Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA09825 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 4 Mar 2000 15:30:02 GMT To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk, memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 07:27:23 -0800 From: "Scott Chase" <hemidactylus@my-Deja.com> Message-ID: <EMIFPAMKKIENCCAA@my-deja.com> X-Sent-Mail: off X-Mailer: MailCity Service Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya X-Sender-Ip: 209.240.200.177 Organization: My Deja Email (http://www.my-deja.com:80) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Language: en Content-Length: 3185 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
--On Fri, 03 Mar 2000 17:56:35 Mark M. Mills wrote: >Joe, > >At 12:13 PM 3/3/00 -0600, you wrote: > >>A behavior is a meme only if it admits of variations or evolutions or >>mutations and is not the same species-wide, and if the distinctions >>are essential ones, i.e. ones which change the signification or >>intention of the behavior in question and thus could not be >>circumscribed by instinct, and if it is transmitted/received between >>individuals by communicational (not genetic) means. > >This is fairly close to the published Gatherer definition. >http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/gatherer_d.html In particular, >they both say that a behavior can be a meme. As I pointed out before, this >is one of two published usages of the term meme. The other is Lynch's. >http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/lynch_a.html > >It seems to me that your mention of mutation poses problems for the >Gatherer definition. Mutation, as generally understood, is "a sudden, >apparently abnormal change or alteration in a genetically determined >structure." This alludes to the genotype-phenotype concept. For a meme to >'mutate' there must be a genotype. If the behavior is a meme, what is the >genotype? > >Blackmore, a subscriber to the Gatherer meme definition, dismisses >genotype-phenotype issues in Meme Machine. By dismissing this, she burns >any bridges she might have had to evolutionary science, but that doesn't >seem to bother her. As could be expected, the Science and Nature magazines >published scathing reviews of the book. > >I'm interested in relating mutation to cultural change. I just don't think >the Gatherer definition particularly helpful. > >I much prefer the Lynch definition. > >MEME (Lynch) >A memory item, or portion of an organism's neurally-stored information, >identified using the abstraction system of the observer, whose >instantiation depended critically on causation by prior instantiation of >the same memory item in one or more other organisms' nervous systems. > >Except for the notion that behavior = meme, this fits your criteria pretty >well. Behavior has become phenotypic. Your list of criteria can then be >used to test a behavior for infering the existence of an underlying meme in >the subject's neural system. The genotype-phenotype model is honored and >bridges can be built to existing evolutionary theory. > >I'll be interested to hear the problems you find with the Lynch definition. > > Are there decent bridging principles between cultural anthropology and memory research? I see a fundamental dichotomy here between the empirical Gatherer perspective on artefacts and overt behaviors versus the mentalistic perspective of Lynch based on memory units (mnemons). I assume both perspectives important. IMO Lynch should cite J.Z. Young. Didn't Young coin the term mnemon? I know he used this term for units of memory in:
Young JZ. 1965. The organization of a memory system. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (163): 265-320
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