacara school of Buddhism. According to this theory, all experiences and actions produce bija as impressions, stored in the alaya (storehouse) consciousness. The external world is produced when the seeds "perfume" this consciousness. This view of bija has been equated to memes, with the theory itself positing an extreme form of memetics (ie. reality and existence consist purely of memes).

At the end of the day, you are right, "it's all good, and it's all Goddess!"

[zvs]

It has been awhile since I studied vraja-rasa in any detail; this atheism-as-a-component-of-rasika-experience discussion has made me remember a fuzzy little holdover that I may or may not have actually heard.

Isn't it that the personalities in nitya-lila obey, to some degree, traditional Indian religiosity? For example, Krishna himself was initiated by a guru as a child, much in line with Vedic tradition. I seem to recall the gopis using the names of devatas and devis, suggesting that Radha and her friends are, for lack of a better term, mainstream Hindus. In fact, isn't it the transgression of socio-religious mores that makes the rasa-lila so exciting?

Does this contradict or enhance rasika theology? I.E., true bhava depends on forgetting the Godhood of Krishna, so in that sense, pure love is atheistic. However, why then worry about the "other" gods? Why would the Supreme allow his subordinate gods - many of whom are jiva-tattva - seep into his personal relationships? Why is there any residue of theism among the gopis; why not do away with it altogether? Or perhaps, their religiosity is only manifest in the earthly Vraja pastimes, to bring it in line with the surrounding society; or, maybe, as I already said, the religiosity is necessary to create the morality that, when transgressed in parakiya pastimes, so drastically intensifies the experience?

Just some tangential thoughts I was having.

[vs]

Because, ZVS, devi-devata puja is part of the nara-lila (human play) of Radha and Krishna.

The Devis and Devatas give gopi-gana and naughty Kala plenty of excuses to meet:

Surya puja at Surya Kund during the day.

Katyayani vrat certainly gave rise to some fun there on Jamuna's banks !!!

Krishna can pretend to be a vairagi, brahmin, or pujari and con his way into Jatila's home.

Krishna has friends from the brahmin caste which would not be able to make their nara living economically without some sort of puja. And again, those pujas serve as excuses for more forbidden fun.

And lets not forget yagnas performed at the "Triveni" where Priyaji sacrifices her pati-vrata-dharma and Priyatamji sacrifices his "brahmacharya" into the fire.

The Devis and Devatas and their required rituals provide so much background for rasik lilas!

We can connect this to our sadhan life when in India we see so many mandirs and rituals dotted throughout the land. They can serve as impetus for us to remember all these lilas and smile.

[zvs]

VS, what a nice description.

So I'm not too far off, then? The cultural-traditional worship of the devatas provides Radha and Krishna with avenues for meeting up, which meetings essentially transgress the injunctions of the religions surrounding those gods. You said "forbidden." So without the religiosity, without the flying in the face of hinduistic moralism, the lila wouldn't have the same "rush."

Of course, the problem Westerners encounter with this idea is, why do Radha-Krishna utilize Indic religion, specifically, in their lila? For one who grows up in a Christian country, the intricacies of these lilas might hit home harder if the gopis were raised by church-going, pious protestants or catholics, whose strict, anti-sexuality moralism just fuels the fire of their transcendental lust.

I know there has been some contention as to the idea of "creating a Goloka of our own." To me, the nature of lila requires that there be a number of Vrajas in which one participates in pastimes with a select group of associates; otherwise, one would be forced to compete with all the thousands or millions of jivas who have achieved siddha-deha there. Wouldn't it be interesting to show up in a Goloka in which Christian culture provided the background for the lila, as that was more relatable?

I'm not saying this happens, of course. I'm just wondering about that question, "Why India?" Is Indian society really a reflection of the spiritual world (owing to devata-seva in Radha-Krishna-lila, etc.) and Krishna has chosen that one part of the world in which to reveal himself? It seems to me that would have to be the case, lest we conclude that Krishna has arbitrarily adopted Indian culture into the spiritual world, or that, as I postulated above, our experience of the spiritual world is tailored to our previous cultural background. This would kind of demean its eternity, wouldn't it!

