From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 17 Oct 2002 - 01:15:58 GMT
On Wednesday, October 16, 2002, at 07:43 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> My argument is that by insisting upon the uniqueness of every
> performance, so that no two performances cann be deemed to be
> tokens of a single memetic type, you undermine linguistic definition
> generally.
The uniqueness of every performance is a given. I'm not insisting upon
it, I'm recognizing it. This is an established aesthetic axiom as well
as a physical fact of spacetime. And I _am_ saying that each performance
can absolutely be precisely an attempt to replicate a single memetic
experience. Each performance of Dvorak's Eighth Symphony is an attempt
to utilize the memeplex (the symphony orchestra) that produces the noise
that Dvorak described when he performed his meme and left his artifact
of the score.
But it is necessary to recognize that all performances are unique, and
that this is another mutative function.
My stance rejects the very idea of non-unique memes, because it
recognizes the evidential certainty of unique performances.
In this way it mirrors genetics, as every mutation is a unique
performance of DNA, from a set of similars. Coughs from the audience,
squeaks from the reed, scrapings of the chair, if you will. Random,
uncontrollable, unforeseeable, and yet, part of the performance,
regardless of rehearsal or mental preparation or experience or even
expertise.
> If you reject type/token distinctions
> and similarities for all behaviors
Ah, I don't think that I do.
I only call some behaviors memes, not all behaviors, and those certainly
contain "that subset of significative behaviors which we call
communicative, that is, meaning-bearing, such as speaking, writing,
signing, gesticulating, miming and all the rest."
A meme is a significative cultural behavior, if you will, in the
meme-is-behavior-only stance.
Indeed, behavior is the only item we can investigate.
> We also need to decode the 'language of thought'
We do, yes. The memetic models, I think, regardless of which one, help
in that realm.
I just say the behavior only model does it a little more neatly.
- Wade
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