Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA02631 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Feb 2002 02:31:51 GMT Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 18:26:18 -0800 Message-Id: <200202180226.g1I2QIQ15726@mail9.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [65.80.163.167] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: Re: Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
> Re: Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 19:37:12 -0500
> "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>Hi Steve Drew -
>
>>More to the point, culture does appear to be replicated
>
>Permit my skepticism to show on that point as well.
>
>Spiders can replicate their webs. Termites their mounds. The thought that
>most of what we call culture is just as instinctual is not preposterous.
>
>Culture could be just such a phenonemon. Changing to meet the local
>variances, but, regardless of our complex sort of webs, innately
>processed and actualized.
>
>Language, innately prepared for, is nevertheless localized to
>environmental conditions. What is local is being expanded, of course, in
>this global world of the new millennium. (Is it english that is winning?
>Last I knew, it was.) But, is anything 'changing'?
>
>Perhaps not.
>
>And, what is being replicated? Artifacts? Are they not simply the local
>conditions? Could they not be considered reactions, and not replications?
>
>Sure they could. In the same way birds react by altering songs, and
>spiders react by altering webs, and termites react by altering mounds.
>Innately. Sociobiologically.
>
Actually, different species of birds build differently constructed nests, and different species of spiders construct differently configured webs, and different species of termites build differently configured mounds, but the same species of each construct very similar nests and webs and mounds.
People, OTOH, although all members of a single species, construct vastly differing homes in different locations with differing histories, even where they have common materials.
>
>However, I like the idea of memes being the units of the cultural
>environment, and I have just adopted the behavior-only stance in an
>attempt to leave all the other reactive processes where they started,
>deep in innate development and stimulus/reaction. And also to put some
>borders around the term, and make it studiable.
>
>But, even there, we don't need it.
>
>The real case for its presence is absent. It is the unicorn in the
>garden. A science-fiction writer's conceit.
>
>Or, it's really there.
>
>At the moment, I, like Pyrrho, hold it to be and not to be.
>
>- Wade
>
>
>===============================================================
>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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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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