Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA11133 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 17 Feb 2000 18:21:53 GMT Message-Id: <200002171816.NAA17224@mail5.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:24:13 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: What are memes made of? In-reply-to: <20000217124452.AAA6651@camail2.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.155]> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: What are memes made of?
Date sent: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 07:39:13 -0500
From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Raymond Recchia made this comment not too long ago --
>
> >There may be a lot that can be said about the differences between memes
> >that require self-awareness and those that don't. But insisting on
> >self-awareness strays from Dawkin's central theme of selfish yet unaware
> >self-replicating entities.
>
> And such insistence begins to beg it's own non-parsimoniousness, perhaps,
> especially if, (as I agree with the contention), cultural evolution is
> only the perceived and thus pattern-inflicted result of a process, that
> it is in all ways a behavioral adaptation, and that a 'meme' that
> requires a 'difference' between entities that need self-awareness and
> those that don't is no thing at all, but a catagory of behavioral states,
> and, um, possibly somewhat useless to either discover or study, like
> Dennett's incorrect calculator- the algorithm that didn't work, and thus,
> while part of evolution, is not available at this point for us to study
> at all.
>
Neither memes nor genes are self aware in themselves, and in this
they are similar. One difference between them lies in the
necessity for there to be self-aware, intentional and signifying
people to create, mutate, transmit and receive memes; this
restriction does not apply to genes.
>
> - Wade
>
> ===============================================================
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>
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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