Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA04907 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 2 Mar 2000 17:26:24 GMT Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 12:24:51 -0500 From: Robert Logan <logan@physics.utoronto.ca> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk cc: bob logan <blogan@gutenberg.com>, Robert Logan <logan@physics.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: new line: what's the point? In-Reply-To: <00030216132702.03748@faichney> Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.4.10.10003021144160.5020229-100000@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Robin,
I am a physicist and I agree with both sets of statements
> >> 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
> You said that before, and I replied "Try telling that to a physicist",
> to which I did not see any response. I'm still interested.
> Robin Faichney
>
I believe that the paradigms of normal science as defined by Thomas Kuhn
are memes. And that revolutionary science is the activity of creating new
memes. Please recall that Kuhn defined normal science as articulating a
paradigm (or a meme as I am suggesting) by applying it to new phenomena.
Using language, whether it is spoken or science or math is about
articulating memes.
Let me borrow from my paper The Extended Mind which I have quoted on this
list before and now add in a new element the meme.
I would like to say every word, every science theory, every semantical
element of a language is a meme. Linguists define a language as a
semantics and a syntax, (vocabulary and grammar if you will). The
semantical elements are memes as described below. The material in quotes
is from the Extended Mind paper available at
http://physics.utoronto.ca/undergraduate/JPU_200Y/EM_Front_page.html
"The origins of speech and the human mind are shown to have emerged
simultaneously as the bifurcation from percepts to concepts and a response
to the chaos associated with the information overload that resulted from
the increased complexity in hominid life... Thought is not silent speech
but rather speech is vocalized thought.
The mechanism that allowed the transition from percept to concept was the
emergence of speech. The words of spoken language are the actual medium
or mechanism by which concepts are expressed or represented. Word are
both metaphors and strange attractors uniting many perceptual experiences
in terms of a single concept." NOW NEW MATERIAL: Each word is also a meme
as once a human
uses a new word to refer to an experience this is copied by the listener
and replicated. Words evolve; they compete; they are adaptations; they
contain vestigial structures - they are living entities if they are
part of a living language and they are like
biological systems which also evolve. They are different in that they
are information rather than a living thing that occupies space, but one can
also think of living system as information
also especially when you are at the level of a gene. The body is the
medium and the genetic structure is the message and as McLuhan pointed
out the medium is the message. The same holds for words - they are pure
information but they also need a physical medium - oscillations of air
molecules when spoken or oscillations of an ear drum when heard - or of
ink on paper
when written or impressions on the retina when read.
"Spoken language and abstract conceptual thinking emerged together at
exactly the same point of time as a in terms of a single concept. Spoken
language and abstract conceptual thinking emerged together at exactly the
same point of time as a bifurcation from the concrete percept based
thinking of pre-lingual hominids. This transition was the defining moment
for the emergence of the fully human species Homo sapiens sapiens."
If you accept this argument then thoughts are also memes if they are
transmitted from one mind to another through communication through a
language. A language in my system of thought is both a
medium of communications
and an information processing tool. Tools are memes which are copied. So
are thoughts if they are shared. Tool making techniques are communicated
by mimesis as pointed out by Merlin Donald in The Making of the Modern
Mind. Language making or speech evolved according to Donald from mimesis.
From Mimesis to Memesis
I believe the evolutionary chain of communications is from mimesis of
physical artifacts or memes to speech or the mimesis of verbal memes.
Fellow memecists I would appreciate your reaction to my line of
argument that has been stimulated by the discussion on this listserv.
I am really enjoying this list and the responses that I have received so
far. My best wishes to all - Bob Logan
===============================================================
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