Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA08442 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 29 Feb 2000 00:32:32 GMT Message-Id: <200002290031.TAA17239@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:35:03 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya In-reply-to: <B0000336621@htcompmail.htcomp.net> References: <200002281842.NAA23977@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:06:02 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: "Mark M. Mills" <mmills@htcomp.net>
Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Joe,
>
> >> Thus, imitation alone can exist without requiring a memetic support
> >> system. The memetic support system follows the emergence of
> >> self-awareness, signing and planning. Turned around a bit, memes are the
> >> product of self-awareness, signing and planning.
> >>
> >> Am I interpreting this correctly?
> >>
> >Not quite.
>
> OK. Rather than do a lot of quoting, let me see if you will accept my
> recap of what you said.
>
> 1. Technology predates language and early technology is passed on via
> imitation.
> 2. The capacity for memesis emerges as an evolutionary surprise, an
> unprecedented event associated with cortex expansion.
>
Who would be there to be surprised? It was just the emergence of
a complex synthesis which had not previously existed, due to the
lack of components and interrelations to permit same.
>
> 3. Tools become the first signs.
> 4. Self-awareness is necessary for memetic evolution because freedom of
> choice is essential for 'true' memetic selection.
> 5. Unconscious culture is a contradiction in terms.
>
> How does that sound?
>
Pretty good for a wall recap without some of the bricks and all of
the cement.
>
> Getting back to my suggestion you believe 'memes are the product of
> self-awareness, signing and planning,' I'd now rephrase that as:
>
> you believe memes are the product of human brains expanding through a size
> or brain cell number threshold. This occurred following tools use,
> self-awareness, signing and perhaps even culture. Until the threshold is
> crossed and previously unknown mental powers emerge, memes are unknown in
> the terrestrial animal kingdom.
>
No, the advent of memesis happened DURING technological
evolution among protohumans but after the advent of conscious self-
awareness in them, and is present now in (also consciously self-
aware) great apes, even though their tool use, ideation and creation
is perhaps definitive of the term rudimentary. We are not talking
before and after here, but co-evolution. The meme for creating ant
wands is certainly found in chimpanzee troupes, as I stated earlier,
as the object is modified to perform a specific purpose, and the
technique by which the object is modified differs from troupe to
troupe, so some memes ARE present in some nonhuman animals
(we, too, are animals, after all), unless you define simians as
human. You will not succeed in incrementally getting me to take a
position which is not mine, even if you ARE a lawyer. You wanna
"quote" me as maintaining that memes occur following culture?
Come ON!
>
> Am I interpreting this correctly?
>
I question whether your wild misinterpretation is willful and
adversarial, or just a result of simple incomprehension.
>
> Mark
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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