[FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -
> Ha! You see? That's not even wrong. 8^) But it's more plausible than asserting that my ideas are mutated and crossed over from ... yours ... or Szasz' ... or my mom's, for example.
What I'm trying to tickle apart here is what we do with the very idea 
that you might have a psuedo-Szaszian perspective on psychology or that 
you "are a Skeptic".

forget "meme", let's try "pattern" on in *at least* a semi-formal sense 
like the Alexandrian idea of Pattern Languages?  And what of 
"Alexandrian Patterns" ?    Whether that is a "meme" or a "pattern" or 
just a "rose by any other name" is what I'm looking to get an 
alternative grasp of...

If we admit patterns that can be copied, modified by intention or by 
ignorance or by chance, and can even be mixed with other patterns, then 
we have at least a partial registration in the target domain of 
biological evolution/genetics.

I'm trying not to argue this from a perspective of persuading you, but 
rather on "helping" you deconstruct the general idea that biological 
evolution (based in Genetics) is in any way a model for social/cultural 
evolution.  Or to deconstruct the more specifics of "memetics" and 
replace it with something more prosaic but useful perhaps?

Or maybe I'm barking up the wrong three, maybe you are trying to tell me 
(as I think Szasz tries to tell us about mental illness) that there is 
no there there?

neither here, nor there,
  - Steve
>
> On August 13, 2017 11:22:21 AM PDT, Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You are a typical intellectualizing scientist, which isn't a bad thing
>> to
>> be.
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> p.s.  Intellectualization is a defense which is not as debilitating as
>> some
>> others.