Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA07546 (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 17:49:59 GMT From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Cc: "Kevin O'Connor \(KMO\)" <kmo@c-realm.com> Subject: RE: What are memes made of? Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 09:48:33 -0800 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJAEABEHAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <200002281742.MAA29565@mail1.lig.bellsouth.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Importance: Normal Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Wow! Is that ever well put. Thanks, Joe!
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
---------------------------------
Joe Dees wrote:
Genetics can not inform us about culture, for genetics is natural,
not cultural. Genetically based behavior is innately circumscribed,
and cannot freely develop beyond the genetic shackles which
imprison it into a small subset of otherwise possible behaviors; it is
by nature closed, until the advent of self-conscious awareness,
which was genetics actually overthrowing itself by creating a
species designed to transcend its own natural programming, and
be capable of an open-ended cognitive development circumscribing
a virtual infinitude of possible behaviors. This previously
nonexistent infinitude has become the new evolutionary
environment in which memes are received, mutate and evolve, and
from which replicating efforts are launched, the successful of which
comprise our ever-changing culture. Memetics has to do with
mutable cognitive behavior rather than fixed innate behavior, and as
such has an immediately and environmentally changeable meaning
content in addition to a static being content circumscribed by a
small number of unchanging (except in the VERY long term)
alternatives.
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