Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA14294 (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 19:00:35 GMT Message-Id: <200002181855.NAA15941@mail5.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 13:02:55 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: meaning in memetics, In-reply-to: <ECS10002181234A@imap.uea.ac.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 12:56:34 GMT
From: Soc Microlab 2 <A.Rousso@uea.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: meaning in memetics,
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> > >"what is preserved and transmitted in cultural evolution is *information* - in a media-neutral,
> > >language-neutral sense. Thus the meme is primarily a *semantic* classification, not a *syntactic*
> > >classification that might be directly observable in "brain language" or natural language."
> >
> > What he's saying here is that the meme is encoded, not straight physical
> > information. The encoding can, and does, vary, but the encoded message remains
> > the same. No?
> >
>
> Well, somewhat in disagreement with what Joe said, yes. It's a different yes. Yes the encoded message
> remains the same, but it depends what you mean by encoded. If you mean it in the semantic sense then
> yes I agree that the encoded message remains the same - hence memes are primarily a "semantic
> classification". But it seems (in light of what you've said previously) that you're invoking the idea of
> encoding as some syntactic, meaning-neutral phenomenon ("the encoding can vary, but the encoded
> message remains the same), and this I think is wrong.
>
> Look at this collection of lines and points:
>
> .. . . _
>
> What's that? I mean, as physical information as you call it, what is it? It's not much is it? And if you put
> this configuration on a mountain side, on paper or write it in stars in the sky that are actually millions of
> light years apart, it's still not really anything. That is until you CODE it. When you say that this
> configuration is code FOR something, it starts to have meaning - it start to have a semantic value that will
> link the stars you saw in the sky, to the configuration on paper that previously were unrelated, and make
> them mean something, where previously there were just two configurations that were the same
> serendipitously. The meaning is what made the difference. When you know that this configuration is code
> (morse code, actually) FOR somethihng, then it becomes interesting, it becomes something to foster an
> academic subject about. Because all of a sudden we can discern which instances of the configuration
> were just fluke (weren't MEANT) and which weren't. Dot-dot-dot-dash is morse code for V (apparently)
> and V is for Victory - it might mean something else, say if you wanted to meet your friend at Victoria
> station and you only had one letter with which to transmit the message.
>
> So when you see the constellation in the sky, although it's the same configuration, you know it means
> nothing (unless for example a soldier in a fellow division told you to look at x angle in the sky - a message
> that his division had won a battle - or he told you to listen to the first four notes of Beethoven's fifth
> [da-da-da-dah]).
>
> To reiterate, the configuration in its pure sense, doesn't mean anything at all, and in light of that, there's
> very little point in trying to construct a theory of human behaviour and society around it. When the
> configuration is CODE FOR something, when it has meaning (just like the stars in the sky when the
> soldier TOLD another soldier that they MEANT something), it becomes interesting, it becomes something
> that we might want to talk about when explaining human behaviour.
>
> cheers, alex Rousso.
>
Uncoded instantiations (like your stars) are purely material, and
contain no meaning (outside their astronomical categorization as
stars of certain types). Codes, such as American Sign Language
or Morse Code, are purely formal, and are taxonomic systems of
relations of one coding scheme (hand signals or dot-dash
configurations) to another (the 26-letter english alphabet and the 0-
9 arabic numerals). Only when the code is used to code a
message, i.e. when some symbols are used and others are not, in
a particular order, and the choices and locations are concatenated
and arrayed for the purpose of representing a particular referent
rather than others, may we speak of the presence of meaning.
Each meaning is specific and differentiable from other meanings.
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
>
===============================================================
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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