Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA16407 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 19 Feb 2000 18:03:48 GMT From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: meaning in memetics Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 16:26:48 +0000 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJKEDEEGAA.richard@brodietech.com> Message-Id: <00021916392800.01112@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Richard Brodie wrote:
>Robin wrote:
>
><<I'm quite happy with the suggestion that
>most -- nearly all, even -- of the study of memetics in humans concerns "the
>interplay between self-replicating information and the human mind". But
>it's
>surely better to say that there are huge differences between avian and human
>memetics, than to say that the former isn't memetics at all.>>
>
>If birdsongs evolve, then studying that evolution would probably be
>interesting for someone who was interesting in such things.
A tad tautologous, no?
>It might even
>shed some insight on human cultural evolution. It wouldn't be the first
>place I'd look, but I couldn't say it isn't a valid field of study.
Well thanks for that, Richard. I can see you're not a great believer in
"knowledge for it's own sake".
<snip>
><< Why should
>memetics be exclusively about the human mind? I recognize your concerns,
>but I
>don't recognize your right to rule out mine, even if only by saying "that's
>not
>real memetics".>>
>
>Acknowledged. I certainly do not mean to diminish your enthusiasm for the
>problem you are working on. I mean only to underscore the particular value
>to us (as humans) of understanding the role our minds play in guiding and
>sometimes unwittingly serving the blind forces of evolution.
Did you really mean to say that our minds play a role in guiding the blind
forces of evolution?
>[RB]
>>You believe that there are inherent patterns to be found in the universe. I
>>think it is more useful to believe that all patterns are in the eye of the
>>beholder.
>
><<I know you do, and I have difficulty understanding how you can maintain
>that
>belief alongside a recognition of the value of the scientific method. If
>there
>are no patterns "out there", how can any model ever predict anything? If
>everything was random, there would be no science whatsoever (in fact, no
>people, no life...).>>
>
>I see your point. Yet an observer must exist in order to make any scientific
>observation and, as Einstein pointed out, everything is relative to the
>observer.
I don't think Einstein would have said anything as hand-wavingly vague as
"everything is relative", though I understand the new-age-type appeal of that.
He was very precise about exactly what was relative, and why, and he famously
said that the speed of light is *not*. To me, common sense and the indisputable
success of science both say that there are patterns out there, and there would
be patterns even if life had never arisen anywhere in the universe. (Given, at
least, the Big Bang, and assuming that its occurrance did not make life
inevitable.)
-- Robin Faichney===============================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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