Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA18647 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 1 May 2002 01:36:25 +0100 Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:31:26 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: teleology and language To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3CCF375E.BCBDB85F@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en,ja References: <CEB58693-5C8D-11D6-9829-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Wade,
>
> > Humans select among their linguistic options every
> > day.
>
> But they don't select for them.
The environment doesn't select for anything, either, in biological
evolution. :-)
> They are available options. Like items
> on a shelf in a store.
>
If nobody buys pet rocks, they disappear from the shelves.
> I'm not saying language is static. But mere dynamism is not evolution.
>
No, but that's not what I said. What I said was, "Replication,
variation, selection." I did not make up that definition of evolution.
Ciao,
Bill
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