Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA23539 (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 03:36:27 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.20000317214146.00818b10@rongenet.sk.ca> X-Sender: hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 21:41:46 -0600 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk, "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> From: Lloyd Robertson <hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca> Subject: Re: Some questions In-Reply-To: <20000316165832.AAA16170@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.2 15]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 11:58 AM 16/03/00 -0500, Wade T.Smith wrote:
>On 03/16/00 09:12, Robin Faichney said this-
>
>>But at the same time the concept of the self is a meme, and
>>an extremely successful one, that is "caught" early in life, and I'm
>>convinced
>>that a person who had never interacted with any other person, would not have
>>it.
>
>The _concept_ of the self is certainly a meme, as the name of the song is
>'The Aged Aged Man.' (And if I'm wrong about that, I'm sure a good
>Carrollian out there will correct me.) But the self itself, well....
>
>Your experiment, while totally unethical and therefore not endorsable,
>has occurred by sad accident, with the 'wild child' discoveries, and,
>from what I remember (completely sketchy though my memory is on this
>point) these wild humans do not underscore your conviction.
>
>But the information to corroborate the absence of self in the absence of
>others is not available, and I wonder if it ever could be.
>
>- Wade
While my recollection corroborates yours, Wade, I draw a different meaning.
If we view the self as a collection of mostly mutually supportive memes and
if we view humans (and possibly certain other species) as "meme makers"
then we can surmise that the "wild humans" created their own memes which,
in turn, formulated their own sense of self. In support of this hypothesis
I commend the work of Chomsky in linguistics. Now, while language is not
the only way of creating memes (if creating is the correct term), it is the
most efficient way we currently know of. Children, not exposed to language,
will create their own from which memes must flow.
Lloyd
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