Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA12174 (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 10:54:40 GMT Message-ID: <007801bf8694$70495880$0b12bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <Pine.SGI.4.10.10003021144160.5020229-100000@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: new line: what's the point? Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 12:17:47 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Logan <logan@physics.utoronto.ca>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Cc: bob logan <blogan@gutenberg.com>; Robert Logan
<logan@physics.utoronto.ca>
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: new line: what's the point?
> 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.
Wouldn't it be wise to expend here our horizon in the way we use
semantical!?
In the line of mine main interest point I wish to add to your *every
semantical
element of a language is a meme* the possibility that in the way we use
langu-
age there are some elements which stay obscure.These elements are the neuro-
logical representations,that is,if we speak about something,in our mind
there are
images,unspoken concepts,associated thoughts which aren't * spoken out*,but
with which we know,understand better the subject of our conversation.
Different persons can speak the same language,but they give different
meanings
to the same things_it's just the representation of what they hear,see,speak
off
that is different.
In my point of view,if you write every word,every story,every semantical
ele-
ment that means including the neurological representations.In that case you
have
the * full meaning* of the story,word or in your case language!?
Without this addition,you can't have the full meaning of words,and that is
what
semantics is all about,isn't it!?
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
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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