Re: Cultural traits and vulnerability to memes

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 11 2002 - 23:32:43 GMT

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Subject: Re: Cultural traits and vulnerability to memes
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 18:32:43 -0500
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    Hi Steve Drew -

    >> Hardwiring is not a defense against variance.
    >
    >Yes it is. It works or it doesn't.

    Hmm. I more meant to mean- you can't use variety in behaviors to deny
    hardwiring.

    >Discovering nothing can still be of value.

    Somewhere I saw another quote about that essence of science, and yes, it
    certainly is and can.

    >> And evolution is a system of developing hardwiring.
    >
    >It can be, that's why species go extinct. Too ossified to change.

    And I more meant to mean, evolution is a system of presenting the
    hardware.

    Memetics is generally one of the developments in thought that we've
    needed once we figured out, if we have figured out, that homo sapiens
    doesn't really do instinct any more. Or else we do and we're just too
    close to it to see it that way. We'd all like to see the report of an
    extraterrestial ethnographer. Well, as long as it wasn't a clam....

    - Wade

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