Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA11385 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 5 Mar 2000 05:24:27 GMT From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Monkeys stone herdsman in Kenya Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 04:55:01 +0000 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <B0000501034@htcompmail.htcomp.net> Message-Id: <00030505051400.00357@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Wed, 09 Apr 2036, Mark M. Mills wrote:
>Joe,
>
>>... My position is in many ways a
>>synthesis of Lynch and Gatherer, as I do not see how memes can
>>fulfill their evolutionary and multiplicative functions without both
>>components (within and between) of the single memetic coin.
>
>I doubt the Lynch and Gatherer definitions blend very well.
>
>We probably all agree that there are 'behaviors' and 'neural foundations'
>for behaviors. It seems unnecessarily confusing to claim both are a
>meme. Gatherer defines meme as the behavior itself. Lynch defines the
>meme as the neural foundation. Both are fairly straight forward and both
>have their own logic, their own model. Determining which model provides
>the most utility seems similar to deciding between Copernican and
>Ptolemaic celestial models. I don't think one can blend Copernican and
>Ptolemy.
Perhaps not, but there is a solution to the memetic "blending" problem: just as
genes are not DNA sequences, but encoded in such sequences (Dennett argues
this in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and I've argued it here, at least once), so
memes are neither behaviours nor "neural foundations", but encoded in both.
The transformation from brain state to behaviour, and vice versa, is then
considered en/decoding (which is which depends on from which end you're looking
at it). Dennett also, by the way, sees memes in both brains and behaviour (or
at least did at the time of Consciousness Explained), while the en/decoding bit
is my own. When Dennett says that memes are at the level of semantics rather
than syntax, i.e. there is no "brain language" in which all instances of the
same meme would be stored in a neurally identical fashion in different brains,
that can be taken to mean very simply that what's encoded is the same, though
the encoding varies -- and what's encoded is simply the corresponding behaviour.
-- Robin Faichney===============================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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