Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA10333 (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 18:39:50 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.20000315124502.007f2130@rongenet.sk.ca> X-Sender: hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 12:45:02 -0600 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk, memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Lloyd Robertson <hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca> Subject: Re: What are memes made of? In-Reply-To: <200002281742.MAA29565@mail1.lig.bellsouth.net> References: <00022615560900.00384@faichney> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 11:44 AM 28/02/00 -0600, Joe E. 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.
Well, socio-biologists have argued that much of what is cultural can be
explained thru our genetic roots. Further, I don't know anyone who would
argue that genetics does not provide limitations on memetic evolution in
the sense that our genes provide the environment and our memes must adapt
to that environment. On the other hand, memes may, in fact, "drive" genetic
evolution and I am persuaded that Blackmore's suggestion that our great
brain size may be an example. Our brains then become similar to the
Peacock's tail in an evolutionary sense. All of which boils down to the
fact that we are tied to our genes more than we may want to admit and even
if memes may drive genes it is a long term process moving at the speed of
the latter. All of this, it seems to me, suggests that the gulf between us
and other animals may be one of degree and not of kind.
Lloyd
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