Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA04370 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 22 Mar 2000 05:28:05 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.20000321232541.01191530@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:25:41 -0600 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: Re: objections to "memes" In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.4.10.10003210753490.9288066-100000@helios.physics .utoronto.ca> References: <3.0.1.32.20000319174129.01158910@popmail.mcs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 08:33 AM 3/21/00 -0500, Robert Logan wrote:
>Hi Aaron - I must admit the dialogue that followed by posting on the
>objections to "memes" has been largely lost on me. It seems that I have
>wandered inadvertently into a terminology controversy. For me at this
>early stage in my understanding of memes or thought contagion the
>subtleties are lost on me.
>
>I am drawn to the "meme" meme because it is an
>idea that helps me to understand a number of phenomena, particularly the
>evolution of language and the effects of media, a field I have been
>engaged in since 1974 when I first collaborated with Marshall McLuhan.
>In my two major works since then, The Alphabet Effect (Wm Morrow, NY,
>1986) and the Fifth Langauge (Stoddart, Toronto, 1995) I have tried to
>understand the way in which language, media and ideas interact with each
>other, hence, my fascination with memetics. IN the Kuhnian sense I believe
>that Dawkins work, his throw away chapter on memes, represents a form of
>revolutionary science or put another way Dawkins has created a paradigm
>shift. I am interested in articulating that paradigm and applying it to
>the area of communications and linguistics that I have been working on for
>the past 26 years. BTW articulating a paradigm in the sense of Kuhn and
>replicating a meme in the sense of Dawkins seem parallel to me.
>
>It was certainly fortuitous coincidence that you used the examples of
>quarks to illustrate your ideas. I was introduced to the concept of quarks
>by Gell Mann when he visited MIT for a semester shortly after his paper
>introducing the concept. I have made use of quarks in my particle threory
>research. My PHD thesis concerned a phenomenological analysis of high
>energy scattering in which I showed that the exchange of virtual particles
>were dominated by Regee poles. I later combined the Regge idea with the
>quark idea and worked on the Regee quark model. For me quarks might or
>might not exist but using them in a model helped to explain many of the
>regularities of high energy scattering. All we know for sure is that SU(3)
>symmetry holds and that one can explain that in terms of quarks. Whether
>quarks are a reality or a theoretical construct is a philosophical
>question that science can not address. The quark model was useful because
>it made predictions, the only criteria for the usefulness of a scientific
>concept.
>
>I believe the question we must address is whether or not memes make
>predictions that can be experimentally tested. I am just at the beginning
>of my studies of this fascinating field. I have bought the many books on
>this subject which have recently appeared including yours. I have now as a
>result of this dialogue read the first chapter of your book and must
>congratulate you for your scientific approach to the subject. You make
>many cogent observations in your book and I must confess your use of
>"cognitive advantage" was not lsot on me. Your thoughts are contagious by
>virtue of your "cognitive advantage"
>
>I do not know if I have added to the dialogue but felt it was incumbent
>upon me to respond to your thoughtful response to my original posting. I
>look forward to collaborating with you through the list. BTW are there any
>memetic conferences this summer in North America or Europe for that
>matter? I would be obliged to anyone who can provide me with information.
>
>I am working on a paper to reinterpret my work in linguistics and
>communications in terms of memes or thought contagion, which I can see
>already after only reading one chapter will draw upon your book. When it
>is completed I will send you a copy. BTW what are the rules about posting
>papers to the list. PLease provide me with some guidance. For example
>there is a section in the Fifth Langauge which is memetic-like which I
>would like to share and get some feedback on. - Please advise.
>
>Thank you again for your thoughtful response to my original posting.
>
>
>Bob Logan
Thank you, Bob.
It looks like we have some substantial areas of intersecting interest.
I should perhaps have taken account of the fact that you have only recently
started posting, and may thus be unaware of the terminological issues.
Definitions of terms cannot be proven. But there are some who take
extremely broad definitions, and others who take a variety of narrower,
often contrary definitions of "meme." So whatever definition you happen to
use, I would recommend making sure that you state the definition you are
using in both formal technical terms and in lay "plain English" terms,
preferably in the same work. For instance, you may wish to use a footnote
to re-explain a technical definition.
In physics, there seems to be more willingness to give separate names to
separate theoretical constructs. Thus, "up quark," "down quark" "gluon,"
"hadron," "proton," "lepton," and "matter" are all distinct theoretical
constructs with separate names. The relative lack of emotionality regarding
these terms and what they describe leaves their meanings comparatively
uncontroversial. But if physicists tried to make the one word "quark"
represent all of those concepts, then it would pose a serious challenge to
communications. If you can imagine that the word "quark" caught on among so
many people with numerous different theoretical constructs in mind, and
that the word was so popular that people argued with extreme tenacity over
which meaning to assign the word "quark," then you can get some idea of
what has happened with the word "meme." Maybe lexicographers would step
into the fray and look for a pervasive thread of meaning, in which case
they might define a "quark" as something like "a constituent of matter or
energy," and leave it at that. This rather democratic method would satisfy
those who were looking for a term to identify something very general, but
would not satisfy those who had thought that the term referred to a more
specific theoretical construct.
I have taken "meme" to signify a theoretical construct not only for how
behavior is replicated from individual to individual, but also how it is
replicated by one individual. So if a parrot learns to use the word "color"
to describe the difference between a red object and a green object, a blue
and a yellow object, etc., I want a theoretical construct for both the
replication of this response multiple times in one parrot and its
propagation into a different parrot. I invoke the concept of "sameness"
here, saying that something (my theoretical construct) is "the same" from
Wednesday to Thursday and from Alex the parrot to Julie the parrot. I do
not, however, insist that the organism's matter remain "the same" from day
to day or from organism to organism. All of this allows me to enumerate
instances of my theoretical construct over both time and population.
Duration of instantiation becomes a propagation parameter, along with
transmission parameters.
Anyway, certain discussions on this list have tended to go on and on in an
inefficient, unproductive manner, only to come up again and again. For this
reason I may seem completely detached for long periods of time, letting
automatic sorting route memetics@mmu.ac.uk messages into their own file.
Certain other authors whose works you are probably reading do not have time
to even join the list at all, however.
I am not the moderator on this list either, but I do not recall any rules
against posting papers. I believe there is a 30k message limit, however.
Thank you for your very thoughtful comments!
--Aaron Lynch
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