Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA06140 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 28 Feb 2000 09:04:12 GMT From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: What are memes made of? Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 15:50:01 +0000 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <20000225191030.AAA950@camail2.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.105]> Message-Id: <00022615560900.00384@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Wade T.Smith wrote:
>Lloyd Robertson made this comment not too long ago --
>
>>Should wider ties become fashion again, what is the meaning in that? I
>>suppose, if you define memetics narrowly, fashion in clothing has little to
>>do with memetics. But it is clearly part of culture and the wearers of
>>wider ties are communicating something to others who observe them. I still
>>fail to see a neat distinction between that and birdsong for those species
>>whose songs are variant and dependant on imitation.
>
>And, thus, perhaps, our dilemma- should birdsong be considered memetic,
>there is practically no point to memetics- for birdsong is clearly
>explained through genetics and developed behaviors, and thus human
>culture might also be- reduced to that, even. Blackmore's insistence upon
>calling birdsong memetic is a fatal mistake, IMHO, to the pursuit of
>memetics.
You assume that memetics needs to provide an explanation that can be provided in
no other way, but I don't think that's so. It provides a novel way of
looking at culture, which has some advantages and some disadvantages, and as
long as it is not actually invalidated, I think that's enough. What do others
think about this?
-- 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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