Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA02319 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 1 Mar 2000 20:18:53 GMT Message-Id: <200003012019.PAA08521@mail1.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 14:20:45 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: new line: what's the point? References: <ECS10003011147A@imap.uea.ac.uk> In-reply-to: <Pine.WNT.4.21.0003010848430.116-100000@c157775-a.frndl1.wa.home.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 08:48:51 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
From: TJ Olney <market@cc.wwu.edu>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: new line: what's the point?
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> The point of memetics as I see it is a unifying bridge for all these
> disciplines. As such, it will function much like genetics as a
> referential basis for other disciplines.
>
> Memetics provides the best explanations to date for the selective
> transmission of cultural information, whether that information takes the form
> of meanings, of kinship relationships, of technologies, or of natural laws.
>
There IS NO information in the absence of meaning; kinship
relations mean something to the kin, technologies to their users,
and natural laws to scientists (and everyone else who can't fly).
>
> Memetics can equally serve to explicate Kuhn's ideas about paradigm in
> science and the attribution of meanings to different clothing. Memetics
> itself as a conceptual framework is a "mutation" from some rather thoroughly
> worked fields such as the history of ideas. Its value lies in its
> explanatory usefulness.
>
> We should not fear tautology. The semioticians have shown us that in any
> given sign system, there is no way out but to adopt a different sign system.
> The noosphere is tautological. Our task is to expand the circle to encompass
> more of the phenomena that we perceive. (Again, see Bateson and Bateson for
>
> a more thorough discussion of tautology.)
>
You're discussing the semiotic web, in which each meaning
depends upon comparison and contrast with the others (kinda like
codependent origination, which also would apply to the tripartate
structure of the signifier-signifying-signified relational system). It is
akin to the vicious hermeneutic circle. However, a discipline need
not render itself transparent - only its object more transparent.
>
> TJ
>
> --
> -- TJ Olney market@cc.wwu.edu Not all those who wander are lost.
> -- http://mp3.musicmatch.com/artists/artists.cgi?id=113&display=1
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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