Bemes, huh?....reminds me of Terrel Miedaner's 'beons' in The Soul of Anna Klane ('77). His daughter, a friend of mine and healer, related to me that there is genetic data that is (what I call) energistic, and, hence, not perceptible to current science - so, no need for bemes.

Regardless, despite Terrel's (at least seeming) rigorous approach, I think both concepts are goofy. It seems to be very common to conceive of 'things', labels to put on things that we really have no idea what they are, and then couch them in language that seems to explain their function in the world without really talking about function (let alone funxion). They're arbitrary associatons - ie: they would have this relation by their very nature.

I may be seeming very antagonistic, but, really, instead of creating these cute little new names and titles for things, I would suggest just looking at how things work and addressing the operation involved. Then, perhaps, new terms will be needed - but not necessarily so.

Hi State,

How is your comments about bemes any more relevant that what you could say about memes? If you want to dicker with the context of the intended message that Rothblatt is trying to convey, then you could just as easily level the same criticism against every other kind of made-up coneption of how things work. The same goes for "atoms", "quarks", "space-time", "dark matter" (especially dark matter), uploading, etc.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but the the reality of it is that any so-called "reality" that we want to talk about and convey meaning, we have to make up shit to talk about it. New words are a dome a dozen I admit, but quite frankly the words currently used are clearly not up the job. The whole "selfish gene" and "meme" memes (ha!) have been overused and even abused (see Susan Blackmore's work) in my opinion.

Thought I'd weigh-in on this one, just a bit. It would seem that the 'beme' notion is meant to (at least try to) capture what Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit---in his analysis of personal identity and survival of the 'self' (see his treatise *Reasons and Persons*, Oxford U. Pr., 1984)---has fairly persuasively argued is the most important and essential aspects of any given person's 'SELF'. These sorts of metaphysical and ontological issues will become progressively more pronounced over the next few decades, as 'personality archiving' becomes more & more, not only possible, but detailed and intimate. See the work of William Sims Bainbridge on 'personality archiving' (a recent article by him on which appears in one of the later editions of *The Futurist* (March-April 06, I think)). If enough 'bemes' are archived onto some substrate, then it should be possible to restore a personality even after that personality is (by whatever causal means) wiped-out (death, amnesia, whatever). Of course, we'll need more detail knowledge of the brain, and tech to directly interface with it, but *that* is progressing (super-exponentially, in fact) rather nicely, as well.

So, state, we already *are* (as you probably realize) "looking at how things work and addressing the operation[s] involved," and 'beme' MAY be, at least to some extent, a convenient new shorthand term for that cluster of memories, proclivities, propensities, intentions, sentiments, dispositions, etc., etc., that *operationally* constitute the *self*.

Stay tuned...things are getting interesting...

Love to all...and ciao for now...

No no, you're both not getting it. In my own system, there are no new terms for [i]things[/i]. Actually, I don't even talk directly about consciousness; I see no reason to. (I don't even use the term 'meme'.) In a very basic sense, I approach it like a behaviourist might, in that I observe what occurs, then describe it, not with labels of the constituents, but rather, with terms that directly refer to the interactions (or, rather, interaxion - and only in this sense, do I effect some word/grammar/meaning change: 'x' in place of 'ct'; 'realisation' (as in actualisation) being more comprehensive than just 'comprehension'). To use a music analogy: pitches tell you what's being used; intervals tell you how; pitchclasses can tell you both.

I don't want to be transhuman. I just want to be fully human.

state: My comments were directed somewhat more at the original post that at your comment. And, while I LOVE music very very much, and have an extensive collection, I'm neither a musician nor a musicologist, so your analogy with pitchclasses is beyond my scope of knowledge. (Sound intriguing, though!)

Ciao for now...

Cool!.. Nice work!

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