[vs]

ZVS, all I can say is, "when nothing is certain, anything is possible."

[Nitaidas]

Jun 16, 2009 7:38:58 GMT -6 @The meme and the cream said:

It is not clear whether Nitai is or isn't "supporting Dawkins in all his views". But he definitely painted himself in a corner when he said things like "Their freedom from religion allows them (atheists) finally to really relate to other people and things." There are several problems with this statement, and I pointed out a couple already. The statement is an opinion but he states it as if fact. The adjective "finally" and especially the adverb "really" would have a very different aplication in the language of a knowledgable (well in Nitai's case lets say caring) gaudiya vaishnava. 'Finally' in the language of Mahaprabhu does not mean just embracing a new type of fundamentalism because of getting fed up with a previous one. 'Finally' in CV means the end of the cicle of samskara (just for you vs ) and beginning of a life of meaningful spiritual cultivation. And 'really' means in accordance with reality, sanbhanda, the particular feeling in relation to the real other.

Then there is love. Even though Nitai knows very well that, in Dawkins estimation, the idea of love itself is a meme, he carelessly presents it to be very close to the love propounded by Mahaprabhu, so close that it might just do. To be fair, Nitai did say atheists do not relate in absolute terms. But then, why did he earlier objected that bhakti has to absolutely be gotten from an specific line of human beings? This contradicting shows carelessness, to say the least. Making as we go we are, but then, perhaps that too is a dynamic of CV. Its all good, and its all God. ;D

Ah, my good friend. You seem to know me better than I apparently know myself. You have attributed so many ideas to me that even I am beginning to think that I thought them. But first tell me, which of your statements is not an opinion but a fact. Is it that I have opinions and you have facts? Something odd about that. Kind of like my accusing you of not knowing bhakti (something I am still not convinced of, but I give you the benefit of my doubt). I guess I should clearly state my line of thinking here, or, others will state it for me and represent me as having painted myself into a corner.

First of all, I must say, and this may come as a surprise and a shock to some of you (or, maybe not, since opinions are already made up), I don't think that Mahaprabhu really taught anything himself. He was overwhelmed by his experiences and what has come down to us as his teachings are really the various efforts of his immediate followers to try to interpret those experiences. Yes, there are the eight verses (Siksastaka) and there is that verse of Srinath Cakravarti that seems to encapsulate an early version of Caitanyite doctrine that may actually have a source in Mahaprabhu. But those may not be the work of Mahaprabhu. Nevertheless, with these caveats in mind, I still don't think Mahaprabhu really did much teaching. He came to taste not teach. His very tasting was, one might say, his teaching. The learned and profound works of the Goswamins and other followers like Kavi Karnapura were really efforts to provide a theological-literary basis. justification, for his extraordinary experiences and whatever came out of his mouth while he was in such states. All of those passages in the CC in which Mahaprabhu is represented as teaching are fabricated, in my opinion. They are just literary vehicles that Krsnadas Kaviraja used to present the teachings of the Goswamins in Bengali to the Bengali speaking segment of the community. So, first of all, I don't think that Mahaprabhu taught anything and thus there is no chance of his teachings being equated with those of Dawkins'.

Now I know most of you will not agree with this, but hey, I don't really much care. I don't need anyone's affirmation to make me feel like I am right or wrong. I look at the facts as I see them and form an interpretation of them. If some other fact surfaces that changes things, I will change my interpretation.

Now here are the facts as I see them. Krsna wants our love not our worship. He is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get our love. Religion stands in the way. Religion wants to make us worship him, not love him, to bow down to him, not embrace him. So any effort that is directed at uprooting and wiping out religion in the world is one that is, whether those who exert themselves in that effort realize it or not, helping Krsna achieve his goal. Seen from this perspective, religion is a kind of virus and stunts our growth and diseases and twists our minds. Krsna wants to cure us. He wants us to be healthy and free to love him and receive his love without any limiting factors or constrictions. This is how the followers of Mahaprabhu, I believe, interpreted his presence on earth 500 years ago. No caste, no vidhi, just shear passion for Krsna, coupled with the firm conviction that we can love him without being crushed to bits in his embrace.

