Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA13068 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 14 Mar 2000 18:09:57 GMT From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Some questions Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 10:08:14 -0800 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJKECBEIAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20000314014212.61937.qmail@hotmail.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Diana,
What a great first message. Well, you're on an academic mailing list here,
which tends to be concerned with an "objective truth" model of reality. I'm
not a memeticist or a scientist, just a writer and former software engineer,
but among my few claims to fame I did publish the first book on memetics,
and I do tend to take the postmodern view as you describe it. I should guess
that Blackmore wouldn't argue much against that view either, nor should
anyone really. "Truth is made" is easily misinterpreted... I stand by James
Bryant Conant and Alfred North Whitehead and say that all truth is
context-dependent... what science really looks for is useful models for a
particular purpose.
<<I'm wondering - if genes and memes neither know nor care about the truth,
but *we* do and we have methods of distinguishing truth from falsehood,
might that not indicate that:
1) we are more than just genes and memes>>
Absolutely: we're PHENOTYPES and memes. Genes themselves cannot host memes.
<<2) we have superior abilities to genes and memes?>>
I'm not sure what basis there would be for comparison, but since we're
conscious and they're not I wouldn't argue the point.
<<As a great fan of the late Carl Sagan (and particularly "The Demon-Haunted
World: Science as a Candle in the Dark) I wonder what he would have made of
this question. If memes eventually "escape" from us to an independent
existence, the false ones as well as the true, presumably the devil and
demons will be among them. This may be evolution, but it hardly seems like
progress!!>>
Progress is in the eye of the beholder. And I've got news for you... the
false memes are with us today! Do you have a quantum physics column in your
Sunday paper? How about an astrology column?
<<Postmodernists on the other hand see a world in which truth is not found,
but made; systems of belief are tools, as are the transitory "selves" which
come into being to meet particular situations and "choose" from the
cafeteria of cultures. Is this worldview the triumph of the memes? And if
not how do memes sit with postmodernism? Any ideas?>>
The only way we as individuals triumph over memes is by consciously
filtering and choosing the memes we host and spread (see
http://www.memecentral.com/level3.htm ). The only way we as society triumph
over memes is by careful memetic engineering.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
===============================================================
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 archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 14 2000 - 18:10:10 GMT