Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA11902 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 18 Feb 2000 00:40:48 GMT Subject: RE: meaning in memetics Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 19:39:46 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20000218004525.AAA17009@camail2.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.132]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Richard Brodie made this comment not too long ago --
>I don't know the difference between "explain," which you claim memetics
>cannot do, and "analyze usefully," which you claim it can.
Explain, as in define the mechanism. Analyze, as in create data for
evaluation.
[Explain- To offer reasons for or a cause of; justify.]
[Analyze- To separate into parts for study.]
>Am I to assume you feel the same lack of interest in understanding the
>spread of religion, business, government, and popular culture?
No, you are not to assume that. I don't quibble about the fact such
things spread- I quibble about the need for examining the content
therein. There _is_ no content, per se, in a chain letter- it's very
irrelevance to anything else is its point, if it has one at all, for
anyone, for any reason.
I do quibble about the need to examine chain letters as forensic
evidence, because I don't see any value in doing so.
(BTW, the copy of your book in the Law School Library is taken out. The
copy in the Widener is not....)
><< Culture is always and forever an adaptation.>>
>
>A genetic adaptation?
No. An adaptation of genetically determined and developed behaviors, much
as in the way you must step over a log that has just hindered your path
where there was no log before. The fact that you walk is genetic. The
fact that you must overstep the log (or walk around it) to proceed is
adaptive.
After all, very little has happened genetically to the human over the
last few hundreds of thousands of years.
It is the link between behavior and consciousness that memetics may serve
as analyzation tool. But looking at the log and the fact one is walking
(i.e. counting chain letters or cataloguing their 'content') is specious.
Stepping over or around it is not.
It is within memetics to find and explain the moment when one throws that
chain letter into the trash where it belongs, or wastes the time to
bother others with it.
Memetics should be about the bothering, not about the blather.
- Wade
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