[Nitaidas]

By the way, guess what occurred to me today as I was remembering my mantras. You got it: mantras are extraordinarily successful memes. What amazing replicators they are!

[ST]

Very true Nitai, it seems pretty clear, even with all that KDK wrote in CC, that Mahaprabhu did not come to teach a new path. He just was. But I think still he intended to give something inedit, a "gift never given before". This gifting was one aspect of his lila, it was needed for his experiencing his thing. Also Krishna, Krishna coaxes us jivas to "abandon all types of religion", etc. So you are right.

But I don't see why so much fuss over the idea of worship, reverence, submission, in short, religion. Religion is a stage in human development, the early stages in the road to prem. Of course some rare jivas can go straight from nothing to full spiritual consciousness, but religion is an aspect of the evolution of the individual which cannot be done away with. Atheism in this early stage does not do much for the attainment of prem. Its voidism by another name, and sets the individual back many steps. Religion is expressed freedom. In the human form, the jiva becomes aware of his freedom to love, and expresses such via religiosity. People complain that religions profess love but actually promote hatred, that religion is mean, and therefore should be erradicated along with "God". But this idea that love necessarily leaves out conflict, tragedy and so forth, is childish. Love is complex as the lila of Krishna and his infinite number of lovers show. It requires all of the emotions. What is needed is a broader understanding of humanity and of love, for a start. (Not that I know anything about either .

[Nitaidas]

I said the other day that I don't think Mahaprabhu taught much. Here is an instruction that I think he did give from the Caitanya-bhagavata (again from Sri Hrdayananda Das Babaji Maharaja's little book):

To all of you the Master gives this instruction.
Listen in particular to the Mahamantra of Krsna's names:
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
The Master says "I have spoken this Mahamantra.
With this, all of you do japa with perseverance."

Now Sri Hrdayananda Das Babaji insists that this "with perseverance" really means with counting of the mantras. I tend to disagree with him on this point, but it is the firm belief and teaching of his sub-community of CV and I respect him for it. Thus, he adds: "In other words, counting while doing japa of the Mahamantra is the rule, because without counting, the japa of a mantra is fruitless." I leave it up to you to decide for yourselves. I can only say that the claim is not without merit. In general, it is the rule that a mantra, any authentic mantra, is to be counted when recited. Since the Mahamantra is a mantra, that rule should apply to it as well.

Anyway, this is an instruction from Mahaprabhu. Interesting to note that he does not tell us how the world was created or what the first principles are and so forth and so on. He give us this mantra and tells us to chant with perseverance. The implication is that it is through the mantra that we come to know all that other stuff (if we want). In other words he gives us the key to understanding things as they are.

[subala]

Memes are to culture as genes are to nature. A meme describes a unit of information that survives by being selected by someone, and then passed on to another. It applies to everything. For example songs are a meme. We hear them, play them, sing them, and share them with others and in doing so we aid their "survival". The theory of memes attempts to explain ALL human activity in evolutionary terms including culture, religion, and morality. It goes much further than saying there's no God. It concludes that there is no you or me.
 
Dr. Susan Blackmore says memes are the keys to understanding everything about what we say, do, and think.
 
She says, "Memes are any kind of information that is passed from person to person, so when I am speaking to you to now, telling you a story or a joke or sing you a song and you go and pass it on. It can go on to "infect" other people.
 
The ideas of memes come straight out of Universal Darwinism. It implies that anything where information is copied with variation and selection. Memes are competing in our brains to get themselves copied, and is invert to the way you think about the world. We, humans, feel weird about the selecting, but from the memes point of view it's them that are getting us to copy them. Memes colonise us. You could say they are parasites, but in a way it gives the wrong impression as there's a whole range of memes from valuable and wonderful memes that make up our culture, science, arts to the other end where you have the viral memes such as chain letters, internet viruses, and religion, things that exploit our brains and are not true.”
 
