Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA23395 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 18 Mar 2000 01:51:34 GMT From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Complete thoughts Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 17:50:10 -0800 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJAEFIEIAA.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: <4.1.20000316214711.00cf6e40@mail.rdc1.bc.wave.home.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
Dan Plante wrote:
<<Think in terms of a long-dead society completely bereft of any artifacts,
compared to how much is known about the Incan culture, even though the
associated society is long-dead. The overwhelming majority of what we know
comes from written records. As a matter of fact, even if ALL we had were
written records, we would still know most of the details about the other
(presumably vanished) artifacts through DESCRIPTIONS. At this point, WRITTEN
language artifacts would seem to be at least one of the order parameters by
which cultures emerge and persist, due to their permanence and flexibility
of semantic content.>>
An excellent point about the memetic impact of the permanence of writing
versus speech. Of course we don't have many videotapes of the Incans, so it
may turn out that these days, recorded audio and video play an even more
important role in cultural replication than writing!
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
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