Memes that have colonised our brains have given rise to the great story that I am here, I am in control of my life, and I would say the meme that I think "I am" is to that extent an illusion.”
 
Blackmore's thesis attacks Western civilization's understanding of the self. In the final chapter of "The Meme Machine's", Blackmore follows Dennett in seeing consciousness and free will (two names for essentially the same thing) as illusions. They are "explained" by simply denying that they are real. For Blackmore and Dennett, the notion of a "self" living inside our brain--an entity that makes decisions--is what Blackmore calls an "insidious and pervasive" notion created by the millions of memes that shuffle about inside our skull. There is, to put it bluntly, no such thing as a self:
 
"If I genuinely believe that there is no 'I' inside, with free will and conscious deliberate choice, then how do I decide what to do? The answer is to have faith in the memetic view; to accept that the selection of genes and memes will determine the action and there is no need for an extra 'me' to get involved. To live honestly, I must just get out of the way and allow decisions to make themselves.
 
"On this view, all human actions, whether conscious or not, become complex interactions between memes, genes and all their products, in complicated environments. The self is not the initiator of actions, it does not 'have' consciousness and it does not 'do' the deliberating. There is no truth in the idea of an inner self inside my body that controls the body and is conscious. Because this is false, so is the idea of my conscious self having free will."
 
And here is how Blackmore describes the illusions of the self in "The Meme Machine's" final paragraph:
 
"Memetics thus brings us to a new vision of how we might live our lives. We can carry on our lives as most people do, under the illusion that there is a persistent conscious self inside who is in charge, who is responsible for my actions and who makes me me. Or we can live as human beings, body, brain, and memes, living out our lives as a complex interplay of replicators and environment, in the knowledge that that is all there is. Then we are no longer victims of the selfish selfplex. In this sense we can be truly free--not because we can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators but because we know that there is no one to rebel."
 
Instead of humans thinking about the world and their lives, exchanging information, inventing things, interacting with one another, experiencing pleasures and pains, the memetic language reverses everything. It's like bending over and looking at the world between your legs. You see the same things as before but from a different perspective. What is really going on is that billions of selfish memes are manipulating us. They have taken over our brains. They shape all our thoughts and actions. The memes are not our creations. We are theirs. We are just a meme's way of making other memes.
   
If true, meme theory is devastating. Ultra Darwinist say everything is an illusion. This includes our sense of self and all our beliefs.
 
If our entire mental world is a product of meme colonisation that means I believe in something because I have been colonisation by that meme. In other words, I'm deluded. Therefore my belief or idea is not real. How can this be true?
 
There is a fundamental flaw that the heart of meme theory. Consider this, if I believe in God I have been colonised by the God meme, and if I believe in evolution then I have been colonised by the evolution meme. I have been colonised by contradictory memes. How can I trust either meme to true or truer? This a philosophical problem that confronts anyone who believes in the theory of memes
 
Science requires truth to be objective. It requires benchmarks to decide what is true and what is not true. But with Ultra Darwinism there can be no benchmark, because all that matters are which memes survive and their survival has nothing to do with their truth. As one atheist philosopher once put it, "Evolution does not care whether most of our beliefs are true. Just like Rhett Butler in Gone With Wind, it just doesn't give a damn" By this undermining of the objectivity of truth Ultra Darwinism destroys the truth of all evolutionary thought which include memes.
 
This brings us to another problem: memetics seems completely tautological, unable to explain why a meme spreads except by asserting, post facto that it had qualities enabling it to spread. One might as well say that aspirin relieves pain because of its pain-relieving properties. The most interesting question — why some memes spread and not others — is completely neglected. Why did Christianity take hold during the waning days of the Roman Empire ? You won't find the answer, or any way to attain it, in memetics. (This, by the way, makes memetics utterly unlike biological evolution. The spread of genes through natural selection is not tautological because one can predict their fate through their known effects on replication and the reproduction of their carriers.)
 
In a final effort to propagate her ideas, Blackmore constructs an extremely clever co-adapted meme complex: "Evolutionary theory faced enormous opposition because it provided a view of humans that many humans do not like. The same will probably be true of memetics." Sheesh! What an intellectual sleight of hand!
 
Despite the cult popularity of the idea, memetic theory is hardly discussed in recent texts on evolutionary psychology and linguistics. The prevailing consensus seems to be that the meme is a nice metaphor but one that has perhaps been taken too far. Memes, after all, are hard to define, quantify, and measure; their very existence is somewhat nebulous, inferable but not scientifically verifiable. Some have also assailed memes not only as bad science but as reactionary politics.
 
The complexity of human development is overly reduced into non-materialist, quasi-mystical, pseudo-scientific terms, which in turn are only a new Kabbalah, a recasting of age-old ideas of angels and demons and magic words that can control reality.

Many also question the memetics community's frequent, almost reflexive, assaults on religion, which they characterize as nothing more than preprogrammed, irrational memetic replication. Moreover the idea of human behavior as nothing but the programming of snippets of information is troubling to many—and not only those who still maintain a belief in free will.
 
To hold with a radical memetic view of human behavior is to ignore the factors of economics, environment, and politics in history.
 
Stephen Jay Gould, in a 1996 debate with Blackmore, called memes "meaningless metaphors." Blackmore cites a letter in the New Scientist in which British philosopher Mary Midgley calls memes "mythical entities" that are a "useless and essentially superstitious notion." H. Allen Ore, a University of Rochester geneticist, was quoted in Time as dismissing memetics as "an utterly silly idea. It's just a cocktail party science."
 
Let's try a linguistic thought experiment. In all human cultures, even in chimp society, objects not connected to the body are shifted from place to place. Call every such move a "tran," short for translocate or transfer. Moving our shoes when we walk, run or dance is not trans because the objects are attached to our body. Nor are the movements of things in cars, trains, ships, planes and elevators examples of trans because the propelling forces are independent of us even though we may direct such movements.
 
Examples of genuine trans abound. The motions of pitched and batted baseballs are obvious trans, as are the movements of objects in dozens of other sports: football, basketball, bowling, tennis, golf, hockey, pool and so on. When a chess player pushes a pawn, it's a tran. Dealing playing cards is a tran. Raking leaves and moving vacuum cleaners and using dust busters are trans. Serving food and washing dishes are trans. Hammering a nail and sawing wood are trans. Eating is a tran because food is moved from plate to mouth, though swallowing it is not because the food becomes joined to the body. Punching typewriter and computer keys are trans. Moving piano keys, trumpet valves and drumsticks are trans. Digging ditches and cutting down trees are trans. Serving beer is a tran. There are tens of thousands of other examples.
 
A vexing question arises: How should we distinguish trans from transplexes? The flight of a pitched baseball is a tran, but if the ball is hit, caught and tossed to first base, is that familiar sequence a tran or a transplex? Shall we call an entire inning a tran or a transplex? Should transplex be reserved for a complete game, with its hundreds of trans?
 
What is gained by introducing the concept of a tran? Nothing. Trans are no more than a bizarre terminology for saying what is better said in ordinary language. We don't need a new science of tranetics to tell us that in every culture, persons move things.
 
Are memes here to stay or will they prove to be as irrelevant as trans? Will memetics turn out to be a new science or a harmless humbug destined to evaporate like Kurt Lewin's topological psychology, which befuddled Gestalt psychologists in the 1930s, or catastrophe theory, which two decades ago agitated a small group of overzealous mathematicians? Is memetics a misguided attempt on the part of behavioral scientists to imitate genetics with its gene units and physics with its elementary particles? In a few years we may know. Meme is just another intellectual fad.
 
Finally, meme, for some people, has become a synonym for idea. For example:

Subala, the ''meme theory = mayavada'' is nothing more than a meme you carried over from your iskcon experience (where everything = mayavada, mayavada being a catch-phrase for everything they don't like), even though you were never in iskcon! Just see how deep the rabbit hole goes! Even if you weren't an official member of that org, somehow its memes caught hold of you via the people that you knew who were!

Replace meme with idea and you'll see what I mean. This is semantic aphasia. Meme theory must stay within it's Ultra Darwinist box where it truly belongs and remain a non sense!

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2009 10:37:20 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I said the other day that I don't think Mahaprabhu taught much. Here is an instruction that I think he did give from the Caitanya-bhagavata (again from Sri Hrdayananda Das Babaji Maharaja's little book):

To all of you the Master gives this instruction.
Listen in particular to the Mahamantra of Krsna's names:
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
The Master says "I have spoken this Mahamantra.
With this, all of you do japa with perseverance."

Now Sri Hrdayananda Das Babaji insists that this "with perseverance" really means with counting of the mantras. I tend to disagree with him on this point, but it is the firm belief and teaching of his sub-community of CV and I respect him for it. Thus, he adds: "In other words, counting while doing japa of the Mahamantra is the rule, because without counting, the japa of a mantra is fruitless." I leave it up to you to decide for yourselves. I can only say that the claim is not without merit. In general, it is the rule that a mantra, any authentic mantra, is to be counted when recited. Since the Mahamantra is a mantra, that rule should apply to it as well.

Anyway, this is an instruction from Mahaprabhu. Interesting to note that he does not tell us how the world was created or what the first principles are and so forth and so on. He give us this mantra and tells us to chant with perseverance. The implication is that it is through the mantra that we come to know all that other stuff (if we want). In other words he gives us the key to understanding things as they are.

Would you give some of your reasoning on why you think Mahaprabhu's followers weren't being honest when they portrayed him as a sometimes teacher of theology and philosophy?

[vs]

'Meme theory must stay within it's Ultra Darwinist box where it truly belongs and remain a non sense! '

Ha. Ha. There's another cult meme popping up right there!

I don't know about science requiring objectivity, as you say. That's one of the first things you learn when you study science is that nothing can be truly objective. Even the observer falls within the catergory of the observed and whatever instrument is used to observe something, the data obtained from that instrument can only reflect what the technology of the instrument allows for.

Therefore even the earliest scientists realized their limitations.

Science as far as I know is not claiming any "absolutes" or even total objectivity. Scientists just say that, "this is the current data we've obtained using such and such instruments". Nothing more. Nothing less.

I'm still going to use the word "meme" in place of "samskara" for English speakers. Language is fluid, like liquid prem.

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2009 16:22:54 GMT -6 @vs said:

'Meme theory must stay within it's Ultra Darwinist box where it truly belongs and remain a non sense! '

Ha. Ha. There's another cult meme popping up right there!

I don't know about science requiring objectivity, as you say. That's one of the first things you learn when you study science is that nothing can be truly objective. Even the observer falls within the catergory of the observed and whatever instrument is used to observe something, the data obtained from that instrument can only reflect what the technology of the instrument allows for.

Therefore even the earliest scientists realized their limitations.

Science as far as I know is not claiming any "absolutes" or even total objectivity. Scientists just say that, "this is the current data we've obtained using such and such instruments". Nothing more. Nothing less.

I'm still going to use the word "meme" in place of "samskara" for English speakers. Language is fluid, like liquid prem.

I don't know what planet you live on, but here on Earth scientists are quite fond of making absolutist statements about what they believe to be objective truth gleaned from "science" and than denigrating anyone who dares to disagree. Try to argue with most scientists about the validity of the Big Bang theory or evolution and you will be treated like vermin while they make such non-absolute statements like "evolution is a fact, not a theory: that life on Earth during the past 3 billion years has evolved from single-celled organisms to complex and diverse creatures, including humans, is a fact." That is what is taught as science on the webpage of a highly respected university, from their chemistry department, in a section called Answers in Science.